A quick update

As I mentioned before, Hunter drew a duck for the Arkansas Duck Stamp competition. Well...

HE WON 1ST PLACE!!

We are so proud of him. We are planning a trip to Little Rock next Saturday, for the Award Ceremony. We are anxious to hear what he will win!

Great job Hunter! We're very proud of you and your talent!

Acting like tourists

Every spring break, for the past 4 years, we have went camping down at the Bull Shoals State park, on the river, in Lakeview. We borrow my In-Laws RV (mobile mansion) and head out for a week of fun. This year, the kids spring break was cut a few days short, because of all the snow. So, Wednesday after school, we headed out!

The weather was great, except for Saturday, which was freezing, and a little snowy, but other than that, it was fabulous!

I took the kids to Gaston's, to go see the peacocks, which I loved!

Hunter even tried chasing one down...but he didn't have any luck!

Hunter had his friend, Jake come down and play, while Katelyn spent the majority of her time with her cousin, Morgan, the Wallace kiddos and Wood children.

They're such hams!

Then we went to the Visitors center, and looked around at the gift shop and they had this stuffed bear, that had been killed in Marion county, which the kids got a kick out of.

We had a great time camping. The Wallaces and The Woods always make it a good time!

The highlight of the trip...I won $10 in the Missouri lotto!!

Book reports and Duck stamps

I'm so glad I'm not in school anymore. HA!

Katelyn had to do her first book report last night. I think she had 3 weeks to write it, but decided to wait until the last minute. I haven't done a book report for years, and she wanted my help. It's hard to help with something like that, when you haven't read the book. She was doing it on The Bridge to Terabithia. I've seen the movie, and last night, I had to skim the book. I'm not even sure she read the book, lol. Anyway, the teacher wanted some major details and the outline was the longest outline I've ever seen. Needless to say, I had to do some research online. How sad is that? It was only 4 paragraphs, and by the look of the outline, it needed to be about 3 pages. So I'm anxious to see what her grade is!! Say a prayer....

Update!: Katelyn got a 100% on her report! Phew! I guess my online searching and memory of the movie actually worked out! HA!

Hunter just finished his drawing for the Arkansas Junior Duck Stamp competition. It took him almost 2 months, from start to finish. I think he did an excellent job and he has such talent. Mrs. Blasdel teaches an art class once a week after school, that he attends, and he really enjoys it. He drew it free hand and then he colored it with some special kind of colored pencils. So special, you can't find them at Wal-Mart, lol.

We are very proud of him and his talent.

Good Luck Hunter!!

Skateboarding & Tweens!

The dreaded day of my boy wanting to skateboard has arrived. He lives and breathes it daily. I'd say he is outside practicing about 3 hours a day. He's getting quite good at it though, but I hate to watch him...fearing he will break a bone.

We just redid his room, new comforter and such and now my WONDERFUL friend Christel is designing some pictures for his room with a skater theme. We're very excited to finally have his bedroom finished. We moved in over a year ago and his was the only room we didn't really decorate.

It seems I write a little more about Hunter in this blog than I do Katelyn. Would you like to know the real reason behind that? Well, the girl is a "tween" now and all she really does is text on her phone, play on her computer and take crazy pictures of herself. I'm hoping now that spring is right around the corner, she will come out and play with us!

Katelyn was in a Choir program at Church on Sunday morning...did I have my camera? NO!! I can't believe I forgot to bring it. There were only 4 kids that showed up for the program, out of I think, 10. They wore ice cream buckets on their heads and sang a few songs. Now, of all times for me (or Nikki) to not have our cameras!!!

Little Dribblers

The 3rd and 4th graders are able to participate in an activity called Little Dribblers. It's where they learn skills with a basketball and preform little tricks and things during half time of a ball game at school. This is Hunters last year, because next year he will get to play real basketball! He can't wait.

This is Hunter with his best buddy, Trevor, right before their last performance

This is Hunter with his (girl)friend, Karlee. He was very excited to get his picture taken, as you can tell!

They got special treatment, by the Senior High Cheerleaders, since it was their final one.

Valentines Day Part 2

Instead of the normal steak dinner for two, Greg and I took all the kids bowling. We took Katelyn, Hunter, Dominique, Hannah, Kaylee and Karlee. They all had a great time. We ordered pizza, burgers, potato skins and cheese sticks and everyone pigged out.

Then the kids got tired of bowling, and asked if they could "play bowl"...I had no idea what that meant, but soon, I figured it out...

Greg and I thought it looked like fun, so we joined in. There's Hunter throwing between Dad's legs....

This is Hunter bowling between my legs...I was a little nervous.

This is where the majority of my money was spent, the arcade.

Valentines Day-Part 1

Valentines day morning, I got a text from my cousin, Erin, that her precious baby (Emmaline Valentine) was on her way.

This is their first born and I must say, Erin was the cutest pregnant woman I have ever seen. I remember when I was pregnant, I didn't have any cute maternity clothes and I gained way too much weight to just rubberband my jeans together, HA!

Congratulations Erin and Jeff (and Bruce) I hope to see you all soon!



