Thanksgiving

Since I haven't posted in months here are some random pictures . We'll start with Thanksgiving first at Nana and Poppa's then on to Grandma Peggy's.

We spent lots of time playing with cousins

And of course eating. The dessert table was as full as the regular food table...as it should be.
And of course lots of friends and family, and a few missionaries for good measure.
We stopped and said hi to Grandpa Bill and yes, if you've noticed the date on my camera I forgot to reset it so these really are recent and not from 2007.
We got to see Bill and Linda.
And our family is finally too big to fit on Grandma's couch for pictures. We're going to have to start standing up or something.

And of course Cindy Marie and Matt and Will were there.
All in all a great Thanksgiving!
Coming soon.....CHRISTMAS! (In July probably, but I'll work on it.)

And it Begins....

And so begins our boys' wrestling season. Their first meet was last weekend and they did very well. Here they are showing off their singlets with their friend Tai before any of them wrestled.
Most of my pictures are either dark or blurry or so far away you can't see much. I still haven't figured out how to do any photo editing on my computer. So anyway here are a couple pics of the boys starting out.Of course we all came to watch. Adam and Maggie like the lower level seating.While the other girls, Emily, Odie and Lydia preferred higher up on the bleachers.

The boys did very well. Jonas won 2 matches by pin and lost 3 on points. Preston pinned one and got pinned once. Jonas ended up coming in fourth in his weight class and Preston second in his. I can't believe how much they improved since last year. It was so much fun to watch and I can't wait for the rest of the season.

Halloween

Ok so we got a little busy and I forgot to take pictures until after we were done trick or treating. Our neighborhood sanctioned Saturday night trick or treating which worked out very well for us. So here are the kids.
Emily was the Greek goddess Athena.
Jonas was a demigod from Camp Half-blood (greek battle armor yet no tunic/dress) check out the Percy Jackson books for more details on what that all entails.
Adrianna was a garden fairy but she had already shed her wings and wig and cute little fairy hat.
Preston was an indian/knight he had already taken off the breast plate, shield, helmet, cowboy boots and sword, but he still had his indian shirt.
Lydia was also a fairy her color theme was purple though.
Adam was Yoda and by the time this picture was taken Jason had dubbed him "bloody Yoda" although that is chili that dripped down his front not blood. He had also managed to lose his light saber by this time.
There are not any pictures of Mags at the moment. I will put the Tigger outfit back on her and take a picture tomorrow but I didn't realize we hadn't gotten one of her until it was too late. Everyone got lots of candy and we gave out lots as well so all in all I call it a successful night. We hope y'all had a good Halloween too!

A conversation with Adam and Lydia

"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAA"


"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMAAAAAAA!"

"Adam! are you OK? What's wrong?"
"Wydia caw me name." *sniffle* *sniffle*
"Lydia called you a name?"
"Yeah"
"Lydia, come here please... What did she call you?"
"Say" *sniffle*
Say? Ok I know that's not right, "Tell me again what did she call you?"
"Say"
Oh, good she's here, "Lydia, Adam says you called him a name. "
"No I didn't"
"Ok then what did you say to him?"
"I told him 'No way Jose!' "
Jose... Say...now I get it.

The State Fair

Well I have no idea why I have underlines on this, but I can't get them to go away so here goes. Last Saturday we had a family adventure at the South Carolina State Fair. The following pictures are not in chronological order for the evening, and no we did not go to the future, the time stamp on them is wrong. Also there was a smudge on my lens that I didn't notice at the time, but it makes the pictures look blurry, sorry about that. Yay! the underline went away!
This the the 100th anniversary year for Boy Scouts (oh dear the line is back) so if a scout or leader wore their uniform they got in free. Jonas always looks for reasons to wear his scout uniform so this was a big one for him. We saw people in all sorts of outfits including this guy. Jonas thought his glasses were so cool he went up and asked if he could take a picture with him.

I don't know what happened, but my typing just went back to normal. We had all kinds of fun. Emily and Jonas went down the BIG slide.
Maggie had her own ride all night! She really enjoyed eating sweet potatoe french fries! She also tried funnel cakes and elephant ears and of course loved them both!
All that excitement and a full belly wore her out!
I think this is the only picture of me there since I was the one taking most of the pictures.
Even Lydia and Adam got to ride some rides.
Daddy stood in line with them to make sure everyone had the correct tickets and was able to get on ok.
We enjoyed a break in one of the exhibit halls. The SC dairy farmers were giving out free milk. Everyone got chocolate of course.
Ok my pictures got a little out of order, but this was the real reason we were in the exhibit hall.
Oh, more of the milk break.





