Thanks

Thanks for all the prayers for my dad. He had his other stint put in last Friday, the 26th, and everything went really well. He is home and a little stir crazy until he gets the OK to drive, lift, etc. He is itching to get back into his garden.

Dad's Heart

If anyone knows my dad, they know that he has one of the biggest hearts along with a great sense of humor. But on Friday it was no laughing matter when I received a phone call at work from my sister, Penni, saying that Mom was taking Dad to the ER with chest pains. After all the tests were run, it was discovered that he indeed had a heart attach but no damage was done to his heart. They immediately wanted to do the heart catheterization and look for blockage. They found a 90% blockage along with a 75% blockage. They placed a stint for the 90% and said that he would have to come back in a few weeks to put a stint in for the 75%.

Dad went home on Saturday and is doing great. I am so thankful to God that everything went so smoothly and pray that it will go just as smoothly for the second stint. Please keep him in your prayers.

Blog Neglect

I am so guilty of blog neglect. After Halloween I began to think about Christmas gifts, and buying for Jody has always been a struggle - he is so hard to shop for. Last year I stumbled across a website that would allow you to create a scrapblog. I found it interesting but didn't really dive into learning about it until after Halloween. They had added a new feature in which you could turn your scrapblog into a bound book or calendar. That was the moment I knew what I was going to get Jody for Christmas - he loves looking back at pictures and memories just as much as I do. I had all of my pictures from 2008 organized so I started month by month creating our family album for that year - picking out backgrounds, arranging the photos, and typing in what we did. It was time consuming but I got it done and was so pleased with the final product. And Jody even got emotional looking through it at Christmas. So I plan on doing one every year and would eventually like to go back and scan old pictures to make a scrapbook out of those. My sister has always made scrapbooks using Creative Memories and I was always so jealous of what she created but I just didn't have the time to sit down and physically cut out everything, but with this being computerized, it was right up my alley. Needless to say, I think I've had a good reason for neglecting my blog but now I have a lot of catching up to do. Instead of going into detail about what's been going on with us, I think I will use my pictures to show you what we've been up to. In this post, I will do November and December and do January and February in my next post.

NOVEMBER

Field trip with Savanna's Class

Savanna's socccer season

Lufkin horse sale setup at Thanksgiving

My nephew Rody's birthday party

Savanna and Shane singing in the choir at church

DECEMBER

My 35th birthday at Two Senoritas

Christmas parade

Savanna's Christmas program at school

Savanna's Christmas party at school

Our new cat - Socks

Out driving looking at Christmas lights

Making Christmas cookies for Santa

It snowed on Christmas Eve

Christmas at the Hares

Santa came!!

Christmas with Gran & PawPaw Anderson

Christmas with Grandma Stanley

Christmas with Gramps and MiMi Stanley

My silly Spongebob Boy!

10 Years!!

Tomorrow it will be 10 years that I've been married to my best friend - Joe Dan Stanley. I guess time flies when you're havin fun, ha - it hasn't been all fun but there is no other person I would rather go through this life with than him. I had scanned a wedding picture of us to put on here, but I had trouble getting it done today - maybe Monday. I had wanted to plan a big trip somewhere for our 10 year, but since we took our Disney vacation this summer we thought it best to wait. I hope all of my readers have a wonder and blessed New Year!!!

Halloween - Last Minute Change

The weekend before Halloween, Jody left to set up at the Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering at the Fort Worth Stockyards. The kids and I went over Friday night after I got off work. This is the 19th year for this gathering and Jody's second year to set up. There was music, chuck wagons, poetry readings, a ranch rodeo and many booths selling a variety of different western products. The weather was perfect and we had a great time. It was funny because both of my sisters were in the area doing different things so I got to see them. Todd and Penni won tickets to see Tanya Tucker at Billy Bob's and Pam took her kids to Boo at the Zoo in Ft. Worth. I met up with her and Savanna and Shane were able to go. They had a blast and came back with sacks full of candy.



Our friend modeled his chaps that matched our saddle.


