From Dress Up to PROM

Tonight was my wonderful big sissy, Madi's first PROM! She has always liked to play dress up with her friends. Here is a picture of those days.

Bucklin only has a Junior-Senior prom.As a Sophomore she had be invited by a upper classman to go. Her boyfriend Brian was asked to be a server and he could bring a date. So, several weeks ago the dress shopping began. After trying on dresses(more like one hundred)in Wichita and Kansas City, she found the one. The only problem was it was too long. So a couple weeks ago we went to Medicine Lodge, to see our wonderful Aunt Rie. We stayed that day and Madi got her dress fixed. After that Madi has been really excited to go. I believe she had been counting down. So after weeks of waiting to go she finally got to go tonight.Madi is (and has always ) looked beautiful. Our cousin Colby came out to help out with Madi's hair and make up. She looked really pretty tonight. Heres a couple pictures of Madi and Brian.

Love,Hannah:)

Time To Praise The Lord, Time To Represent! :) --I Love My Jesus Deep Down In My Heart!

First off sorry bout the super duper long title!This weekend,was probably the longest/most amazing/most spiritual weekend ever! I attended my first and definitely not my last FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) Conference, where they pack what feels like 3 weeks worth of activities and worship into two days. I got to meet amazing people, learn about Jesus anddddd gave my life to him!(:

Saturday, at FOUR in the morning, us five kids and our FCA leader left to go spend the following 36 hours at the Rock Springs 4-h Center. Its was about a four hour drive there. We arrived at about 8:30ish and I begin my day, a day that felt like an entire week packed into one.

The first thing I see is 54 college kids(our huddle leaders) yelling at each other, standing on a rock wall, and singing songs. Then I notice that there's like 200 kids standing around there also yelling and singing. My stomach literally dropped. I was like, I think I'm goin to be sick. :( I don't like making new friends or talking to people I don't know. After I say this our FCA leader imforms us that we'll be seperated into different groups and won't see each other all that much. at this point I was wanting to go home.no lie.

I then go on to meet my absolutely awesome huddle leader, who we all called PV.:) Who has made each girl in our huddle BUZZ LIGHTYEAR HEADBANDS! My weekend suddenly got brighter. Dude, she's loves buzz too! Afterwards I find out that I'll be staying the weekend with 11 other girls in a two room cabin the rest of the weekend. Long story short, I think all of us girls became pretty tight pretty dang fast.

I can't tell you to much about Saturday here because there are way too many stories I would want to share and this is already going to be a super long blog, I can tell. But I will tell you that I spent most of that night crying my eyes out. And that it was for sure happy tears coming out. Saturday night at around 10:30 I gave my life to God. Saying that and talking about it is still bringing tears to my eyes. That was my favorite moment of the whole trip. My next favorite was the fact that another girl who came with me gave her life to Big-J( as PV would call him, she has a ton of names for him:)anddd Brian did also! It is amazing what God can do when you give him control!

Sunday was sad day. It seemed to fly by. But I had just as much fun as Saturday. oh and competitions were great! We didn't win the towel(prize for best record in competition) tho. Brian and Chance's group both had a perfect record, but Brian's group won the tiebreaker:rock, paper, scissors( i so called that game too, just saying!).

Once back at Bucklin we all told mom and Gentry all about it. I'm making her go next time even if I have to drag her there! then we told stories and talked the rest of the night. today we were all soooooooooo tired! but agreed it was totally worth it.

By the end I wasn't even close to being ready to leave. I had an absolute blast and cannot wait til the fall conference. The girls I met and PV helped me so much and in so many ways i can't explain unless its in person! So I'm now ask me sometime in best if about FCA if you wanna hear so great stories! I'm gonna close with my huddles signature:)

All my bearcats call with me now! ugggghhhhhhrrrrrrr! :) haha best time ever!

-mk

P.s- do you love your Jesus deep down in your heart?? Let the answer be yes, the feeling is wonderful when you do!

She's a smartie!

Today's post is about my little sissy Hannah Banana. Yesterday, Hannah attended "math contest", for the second year in a row.(She's the smart child, I'm the fun one! :) jk)

Math Contest explanation= When a whole bunch of little 4th thru 8th grade math geniuses go and take math tests all day in Greensburg..

This year, 27 fifth graders from our surrounding league went. Now, not to brag or anything, buuuuuutttttttttttt I'm going to have to say that I think I have a math genius as a little sister:) who of which I am very proud of. She's gone to this contest both her 4th and 5th grade years, each time placing in a least one category.

This year she got:

• FIFTH in problem solving, this category contains the worst math problems ever because most are word questions.
• FIFTH in geometry! woo hoo!
• NINTH in mental math. which means the little smartie pants answered all the problems without using a calculator on any problem. Which is something I can hardly even do anymore.

