Bragg Family South

Beth and Stephen participated in their first "hunt" today... With Hope and Kenny gone to see the new Harry Potter movie, and the Wisconsin Badgers victorious against Michigan, I had some time to kill this afternoon. This morning, I took Kenny along with me on a hunt on our hunting lease property south of town. Stephen protested that he wanted to go along, but there was no way I could take a noisy 3-year-old with any possibilities of doing any real hunting (Kenny and I saw 4 deer this morning, including one buck, but no shots). I had to leave Stephen behind then, much to his chagrin. Well, this afternoon, the weather was nice, so I figured I'd take both Beth and Stephen out for a drive along the gravel road that leads through the leased area. We didn't see any deer (don't worry, y'all, I didn't even take my gun, and the kids didn't get out of the truck), but I think they had fun, and they can claim their first "hunt"!

Today, y'all get a bonus blog posting... Well, in reality, I just completed one post when I realized that some pictures from last month didn't get in it--just didn't pay enough attention to the organization of the images, I guess. Anyhow, rather than skipping them or adding them after the fact, I figured I may as well add a separate post. So as you can see in the image above, I acted like a kid for a bit during the homecoming festivities at UAM , shuttling Beth and Stephen around on an over-sized tricycle. Kenny and Beth also got to try out a fancy jumping contraption: UAM also played a football game, but I don't remember who won: Beth celebrated her 6 th birthday in October, and here are a couple pictures from her party. First, Beth and guests got to decorate miniature pumpkins with markers: They also got to decorate their own cupcakes (instead of birthday cake). And, of course, the gift opening, which some of Beth's lil ' friends seemed to enjoy more...

Yet another month has passed, and yet again I vow to myself not to let so many days pass between blog postings... October and November have been busy for us again. In the picture above, Kenny and some of his friends pet a rabbit at a special fundraising hay maze his school put on this year (they're trying to raise money for new playground equipment). Kenny was also an honor roll student (hopefully, the first of many), for which his pleasure on receiving this award (and blue ribbon) is quite clear: Kenny earned all A's, for which we were particularly proud, and his (generally) good behavior also got him a different award. Of course, the big excitement in October (after Beth's birthday, of course) is getting ready for Halloween. Below, Beth and Kenny dig into pumpkin carving: Stephen also gave it his all: The net result was pretty scary, especially given the way our little camera blurred the image: Below are our trick-or- treaters , including lil ' Beth as a witch, K...