April 3-5, 2009

What a busy weekend! We started out on Friday night at the school at a fundraiser for Morgan's traveling basketball team.

The kindergarten and preschool classes opened up the evening by playing a little bit of basketball against each other! Marshall had a blast playing with his good friends Brian and Jakub. They actually got to wear their jerseys, which match their older brothers who are on Morgan's traveling team.

Later on in the evening, Morgan's team played two games and won both of them. Morgan played really well and had some awesome layups! He is working very hard and having a lot of fun playing basketball.

Saturday morning Greg and Morgan headed out to a Boy Scout clean up day at our local Boy Scout camping area. Then, later that evening, we had a carry-in dinner and awards ceremony at the Methodist church. Morgan earned his first merit badge and his Boy Scout patch, which is the first rank he can earn as a Boy Scout. He was very excited! We had to immediately sew on his patches so that he could wear his full, official uniform to his Sunday night meeting!

Maggie played in a basketball tournament for the first time Saturday. The girls' coach had invited her to play and I was a little leary because she can be a drama queen if she gets injured. However, she played two games and only got knocked down one time. I was impressed because she didn't even cry! She did a really good job even though she doesn't pay much attention to her brother's games!

Sunday was my nieces' combined birthday party at the skating rink in Cameron. I think it is safe to say that all three of the Farrell kids had a great time! They skated the entire time with just a few breaks!

Marshall playing in his big game!

Morgan in his official Boy Scout uniform!

Maggie playing basketball.

This past weekend!

Well....I must first begin by saying "What kind of weather are we having?" It snowed, sleeted, and rained on Saturday, but was in the 50s yesterday! WOW! Missouri is the place to live if you are interested in extreme weather!

Morgan played in two basketball tournaments this weekend! Including the games played on Saturday, we had 9 ballgames in 6 days! Friday night his team played in Eagleville (almost Iowa) in a 5th grade tournament and Saturday afternoon his team played there in a 6th grade tournament. We were the only school to have virtually the same team in both tournaments and our boys placed 1st in the 5th grade tournament and 2nd in the 6th grade tournament! Not too bad for a group of mainly 4th and 5th graders (and one 6th and 2nd grader!)

I've posted pictures below of the two teams. Notice that most of the players are the same. We had a 6th grader for the 6th grade games, and some of our 4th graders played only in the 5th grade games!

Maggie managed to wiggle her way into a sleepover with her papaw and cousin Aubrey Friday night. My dad and his wife were at the games and had my niece for the night and Maggie managed to invite herself to spend the night as well! The girls had a blast together!

Well, that is all for now. This will be a much slower week as Elementary basketball is over! What will we do with the time we have? I'm sure we'll find something!

The 1st place team in the 5th grade tournament!

The 2nd place team in the 6th grade tournament. Marshall and his friend Jakub (both little brothers of players) managed to wiggle into the picture as "managers" of the team! They are both future basketball players in training! Notice the long faces, they played a good game, but were discouraged at the loss. No one was real excited about me having to take the picture!

Basketball, basketball and.......more basketball

The last 3-4 weeks have centered around "official" elementary basketball season. Morgan has played with a traveling basketball team since November, but the school-affiliated basketball started in early March. The first week of March they played in the Pattonsburg tournament where they placed 3rd. The Winston Shootout has been going on for the past two weeks with him playing two games, two nights a week. Their team has played very well and Morgan has enjoyed the season.

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures of him playing ball throughout the past few months.

Update for the Past Two Weeks

NO.....my computer is not broke! I have just been BUSY! The last two weeks have flown by and while I have meant to get online and update the blog, I haven't been able to get it done!

Morgan has played in ball tournaments for the past couple of weekends. The first one was a round robin style tournament with 3 other teams. His team lost one game to their "arch rivals", Stanberry, so I guess that means that they would have won 2nd place. This past weekend, he played in one in Bethany and they did place 2nd. Yesterday, he got sent home from school with a fever, and he is home again today. Hopefully tomorrow he will be well enough to go back!

A couple of weeks ago, Maggie participated in a cheer camp with the Varsity cheerleaders. On Friday night, the girls who participated got to do a cheer and the dance that the cheerleaders taught them! She did great and was very excited! Right now, basketball is not her thing! She also got her wire on her braces a couple of weeks ago. She was very excited about that!

Last week was Homecoming week at school (courtwarming for those who have football...which we don't). The kids had fun dressing up for Spirit Week, although the days were some of the craziest spirit days I had ever heard of!

