Danny has been practicing for his bow hunting trip next week. The kids are all very curious about his trip and keep asking lots of questions, especially Colter. So none of us were surprised when Colter chose a toy bow set for his "fair toy" ( a special treat from Noni and Papa). He loves to practice shooting just like Daddy!
The kids love collecting candy during the parade.
Danny and I won several ribbons in the photography competition.
Zane had his first snowcone (with the help of Noni and Papa).
The kids loved riding on the "train."
Our favorite fair lunch is the yummy beef fajitas.
And our fair experience wouldn't be complete without a trip (or two) down the inflatable slide!
Tonight was the first home football game of the season. Here are our little Dimmitt Bobcats ready for their first game... 
Sabrina: "Look Mom, this is what the cheerleaders do!"
Wyatt: "Just because we have football shirts on doesn't mean we are going to play football."
Colter: "But someday we will!"
Colter: "Look there's the Bobcat!"
Tonight was the first night of the Castro County Fair, which can only mean one thing - the junior tractor pull competition. Wyatt and Sabrina were both old enough to participate this year. They had fun participating and we had fun cheering them on!
Even with a playroom full of toys, Zane always seems to gravitate to toward the cars. He is such a boy!
Zane has been watching his older siblings use crayons and often crawls into the playroom, pulls out crayons and paper and starts drawing!
Zane loves playing with his "kitchen toys" while I am cooking. He even pretends to stir and eat his "food"!
Dressed and ready for the first day of school. Aren't they just the cutest?
Backpacks on and ready to go inside. Monique is in the 2 year old class, Colter is in the 3 year old class, Sabrina is in the 4 year old class and Wyatt is the kindergarten helper in the 4 year old class.
Celebrating the end of a fun day with our pencil brownie cake!
I know that many of you have been anxiously awaiting pictures from Danny's backpacking trip with the kids this weekend. Here are just a few of my favorites, but be sure to check Danny's blog for more pictures and stories later this week. You can see the highlight of their trip in the picture below...
Yes, a black bear followed them on the trail for part of their hike. They had just finished eating lunch by the creek (which is never a neat and tidy event!) and Danny is pretty sure the bear just wanted to see if any more food was going to be falling on the trail! They kept a nice, clean camp and didn't see any more of the bear.
So you've probably heard the stories of rural doctors getting paid in chickens. Well Danny got paid in corn today! One of his patients (who actually did pay his bill, this was just an added thank you to Danny!) came over with a truck load of sweet corn for us. Danny put it in two big bins and he and the kids started shucking. We ended up with over 100 ears of corn! We are going to eat as much as we can over the next few days (which is quite a bit with a family of seven) and then freeze whatever is left. 
We have continued to have lots of wonderful and much needed rain this weekend. We took advantage of a little break in the storms to let the kids go ride their bikes in the ditch in front of our house. They had great fun and I'm sure they will beg to do it again before all of the water is gone.
Zane is still not very interested in walking on his own, but we did notice the other day that he is practicing standing up. He crawls over to the fireplace, sits down on the edge...
pushes himself up...
and stands for a few seconds before plopping back down and doing it all again!
The last time we got rain in town was while we were on vacation in Colorado (almost one month ago!). So we were very happy to have this rain last night and even happier when it rained again tonight. We're supposed to get even more this weekend, so as long as it doesn't flood we'll take everything we can get!
Here is Zane's newest trick - maybe he learned it from all the gymnastics we've been watching the past couple of days!
Wyatt: "Mom, Mom! I need a bug jar! There's thousands of rolly pollies out here!"
Mom: "Wow, that's a lot of rolly pollies. What are you going to do with all of those?"
Megan, Nathan, Cathryn and Jerod all came up on Sunday afternoon for my party. Mom and Dad also came for the party, but the best part was that they were able to spend the night. It was nice to have them here for my birthday.
Danny had taken the kids shopping on Friday, so they each had presents for me to open. They were so excited!
Danny fixed hamburgers Monday night for my birthday dinner before Mom and Dad headed back to Lubbock. It was a fun birthday weekend!
Our neighbors just finished their swimming pool a couple of weeks ago and we finally made it over to try it out. We really weren't sure how everyone would react to the "big" pool, but we didn't need to worry. All the kids loved it! There is a great shallow end where they can sit and splash and a deeper end where Daddy can catch them when they want to jump. Now we have the perfect spot for Daddy to teach swimming lessons!
We rode our bikes to Sonic for supper tonight. It was about 4 1/2 miles round trip and the kids loved every minute of it. I loved that I didn't have to clean the kitchen after we got home!
We ate dinner tonight with the Wilhites, our friends who are going to be adopting the girls' biological brothers. The highlight of the evening was our hayride to pick some corn and then feed the horses. Here's a picture of all seven kiddos: Sabrina, Monique, Kristian, Wyatt, Zane, Colter and Jordan.
Wyatt was playing outside this morning when he came running in and asked for his scissors. When I asked him why, he said, "I need to cut the grass. It's hard work and I want to help Daddy." I gave him his scissors and he went outside to start trimming the grass that he felt was too long. Colter soon joined him and I made sure to tell Danny about their hard work so that he could thank them when he got home from work. : )
Here's the birthday girl with her favorite bow from one of her presents!
The strawberry cake and ice cream were really yummy!
Somehow I managed to get a couple of pictures of our two birthday kids. It was much easier to take their picture one year ago when they weren't quite so wiggly!
We had a great time on our quick overnight visit to see Dedaddy and DeJoyce in Abilene. The two highlights of the trip were...
playing on the slip 'n slide in the backyard...
and feeding the giraffes at the zoo.