Now on to Halloween. I was so proud of myself and bought the kids costumes early this year (so unlike me - Mrs. Procrastination). Shane wanted to be Spiderman and I got Savanna a Cleopatra costume. They wore or dressed up in them periodically during the weeks up until Halloween. I was glad that they were getting some wear and fun out of them and looking forward to trick or treating in them. On Friday before Halloween, Mt. Vernon was having trick or treating up on the square and the businesses there had their doors open to pass out candy. I rushed home to get the kiddos ready in their costumes when Shane suddenly announced that he wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween. I quickly tried to talk him into putting his Spidy outfit on but he was standing firm on being a cowboy. I relented and decided that the dressing up was for kids and I wanted him to have fun being what he wanted to be. I just wished he would have revealed this desire sooner because I then had to scramble looking for all things cowboy. We got er done and off we went. I couldn't find my camera and had to borrow the office camera from Jody so I don't have any pictures to show from Friday on the square.

After the square, we went to watch the Mt. Vernon Tigers play some football and I just about froze to death. I don't think it was really that cold but I'm just not used to colder weather yet.

Saturday was Halloween and we went rural trick or treating this night. Rural trick or treating is when you have to load up in the car and travel to each of your neighbors homes who have their porch light on - no walking from door to door is involved, ha. We stopped by Grandma's house first who told us about the Halloween carnival in Bogata (10 miles up the road). They were having trunk or treating, a bounce house, games, face painting, a haunted house, free hot dogs - and all you had to do was bring a canned food item to participate. We met up with Aunt D and the cousins (Rody and BreAnna) and headed on over to good ol Bogata. We had a great time and the bounce house was a hit with our kids.

I just love Grandma's screen door. I wish I had one on my door.

The little cowpoke.

Cleopatra - The Queen of the Nile.

Bre was the Little Mermaid and Rody was a Star Wars character. Aren't they all so cute!

September News

September always starts the beginning of family birthdays for us. Between both sides of our families there is a total of 6 birthdays within the month. Jody is one of these and he turned 35 on the 17th. I didn't get a chance to wish him or any of the others birthday wishes so I am sending out belated ones to Mark, Randal, Grannie, Mom, DeAnna, and Joe Dan (Jody).



We celebrated Grannie's birthday on the 20th at the local Mexican food restaurant in Mt. V and had a great time catching up with all the family.


All the great grandkids helped blow out the candles. She doesn't look like a great grandmother, does she?

On the 25th, my sweet, beautiful, young mother turned 70. Something about saying that number sounds old, but I just don't see my mom that way. I think she looks great for her new age. Anyway, she is not one for having big ta doos or parties so we decided to keep the party numbers low and surprised her with a limo ride with all the daughters, son-n-laws, and excited grandkids to the Kyoto Japanese Steakhouse in Rowlett. We had the best time. The kids loved watching the chef cook right at the table. He kept them very entertained with all of his tricks.

(This video is of the limo arriving at Mom and Dad's house.)

Mom was really surprised! I'm so glad that we were able to keep it a secret.

On the ride home, the kids were pretty wound up. They received some neat star suckers at the restaurant and had a fun time eating them. The ride also found them singing to songs on the radio and eventually in the laps of Gran and PawPaw. A great time was had by all.

Elli Kate and Avery showing off their stars.

This video doesn't show anything because it was too dark, but you can hear them singing to Taylor Swift.

Our annual fall auction didn't actually happen as September news, but we sure did a lot of preparing for it within the month.

On Saturday, October 3rd, it was a great & beautiful day. The sun was shining and it was perfect weather for our equipment auction. It would also have been a perfect day for our horse sale on the 4th but no such luck. That night it rained and rained and rained and rained. Since our horse sale is all outdoors, it made for a muddy mess of a day. I had time to snap a few pictures from this day. We really thought we would have to cancel and reschedule but the rain became a drizzle and we went on with the show. Shane had a grand ol time riding the ponies in the ring while dad talked about them and tried to get some bids from the customers who braved the weather conditions. Savanna, on the other hand, was in dream land. She came in after lunch from a sleep over birthday party. She told about the fun she had and how they stayed up late. Soon after she was curled up with Socks and they were both asleep. I just couldn't resist the opportunity to get this shot - it was too cute.