Happy Birthday Jason

Happy Birthday to our favorite guy! 

Mini Me

My very favorite thing about middle school was going to speech and debate tournaments.  So when I saw JR's high school had a debate team I totally pushed JR to do it.

He learned to debate last year, and gave it a try at a tournament.  We've learned that debate isn't JR's thing, but other speaking events are.  He's been getting much better at impromptu speaking and yesterday he tried humorous interpretation for the 2nd time.

He texted me after his first round and said, "I did good, but I think I placed 3rd and won't move on to semis".

Then I got a text saying "I made semis".

Again, I got a text saying "I did good, but I don't think I'll make it to finals." 

Last night about 8:00 I got a text saying , "Guess who made it to finals?"

He got home last night and said, "I think I got 4th."  I couldn't believe he didn't stick around to find out the results!  And sure enough, his coach texted him saying that he got 4th place.

I think I was probably more excited than he was. (Ok, I know I was more excited than he was.) 

And this picture has nothing to do with yesterday, except that pictures like this is why he told me he doesn't want to do speech tournaments every weekend. 

Aggies

Jason had 4 tickets to the Aggie/South Carolina game this past weekend.

I was thinking that I might actually get to go.  I knew Reed would want to go, so that was 1 ticket gone.

Then Jason asked JR:

JR: Who are they playing?

Jason: South Carolina.

JR: Oh! I'm in.

Kyle is never one to get too excited about football, so I had a good 50/50 shot getting his ticket, until I heard his question.

Kyle: Can we go to The Chicken?

None of my kids will ever turn down a trip to a bar/honkey tonk/someplace they shouldn't be so off they all went.

At The Chicken.

At the game.

Big Name Players

Last week Reed was invited by his friend, Kenny, to go watch some pretty fancy pants tennis.   They went down to Rice University and saw Andy Roddick, James Blake, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Tommy Haas.  

Here they are getting Ferrero's autograph, Reed is easy to spot in his orange sweatshirt.

Kenny's mom texted me "Andy is cute" and sent me this picture.  Reed told me the next day, "Andy is fat.  I mean, not real fat, just kinda like dad, he has some flab."  (Reed is in the orange sweatshirt.)

I personally can't see an ounce of fat or flab on Andy, so Jason better take that compliment and run. That's the best compliment he's every received about his body. Ever. 

Kenny was able to talk Tommy Haas out of his hat (and get him to sign it) and Reed talked Juan Carlos out of a sweatband. 

Reed was very excited when he got home and had a great time. 

More Press

It seems I can't seem to keep my kids out of the community magazines.

Here's a story (with a picture and quote from JR) that one of our freshman wrote.  

It's here. 

We're Cold!

It hardly ever freezes in Houston, much less before Thanksgiving.  

(We usually wear shorts on Thanksgiving!)

It was so cold yesterday that they wouldn't let Kyle sit outside for lunch wearing shorts (Reed had on leggings under his shorts).

And you know it's cold when Chloe breaks out her sweater! 

A New Honor

Kyle now has the privilege of saying that he's the first of our kids to get braces.  JR didn't have to get them, and Reed still has too many baby teeth, so Kyle gets the "honor". 

He wasn't too thrilled about them and said, "My teeth didn't fit in my mouth before and now they really don't fit!"  Well, hopefully after the braces, his teeth will fit in his mouth. 

On another Kyle note, he did 2 new dives Friday night.

An inward 1 1/2 off the 1 meter 

And an inward double off the 3 meter (watch with the sound off because I start screaming).

Smarties

I went to Kyle and Reed's honor roll assembly yesterday.

Kyle was on the all A and B honor roll (he only made a B in math...and since math is hard I'm 

counting that as an A in my book).

Reed was on the all A honor roll.

We are very proud of them! 

Christmas is Up

I started getting Christmas up on Sunday and finished yesterday.  Had I worked a little harder I could have definitely gotten it all up on Sunday. 

I'm only doing the 1 big tree this year, and the kids are taking it pretty well.  Reed even said that it looked so good "maybe less is more".  

We aren't having any Christmas parties at the house this year, and it sure is a lot more manageable not to get it all out! 

Halloween

We started out Halloween at diving.  After their regular practice some of them dressed up and did "trick" diving.  Kyle is dressed up as his dive coach....who always wears tie-dye shirts and khaki shorts.  You can't tell, but Kyle is also wearing glasses.

I would be scared to jump this high on the board.

We made it home in time for Kyle to throw on an old costume of Reed's and for him to run out and find Reed and Sean. 

Reed wanted to be a cactus, so I made his costume this week. 

I bought the 400 pack of candy and we ran out about 8:15, we gave out the kids' lunch chips, granola bars, and Rice Krispy treats until we called it a night about 8:30.

The boys' blow-ups were a big hit with lots of people stopping to have their pictures made with them.

Kyle and Reed are completely in charge of the blow-ups.  They convince Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw to buy them for them, set them up, and tend to them if they blow over.