Emmaline Louise Born--

A Snowy Day, by Hunter Harp

This is a story that Hunter wrote about the Ice storm...I thought it was great and wanted to share it.
Enjoy

Snowy Day

One Monday night on Jan. - 26 - 09. There was a huge mix/ice storm. When we woke up there was a huge tree on the ground outside our mom & dads bedroom my dad was at work and our power still worked. We were surprised of what we saw outside!!! Because we saw all our trees covered in ice but the bad part was the trees wore bending down because of the weight of the ice on them. After a while our power shut down. So we went next door to our grandma’s house. Because they had a generator there. Our dad was at work and they ordered a generator but on the way the generator flipped over and broke on the way to Harps. So they ordered another one so he waited from 9:00 P.M. ~ 4:00 A.M. in his truck no sleep at all either. Back at our grandma’s house we were watching Ace Ventura pet detective it’s a really funny movie to. We called my dad and said when you get home just heat up the chili but that was before we knew he was going to stay over night. That night our dog Macie every time a tree or a tree branch fell she would bark so that night I didn’t get much sleep at all. That day at about 1:00 our friends Kole, Kevin, Donnel, and Dominique came over for a little while. When they left we started watching movies again and TV that’s when it still worked. Because that night before we went to bed we were watching TV then it went out. So we went to bed. The next day we didn’t do anything but watch movies and go outside and at 8:00 dad got back home. We were so exited then he took a shower and he didn’t scream when he came out he said it was so cold then it got warm!!! We all said me next then all of a sudden the power went out. So we went to bed. The next morning the energy was here and they said if you power isn’t on in a little bit it will tomorrow morning we were so exited!! So we went to bed and at one o’clock they said the power came back on. My family were glad because we finally go to go back home!!!! So there you have it that’s the Snowy Day for you.



HA! Isn't that great?!

A new baby to play with

After a long time trying, my friend Ann has finally had her little Princess. Little Isabella Conyers was brought into the world on Friday, and I must say she is beautiful!

I just love her and she is a blessing to Ann and Scot.

Ice Ice Baby

It was a crazy week around here this past week. After a huge ice storm on Monday night, we were without power for 3 days. Let me tell you, I didn't like it one bit! We ended up staying at Greg's Mom's house, because she had a generator, thank goodness! I don't know what we would have done without that! I'm so thankful that our power is back on, and I feel so sorry for those who are still without power! Hopefully it will all be back to normal soon.

Here are a few photos from our home. We had a lot of land damage around here, thankfully nothing happened to our home.

Our circle drive, which is now a one way drive.

That is our driveway/road to our house.

Well, here we go again, another week without Dad and another week with no cooking! (=
He's been working out of town the past 2 weeks, he's got 2 more weeks to go. I always enjoy the first few days, because I don't have to do anything I don't want to do, then it's kinda like...ok, now what? Oh I know, I get the remote, I can watch whatever I want. So what am I watching tonight, a John and Kate Plus 8 Marathon....lol

I always look forward to going to basketball games, but we only have 1 this week. Only 3 more games and Katelyn is finished for the year. I dread it in the beginning, but I'm going to miss it when it's over. I really enjoy going to the games and watching the kids play and visiting with friends and seeing old friends I haven't seen in a long time. It's kind of amazing who you see at a Flippin basketball game.

Have a great evening..(=

A night by myself

So, I've been home alone for the past 4 1/2 hours. I think it's kinda like Heaven on earth, sometimes.
I rarely have alone time and I yearn for it, but when it happens...I don't ever know what to do with myself. I can only clean so much, and watch so much TV, which happens to be my favorite past time. I've watched my Tivo'd shows, Nip/Tuck, The City, Daddy's Girls, and about an hour of Mean Girls..then I thought..Ok, when are the kids coming home from Church? I'm bored.
I got excited when they walked in the door with their comments on their days. Report cards came out today, both are on the honor roll, makes me pretty proud, but I know they didn't get their smarts from me, it all came from their Daddy. They were excited and wanted to know what they got for the honor roll..money, toys, unlimited texting? I just told them be proud of what they've done and to keep it up. I don't think that worked though, so we'll see if Daddy has to hand out some cash when he gets home.
Greg has been working out of town for the past two weeks and again next week. I've thoroughly enjoyed the break from homemade cooking, but I think we can only live on frozen pizza, quesadillas and hamburger helper for so long. I never thought I'd say it, but I'm sick of it and ready for some good food. So I guess i'll have to break down and cook this weekend. Dang.
(=

So, Hunter had to get 4 teeth pulled, so he can get ready for braces (that's a whole other story). So we get home, after the dentist and here comes Daddy..."Hunter, get your gun, there's deer in our yard", so Hunter grabs his gun, not too thrilled about it either. Goes on the back porch and shoots his very first deer! He was SO proud, but not too proud..you know, he's a boy and all, he's always gotta act cool.

Here's a picture of it, and you can tell he's not able to smile, because he's totally numb on both sides of his face.

I actually put the picture in the Baxter Bulletin, and a few people made comments to me while in town. One comment was "hey, we saw Hunter in the paper with his deer, why isn't he smiling, that's a pretty nice deer?" So, of course I had to explain to them why he looks like he just got grounded from TV or the computer for 6 months.

So, here are my kids...they're big hams, if you ask me. I don't know where they get that from though..haha

The big deal about blogging

So, I want to know what the big deal is with blogging? I've read alot, and always wanted to do one, but thought, "what am I going to write about"? Well, I guess I can start with my family and go from there, right?
Greg and I have been married for 13 years (WOW) and we have 2 children, Katelyn who is 12 and Hunter who is 9. Katelyn is my little basketball player and Hunter is my little artist. He is going to be famous one day! I'll have to post a few of his pictures, I have bragging rights... Right?