Annie's calf

Well tomorrow is the final day of the county fair.. Annie raised a dairy feeder for her FFA class at school and showed it on Wednesday. She placed 5th out of 12. Only 6 ribbons were given so she was happy that she at least got a ribbon. I joked all week that it was actually her dad's project and she just showed it! He got ridiculous for a grown man, over this silly cow! He is already making plans with Annie for next years cow! We got the guy when he was only 2 days old and started him off bottle feeding. It really is a fun project but the kids never make enough money to break even unless they get sponsors to donate..(go begging!..Makes me so mad the fair board expects them to do that!) We did not get any answers from the letters we sent so fortunately the FFA Alumni bought her calf for $250 and then sent it for resale which means she gets what ever price per pound the producers are offering. In this case they offered the kids a whopping 70 CENTS a pound!! Think about that the next time you see T-bones for $9.99 a pound or higher!! They should be ashamed of themselves. These calves are grain fed with top quality feed not grass fed in a pasture. The kids put their hearts and souls along with their bank accounts to purchase the calf, get them castrated, de-horned, shots, bedding and fed, taking one on one care of them for 7 months only to have the producers give them 70 cents a pound!! Can you tell I am angry?

AB Graham started 4-H in my county and this was not what his plan was! The kids have to pay to register their projects, and to get a pass for the week. Even tho they do not get any of the gate proceeds for keeping their animals out there all week and letting people come to see them. Annie will get a check after the fair board deducts a 3% fee, totalling $516..There is no profit here my friends...

But what are you going to do as a parent when your child loves to stay at the fair all week and share their time with friends and class mates taking care of their projects? Life is to hard so how can I deny her this time once a year to make memories and learn something too?

We rent a camp spot each year and usually one of her friends will get a camper to put on it and they basically live out there coming home long enough to shower and catch a much needed nap.

Jim (dad) is already making plans to buy an old school bus and convert it to a camper for next year. Again ..it could be worse..he could be a dead beat dad who walked out on her and refuses to pay child support. So I guess I will just count my blessings and let the memories continue so that I have something to scrap!!!! Like I don't have enough already!! LOL

'Nother layout!

I have several 5 x 7's of my family that were taken last summer . My brother and his wife came back for my dad's 80Th birthday and we all went to have pics done. Thirteen of us total so everyone took the opportunity to get pics of the individual families done as well. Here is my son Luke, wife Monica and my first ever grandson, Nolan.. They are expecting their second son November 5Th. Another little boy to play with!! I am so blessed! I really wish the pictures showed the true colors, they always look so muted but anyway, here is 5 x 7 number two!

Blog Candy Giveaway!

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My Brother

Last summer my brother and his wife came in from Arizona and we attempted to get a family picture with my parents, my kids and grandsons. There were 13 of us..The group pic was certainly not the best in town. We were shoved into this small room with 2 two year olds and it was just short of a nightmare. However we did get some great shots of the individual families and I got this picture of my brother and me. I don't often do one picture layouts but since I have these 5 x 7's I will make an exception. Now I will move on to do Luke and Katie's families and then one of Annie Leigh with her nephews..

I pulled these colors from my blouse and even tho Mike doesn't have even one of the colors I still think it turned out well. What do you think? Please be honest..my feelings can handle it...

The Ugly Duckling

Remember how in the ugly duckling the black duckling turned into a beautiful white swan??? Well, at our local park we have a Black Swan! What do you suppose went wrong?? A few years back a black swan was stolen from the park and later recovered so I am not sure if this is the same one or not..but it sure is fun to watch.

Cheap Fun!

How much fun can you get for $1.29? Kids today think that they cannot have fun without all the new electronic games that cost boucou bucks, well just look at these guys...Give them two pinwheels and an air conditioning unit and you have loads of fun!! lol.. You can see the air from the unit blowing Nolan's hair and the pinwheels are going to town...Proof right there that fun doesn't have to cost alot of money!

These boys are just less than 4 months apart and I love to take Eli to play with Nolan..They are learning how to share and get along , important social skills.. I can only imagine what these guys will get into once they start driving!!!! I love them so much .

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Blog Award!

Shame on me for not being up to date on my blog and reading yours or I would have seen that Cyndi was gracious enough to give me this blog award! It's always nice to know that someone is reading your thoughts and enjoying your posts. Thank you Cyndi for this, it is so thoughtful!

The rules are to display this award on my blog with a link to the senders blog and then I am to list 7 blogs that I will be passing the award to. So here goes..

http://cyndistreasures.blogspot.com Sender

http://thepaperpurse.blogspot.com/
http://kimbaskreations.blogspot.com/

http://paperandstring.blogspot.com/

http://cinemasaturdaycreativechallenge.blogspot.com/

http://thepinkstamper.blogspot.com/

http://tammeybrown.blogspot.com/

http://noncutegiftsforeveryone.blogspot.com/

Esther and Olenka..I would have shared this with you but since Cyndi honored you too, I am going to honor some others, but know that I love your blogs and you two are special to me

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Time flies!

Goodness..so much has happened in such a short time...Katie came through her surgery well, but no one had told her how much pain was involved! So for a week it was pretty rough but somehow once that first week is gone everything starts to settle down. She is healing well and Eli is being a pretty good boy considering he has lost his playmate until mom can get the stitches healed. He also encountered a serious allergy attack and then the meds gave him a buzz that I thought was going to put all of us over the edge! To top that off they had to take him to Urgent Care yesterday only to find out he was in the beginning stages of a double ear infection! I credit Kate and Alan for getting him there early so that he will not have to encounter to much pain and discomfort. He is such a good boy....

I took two of my clients to the July 4th parade yesterday and we hooked up with another one of my clients there. It was so much fun watching them interact with the characters in the parade. Robert is going to love scrapping these pages!! I think Kevin and a I will scrap his too....

You can see by the pic above that they loved being there. Kevin and RaeLynn were out front with the kids catching the candy and items that were being tossed from the floats! The weather was PERFECT! I have an album of my pics if you would like to see them just let me know and I will share it with you..It was a very good day!