Carter Finally Looses His 9th Tooth!

 At 11 years and 1 month, after what seems like years since he has lost a tooth, randomly, with no signs, Carter lost a tooth while at school!

Addison's Lighthouse Pep Rally Demonstration

Right after the new year, Addie was asked to take on a special role with her Lighthouse Team to represent Roan Forest Elementary, by kicking off the area wide LeaderInMe 2 Day Symposium workshop for educators wanting to be a Leader In Me School, with their well known student run pep rally. So in front of nearly 300 educators, she and her fellow leaders showed then how's it done. To prepare, there were several 6:45AM early morning practices but it was all worth it to see her leadership on that stage.

Cinderella and The DoSeum - Gifts from Lolli and Pops

For Christmas, Lolli Nancy gave the girls tickets to the Majestic Performance of Cinderella with a nice lunch beforehand and the family season passes to the DoSeum Children's Museum. What amazing "experience" gifts they got! The day the girls got to do to the fancy theater, Carter got to clean out his room!

Delaney Starts Ballet Class

At just over 4.5 years old, Delaney has really been enjoying gymnastics however she keeps talking about dance and asking about it. I knew nearly a year ago, when I had looked into swim, gymnastics and dance, I had chosen swim and gymnastics in 2017 based on the schedule that I thought would work the best but I realized that it really was dance that she always asked for as her #1 choice. So I found a Monday afternoon time that I think would work for both Blake and I and before we knew it, Delaney was dressed in her all pink dance outfit ready for her first Pre-ballet trial class at QBS Dance Studio in early January and started classes right away.

Addison Playing Co-ed Basketball & Blake Coaching

At 9.5 years old, Addison is excited to play basketball for a second season. We opted for Sunday only practice and games which led us to i-9. Blake is coaching the team of mainly boys but Addison is loving every second of it and so are we! Her growth in confidence and aggression is wildly evident and she truly is so fun to watch. In the early games of the season, Addison repeatedly had a referee approach Blake and I about having her play in a more highly competitive tournament league. We took Addison to the practices that were held on Fridays and Sundays and she loved it. Although we discussed how we could try to make it work, soccer tournament season quickly got fired up this year and we felt like it maybe a little too much on all of our schedules. At least Addison sees they whole world is out there with basketball, as an option.

Watching Blake coach the team is so amazing. It's such a special moment in time for both Blake and Addison.

Carter's Antique Gun & Very First Deer

For Carter's 11th birthday, my dad, Pops, gave Carter one of his own very first guns - a Model 1892 Winchester - MODEL 65 - 218 Bee. Then, about 2 weeks later, they got to use it on their annual New Year's hunting trip to Pearsall. This is one one of Blake, Carter and even Addison's very favorite trips each year. This was a very memorable one because it was Carter's first time to shoot a deer on very own.

Carter's very own un-edited story of "Two-Shot:"

We got to the ranch and me and pop's went in mikes blind. We waited for a long time and and a deer pop't up out of the bushes. It was an old 8 point and it was about 50 yards away. Pop's told me to shoot it, so i shot it with 22-250 the same type of gun that dad used to kill his first deer. When I shot it, it fell down and laid there for about 10 seconds then it started crawling away very slowly and I asked pop's "should I shoot it again" and he said "no i saw all the hair fly everywhere that deer is dead". We waited for a couple minutes and went to look for it. Dad, Addie, and Danielle came to help us look for it. We looked for it until it got dark but we could not find it. We found blood that went in to the woods but then it stopped. It was nowhere, but then dad told me a story of when he was hunting with his brother, and his friends were in a other blind. Their friends called them and said they shot a deer and they needed help looking for it, so my dad and Clint went to help them look for it and they found lots of blood and they tracked it down a mile away floating in a pond and my dad said "the deer was there because it goes to a place that it feels comfortable". So, this time, we went back to the pond a lot of times to make sure it wasn't there. The next day me and my dad went to mike's blind and saw a deer that was about 100 yards away and it had a big hairless gray spot on its back. Dad said "that must be a old deer." It was a 8 point again and he told me to shoot it and I did and the deer just ran off and i said i am positive i hit it perfect and we went to look for it and there was no blood or anything. So went back to looking for the deer that I shot the day before. and found nothing. Me and pops went back to check on the girls and dad called us and said for everyone to come to the pond and there was the deer on the other side of the pond the deer was laying down and that was when we noticed that I shot the same deer 2 times. When pop's said I saw all the hair fly everywhere, that was when I must had skimmed it and then the second time I hit it perfectly. And that is why we named it "Two-Shot"!