Growth in God

I was so excited to run Hometown Christmas for Magnolia this year. It was a great deal of work taking on the event at the end of October but my family stepped up and some local friends and it was a great day in the community. We had 27 vendors come out, 2 of which served food along with our Chili Cook Off. One of our kid vendors had the cutest train that he brought out. The local choirs from our school district provided hours of entertainment and so many volunteers brought cookies for our Cookie Express, esp the National Charity League. We did something new this year by finding groups to decorate trees and they were amazing- two local high schools, a jr high and the national charity league took these on. I am grateful to one of our members for the cute carnival games he made with a Christmas theme. The only thing that would have made the better was some warmer weather or less wind, it made it hard for people to want to stay around and shop, but there was always lots of people there with the choirs constantly changing out. I am grateful to my personal friends who volunteered their time to help my family and I make this a successful event. I am also thankful I got to step away from running it long enough to see the kids in the parade.

One thing that I love about a small town is the constant prayer in sports, at school etc. I admire these young students that openly pray before they run etc. Its a great way to witness to others.

This picture means so much to me because it was the second meet in the season and she had been so incredibly sick. I was so worried about her competing. I know she was supposed to run Varsity and she didn't, she ran JV and did really amazing for having over a week break from running and still being dehydrated. It was however a little tough and you could see that in this photo after the race.

He went back and forth this year with Freshman Team, JV Team and Varsity Team..He ran hard and it was a great season.

We never followed the bus during the season so this is often the site we were greeted with. Always so happy to see us.

Some of the races it was super hard to get really good photos

It always amazes me how different the courses are, sidewalk, cement, grass, mud..we had some great cross country courses during the season.

They were familiar with this course because they ran it in Jr High. I love it because you can get photos as they come over this hill.

Sometimes you can get the perfect photo- this one was him jumping right in front of the person running to sweep in and steal first place.

Sometimes the crowds are an issue, they are not always courteous to those wanting to take photos. I took photos all season of nearly every single runner on our team. I have several hundred pictures. It was a big chore but it was really fun to watch them and document their season.

For the most part we had wonderful weather. For that I am truly grateful.

I always tried to start at the beginning of the race with a group photo and then get them during the race at least once and at the end. Sometime it worked very successfully sometimes it didn't. I think I will be better prepared for next season if they choose to run again.

I am thankful for all the pictures with the kids that I was able to take this year. Only one issue. I never did think to give my husband or a friend the camera so I could be in some of them. A huge lesson to learn!

Some of the races we entered were a higher division and sometimes the courses were very difficult.

Our daughter doesn't have an issue when the courses are laid out in an unusual fashion

These unusual courses do affect our son, I am not sure if it is his IRLENS, learning issues etc or what exactly but he had a harder time staying in the top of his team with these races then when he could clearly see the layout.

I love the massive amounts of blue skies in most of the photos, we did have two meets canceled due to massive rain storms, it did not seem to get the team down. They even met locally on a Saturday morning to run in the rain just to have the practice time.

This is a new coach for us this year. He sure loves these kids, he plays around with them and is firm and strict like a parent would be. I think that led to a great season.

I wish I had captured more of these moments in prayer.

This seemed to be a standard at so many things this year. They have a think about him holding her. I love it because it shows how close they are even though they sure have some major times of fighting.

This was funny- our son handed her off to her dad and he thought it was funny

we had a practice meet at a girl scout camp. It turned out to be the best pictures of the season for most of the kids. i loved all the horses and eventually the kids running made them want to play because they started running in the fields.

we didn't purchase season photos this year I think I took some really good ones so it didn't make sense to pay the $30 per kid to get a team photo and individual shot.

here are the horses running

even at practice they run hard to better prepare their bodies for the meets. I love at this practice how they wore their meet clothes too.

Regionals. I am so proud of both of my younger two for making Regionals, they had a great time.

She came in first for our team at this meet and 15th overall in the Region, very good run.

There were so many boys running I think that makes it more difficult for him to stay up with the pact. Not to mention he is a freshman and the older boys tend to be a little stronger runners because their bodies are stronger. He did so well though, stayed about upper middle of the boys that ran

Neither of our teams will go on to State but it worked out best since our oldest and youngest start their UIL season this coming weekend and it was a conflict. I am curious to see how well they do with their academic competitions this season.

I think these photos will be priceless someday.

This is the first time I have ever seen her try to lift him. I had snapped several shots so she held him for quite a while. Might be a great Christmas Gift for the wall.