Other than that, things are just plugging along! We are trying to avoid the sickness as much as possible. A lot of the kids at daycare have been out with one thing or another! Greg had the flu last week and I'm pretty sure that is what Morgan is dealing with now. Maybe just a few more weeks of this nasty weather and we can get to Spring!

Valentine's Week

Valentine's week was fun with the daycare party and classroom parties on Friday! It got quite hectic at daycare handing out all the kids' valentine's! I was a co-planner for Marshall's kindergarden classroom party. I ordered 2 dozen cookies from a bakery in Maysville that I just learned about. They were picture-perfect Valentine cookies and delicious! I was also in charge of games (which I don't like), but we only had time for one and Marshall deemed that it was "really fun"! So, I guess that's all that matters!

Morgan played in a basketball tournament on Saturday and his team got consolation! Unfortunately, the first game they played was against their "arch-rivals" from Stanberry. They played a good game, but those boys are a little stouter than our little guys and we just couldn't pull off a win. However, in the second game of the tournament, we were really ahead and the coach put in Marshall and another of the boy's younger brother! Marshall made a "buzzer beater" shot. He actually thinks it was the winning shot! The boys did a really good job of getting him the ball so that he had an opportunity to play! Needless to say, Marshall is still talking about making that shot. The third game proved to be a challenge, but in the end, we pulled off a win! The boys were really excited!

Following the tournament on Saturday, we headed to Gilman City to watch the Varsity Girls' Team play in our conference tournament championship game. They won 1st place. The last time our school won the tournament was in 1991! That's when I was sitting on the bench with the team! (I was on the team, but played only when a loss or win was assured...if you get my drift!)

My kids pretty much spent the weekend nights with Granny! My brother and his wife were in Las Vegas for Valentine's Day, so Granny had 5 of the grandkids spend the night with her! She assures me that she is getting good sleep and enjoying them. I did take Marshall and Maggie home with me Sunday after church so that they could get a nap and be recharged. I've mentioned before that a tired Maggie is not good! ;)

Today I am at daycare with 3 kids! It is President's Day and school is out, so attendance is minimal! We have been playing and I have GAC on for some background noise....like we need it!

A House Full of People

Friday night Morgan had a basketball game at Stewartsville prior to their Varsity Homecoming. Our team beat them "22" to 5, but they stopped giving us points about 5 minutes into the first half at our coaches's request. Maggie swears that we had at least 40 points. I don't know, but the boys played really well!

After the game, three of the players and their families came to our house for pizza and Wii and visiting. Maggie had a friend from her class spend the night and the house was full of action!

On Saturday, Morgan went with the Varsity Boys' Basketball team to their first game of the HDC Conference Tournament. Our friends', Eric and Deanna, three boys came and spent the night on Saturday night so that they could go to the city for a special night out! The kids had a good time playing outside, shooting baskets in the basement and playing Mario Super Sluggers on the Wii.

On Sunday morning, we skipped church (bad on us) and Maggie and I went and got groceries. After the Lewis' boys were picked up, we took naps and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon watching TV!

The past two days have been BEAUTIFUL and we have enjoyed having outside time at the daycare! This is the time of year when "cabin fever" starts! Tomorrow is supposed to be cold again, but at least we had a couple of good days to get us going!

January 26-February 1, 2009

The week began on the sad note with the news that Greg's cousin Denice Mefford had lost her battle with ovarian cancer. She was a wonderful lady who waged the battle bravely, but unfortunately couldn't beat the monster of cancer. We attended her visitation on Wednesday night and her funeral on Thursday. It was nice to get to see all of Greg's family, but I wish it could have been under better circumstances.

Morgan played in 2 ballgames on Saturday and both of them were "nailbiters". They won both games in overtime by 1 point! The last game was won by a freethrow which was a result of an end of game foul! The clock ran out at the same moment that our shooter was fouled! The poor kid had a lot of pressure on him, but he made the 2nd of two foul shots! The boys were ecstatic!

My mom had all of the grandkids with her on Saturday at the ballgame so they all ran around outside and had a good time in between games. Maggie got to go home and spend the night with Granny. Morgan had a sleep over at his friend Domenic's house and Marshall chose to stay with Greg and I and go to our friends the Lewis' house after the ball tournament. Morgan said that he and Domenic stayed up until 4 a.m.!

On Sunday, we headed to our friend Allen and Angel's annual Super Bowl party! The kids had a blast running around while the women played games upstairs and the men played games downstairs! We left their house shortly after the first quarter so that the kids could get home and get ready for bed and school. It is never good to start out the week with a sleep deprived Maggie! It can get UGLY when she is TIRED!