Ok so the real reason we went to the fair in the first place was because Emily Mae's art teacher submitted one of her projects from last year and although it did not win any awards it was chosen to be on display. We are so proud! Look she's pointing to her self portrait.


Way to go Emmy! Thanks for giving us an excuse for another fun family adventure!

You can now stop holding your breath

I know all of you have been waiting for this for quite a while, (though not as anxiously as I have) so I am happy to announce that yes, we finally have a new computer. The ramifications of that being that I can finally check my email regularly again and update my blog a little more often and of course keep better track of my budget and all those other 50 million little things that we do with computers nowadays. and to top it off I can actually download pictures again. Yay. In fact I downloaded a bunch this morning and will next post our latest adventure...the state fair.

Maggie's 6 month Stats

You may not know it, but our Maggie ('Miss' Mary Alice to Grandma Cindy) is quite the petite little girl! But she doesn't know she is just a little thing. Why when she was a mere 4 months old she was already showing off her 'mad' equestrian skills!
Yesterday she went to the Dr. for her 6 month check up and we found out how big she really isn't. (yes, you read that right)

Little Miss Maggie measured 25 inches tall and weighed in at 15 lbs. That puts her in the 25%- 50% for her age. She is such a petite little thing! (Unlike cousin Ransom and the other Guffey boys, more like Uncle Cody....wait, that didn't sound right. More like Aunt Skye). She was pronounced Healthy as a miniture horse by the Dr. and she didn't cry or wimper until they gave her the 3 shots in her legs. That she didn't like at all. She did get Iron Man Band-aids for the shots, which her brother's thought was really cool! All the attention from the big brothers helped to calm her down. Her only other problem was her little legs were so sore that when she tried to stand up on Mommy's lap she couldn't. Poor little thing.
We sure love you sweet Maggie!

Conversations with Maggie and Adam's Mimi Cheer!

What We Learned at the Zoo

Hello Family and Friends. I thought I would tell you about what lessons I learned while staying at Grandma and Grandpas house with Jonas, Adrianna, Preston and Lydia while Mom, Adam, Maggie, Aunt Cami, Aunt Cali, Lily Ransom and Gideon ran off some where for a few days.

I learned there are two types of concrete burns. The kind you get from wet cement and the kind you get when your head smacks a concrete wall.

Preston was the teacher of this life lesson. You should have seen the wall... Ha,ha,ha.
++++++++
I also learned it is okay for kids to act like monkeys at the zoo.

Actually, this type of primate behavior is almost expected.

We learned that a full grown tiger is large enough to carry more than half of the Guffey family.

I give us a 6.5 on the group dismount. Some of us had a little trouble sticking it.

Lydia taught us that to control and unruly tiger you just grab it by the ear and squeeze it real hard. Turn it down and the tiger walks forward, turn it backwards and the tiger will sit. Let go and he will eat you.

After several tries we concluded that three Guffey heads are all that will fit in a lions mouth at one time.

"Listen to me you guys, 4 Guffey heads will not fit in the lion's mouth."... "What do you mean drinking fountain? On his tongue? That's just gross!"

Adrianna was fearless when she entered the wild goat pen. She is like a "goat whisperer" and soon had them all calm enough that we were able to brush their fur.

Adrianna is very wise when it comes to dealing with wild goats. She was especially thoughtful and thanked the goats personally for being so well behaved.

She taught Preston and Lydia the secret touch to calm an anxious goat. This one was on the verge of breaking out until Odi Podi worked her magic.

Did you know that Llama's can spit? Yeah... Preston and Lydia asked this guy to demonstrate....

Jonas was a little puzzled about the thinking and planning on the part of zoo officials when it came to the Donkey pen. They put a framed square in the fence for you to reach through to pet the donkeys. Then they put a sign up warning you that if you try to pet the donkeys they may bite. What kind of twisted grown up logic is this? Is it a trick? A test? Well, we were too smart for them. We could care less if we ever pet a biting donkey.

"Pick a little, talk a little, Pick a little, talks a little, ... cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more......"

"It's a bird?, It's a Monkey?.... What is it?"

"Then Adrianna, Preston and I hatched a great plan......"

We learned that grandpa Darryl is not really a bird expert,
even though he knows a lot of cool stuff!
"This my grandchildren, is an Osprey. Or a deformed owl, which ever you want it to be."

Just so you know, we are not staring at a fence in the window. There are penguins on the other side of that glass. "The penguin Cabaret" ...sort of. (That was a Metaphor.... or maybe an idiom.)

So, Mom's computer is dying and she can't get online to put up any posts right now. If any of my aunts have pictures from this summer of us having fun, please call my mom and she will tell you all the magic words so you can post the pictures on her blog for all of her friends to see.
I'll talk to you later.
Love,
Emily