Now need I remind you that there were 27 students there and she placed in all three tests? I think she's brilliant. haaaa mostly because I was never smart enough to be chosen to go when I was little. I'm going to have to say she did pretty dang good representing Bucklin junior high. :)

Well that's all for now! peace(: hehe

-mk :)

Countdowns(:

What do you get when you have 53 minutes of pure boredom(biology)?...... An agenda book full of countdowns!(: let me show you what i mean. haha

• 41 days until my sixteenth birthday!!! Now, I have been looking forward to my sweet sixteen since about...my fifteenth birthday. Okay, maybe not that long, but for quite awhile, I mean its my SWEET SIXTEEN!(: I have I mentioned I just a tad bit excited? haaa the main reason of this is because I am one of the youngest kids out of my group of close friends..there's only one other younger than me. Yes, I still consider myself a kid, even tho most teenagers would not like being called so. I say that until I'm not living with my mommy and daddy I am still considered a kid.
• 16 days- PROM!...what else is there to say about this topic? I mean seriously its prom. Besides the fact that, I get to feel like a pretty princess in a very pretty dress and have a absolute blast with a great group of friends.
• 28 days- Until Band Trip! We're going down to Texas For 4 days, and its something I've been looking forward to since I started band. No, I don't consider myself a band geek, for those who don't really know me..but I love music, and enjoy band quite a lot.:) We'll go to six flags- I lllloooovvvveee rides,especially rollar coasters. We plan on touring the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and attending a baseball game. I'm thinking about sitting the game out the game tho.

Well there you have it. I would have to admit that it was a very productive 53 minutes of my lifetime!

Oh and another thing I'm very pumped about is..... being a SPANISH DANCER:) during this year's Peace Treaty that takes place in Medicine Lodge. This one isn't present on the countdown because it'll take place in September. I've wanted to be one as long as I can remember and finally convinced Hannah Banana to be my partner in it. I love her.(: She's the best. Well I'd say that's plenty for tonight. Thanks for listening, or rather reading I guess.

-madi.

My First Blog! :)

I've decided that dad has failed miserably on keeping everyone updated on our lives here lately. :) I've reached this conclusion because of the fact that he hasn't blogged in about six months! After constantly bugging him to give me the password, he gave in. The main reason I wanted the password is because that having a blog is on my bucketlist. :) So, now I guess I'm supposed to inform everyone on my life? Just so everyone knows, this is the first blog I've ever done, and well I'm just gonna wing it. So don't judge!

We celebrated Hannah's 11th birthday on the 20th down at Aunt Carol and Uncle Rick's house. My little sissy is getting so dang old:( She had been with Marla and Justin that week and so they were there too. We went paintballing, watched a lot of basketball, and went rollar-skating with them; It was a blast! Mom dominated in paintball, and KU won their game that Friday(my family are hhhhuuuuggggeeee KU fans, btw), so it was a very good weekend.

For Hannah's birthday, the Broxtermans got her the book "Heaven Is For Real." Hannah finished it rather quickly and both her and Marla said it was really good, so I asked if I could borrow it. I literally could not put it down. Finished it all today! :) Its a great book about a little boys account of his trip to Heaven. I won't say anything else about it, but I would definitely suggest reading it! :)

Last weekend we went down to Medicine Lodge so my wonderful Aunt Rie could hem my, pause for effect.... PROM DRESS! :) It's very pretty! It also took me two whole days of trying on dresses and lots of driving to find it. No kidding, ask my mom, who of which, was there the entire time. Anddd Colby and Jacob, who also helped me pick it out! Btw, thank you Jacob for all the input(he reminds me lots of Brian, so I asked for his opinion multiple times:) )We finally found it in Kansas City when we went up to Topeka to celebrate Addy's birthday. Prom is April 16th and at first I honestly wasn't too excited about the idea of going, but now I've got multiple friends going also so I'm actually pretty pumped for it! Plus lots of pictures! And getting to get all dressed up for the night!

Well that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment. Hope my first time wasn't too bad!

-madi:)

New Bloggers

I have decide that I cannot blog worth crap. Therefore, I am going to let the girls start doing the blog. I may contribute from time to time, but I really don't take the time to do it. We will take any input and creative criticism. Hopefully they will do a better job than I have. TTFN, Ivan.

Labor Day Weekend

This weekend we started a project that was a long time coming. We stripped the stucco off the bell tower. Better explain a little. We live in an old church. Have for the past (almost) 15 years. Over the years we have completely stripped all the plaster and lath out of the inside, refinished as needed. All the wiring, plumbing, etc has been updated.

About three or four years ago we started to put siding on the house. It has been quite a project. On most of the house, we had to strip stucco off, put furring strips up, then hang siding. We put Hardi Plank on. Then it has to be painted. Its been a long process. The last part was the bell tower. Susan's brother in law, Rick, came out to help. Here we are getting started.

This was a big weekend project. In addition to Rick, Madison, Hannah and Susan assisted. And, a neighbor boy, Colton Downey helped. All of their efforts and assistance was greatly appreciated.

Since Rick doesn't mind heights, or so he says, he was elected to do the high work. In the picture above, he was on the top of the ladder, about 12 feet above the porch roof, which is about 10-12 feet off the ground. It seems a lot higher than it actually is.

The bell is still in the tower and will be for awhile longer. On Saturday, we pondered the idea of taking it out. After a little studying and head scratching, we decided it was too risky of a proposition. On one side of the bell is: BUCKEYE BELL FOUNDRY 1887. On the other is VANDUZEN AND TIFT CINCINNATI. Quite cool. We also found initials in the wood made with nail heads. Also the year 1923. Its our little piece of history.

Anyway, after three long, hot and windy days, we got all the stucco and lath off. Put new OSB up, a couple of new windows and some flashing. We will start siding when we have time and Rick has promised to come back and help with that.

Once again, I cannot give enough thanks to the ones who helped: Madison, Hannah, Susan, Colton. And to my brother in law, Rick, words are not enough. Your help was greatly appreciated.

Oh, did I mention it needs a roof now?