Giving Thanks---Early

Ok, so we decided a few weeks ago that we were going to go up to my brother's house in the frozen tundra of Michigan for Thanksgiving. Right after that a swim meet sign up went on the board. We signed Jared and Ryan up thinking we could leave right after the meet on Sunday. As luck would have it they are in the afternoon shift on Sunday so that puts us behind schedule by 5 hours--but we can still get up to Rick's in ok time.

We find out today that Kevin's team has been invited to play in a tournament in Savannah that same weekend. Looks like Rob and Kevin are off for a boys weekend together and I will take the swimmers to the pool. We should meet up around the same time on Sunday to keep us relatively on schedule! We're going to need that week long vacation after the busy weekend.
We are so happy and so lucky that the kids love their sports. It's so good for them and it's nice to see them have so much fun! We'll keep you posted and I'll try to get pics up of the crazy weekend.

Dynamos Fall 2008
Uriel, Alexis, Jaxon, Fred, Cristiano, Drew, Kevy, Max

Always and Everywhere

Rob works with Laura's husband Matt:

his is Laura Bowman’s first children’s book. The inspiration for Always and Everywhere came from a desire to help raise money for her dear friend, Margie LaSalle and her family.

“I felt so helpless when it came to Margie‘s cancer. Initially, the children’s book provided an opportunity to help the LaSalle’s with expenses. However, writing the book was a cathartic experience. I was able to collaborate on the book with Margie and our mutual friends, which makes the message so much more meaningful. I also painted quite a few of the illustrations at her house while Margie and friends watched my young children. This special time with Margie was unforgettable. I learned so much about courage, the importance of friends and family and the will-to-live.”

Laura Bowman is an artist, living in the Atlanta area with her husband Matt and their children Kade 3-years, and Ryder 8-months.

To learn more about the book go to http://www.alwaysandeverywhere.org

Dynamo's are the Champs!

Kevin has had the best season of soccer. His coach was a professional player in Mexico and is awesome with the kids. I think he plays now with the Atlanta Silverbacks. The weekly practices usually run an hour or so over but the kids never notice. Today it showed. This season they were undefeated and they had a triple header to take the Championship for their division. He will be playing with the same team in Spring and then we will have to reevaluate what sport he wants to play. It will be hard for him to say goodbye to coach Alex...

I took my camera and meant to take pictures today but it was WAY too cold. Here are some retro pics. Kevy in his first and second season when he was 3...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

This one cracks me up. The kids were SO wound up and ready to go trick or treating. We were waiting for it to get a little bit darker outside. We gave in and left shortly there after--but not before they had a chance to goof around with all the decorations they put out this afternoon.

Area 51 Alien apparently mourning "something"...

Blade the Vampire Slayer trying to not smile

Miss Bones goofin' around

The kids love doing this...to me it's a bit creepy.

The outside--in the light...

...and in the dark

The barfing pumpkin...
"this is what happens when you eat too much candy kids..."

We hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

Homer House Pumpkins 2008

We have to do Halloween in stages. Tonight was the goop sccoping, pumpkin carving, pumpkin seed roasting night. Around 7 pm we went down to our clubhouse for the 2nd Annual Haunted House for St. Judes Children's Hospital. The kids finally went to bed with visions of candy corn dancing in their heads. Tomorrow is Fall centers in the kids classrooms, rush home from school, decorate the outside of the house, order pizza, get dressed, beg for candy from strangers and then maybe a trip back down to the haunted house. I love this holiday!

Scooping the goop
the kids were REALLY good at this---FINALLY!

you just had to get the right angle to do it right

Kevin had the little toad guy from the Mario games
Rob's was the puking Pumpkin-barf to be added tomorrow night
Ryan's was Domo-Kun

Mommy had the white skull
Jared's was a vulture on tombstones

The HomerHouse Pumpkins 2008

Pinkie

Pinkie after the Fall Festival

It's that time of year again for The Chalker Fall Festival. The boys decided to save the tickets from getting their hair painted since we had church the next day. Ryan just couldn't possibly pass the chance to have PINK hair. The gal that did it had just come on shift so she used a tad more hair spray then the other gals. The picture does not do the color justice. Just for reference it took two tubs of water and 4 shampoos to get most of the color out. She is still a bit of a strawberry blond...

Friends for LIFE 2009

I normally link the HomerHouse to the Friends for LIFE blog but here is my latest post for FFL. You can always find the Friends for LIFE page by clicking on the link at the right hand side of the HomerHouse blog. This is my second year as chair for Cobb county, Rob is on my steering committee (it's guaranteed time that we get to spend together), and all three of the kiddos have been on the team for years-- and they do all their own fundraising.
My favorite Relay quote is:
"Raise awareness, Raise money, Raise children who care and Raise the hopes of cancer patients everywhere that we will make a difference."
The theme for Relay for Life this year is:
The Color of HOPE
Our teams mantra is:
"We are Friends with HOPE, we are Friends making a difference, We are Friends for LIFE"

In the furture, if you would like to keep tabs on us go to
www.friendsforliferelay.blogspot.com

This Friday (October 31st) is the last day of early bird registration. If you would like to register for only $5 then you need to do so by Friday. After this week the fee goes up to the normal $10 per person. We already have a great start on our team but if you know someone who would love to be involved with the American Cancer Society, please invite them to join Friends for LIFE. If they cannot commit at this time but would like to stay updated with what we do as a team, just email their information to me and I will keep them in the loop.

Our 1st year:
1 campsite, 10 members, $2,000 raised

Our 5th year:
6 campsites, 53 members, Over $182,000.00 raised-
number 1 team in the 4th largest Relay--in the WORLD--for the last 2 years...

What can we do with the 2009 Relay???

Go to www.cobbrelay.org to register

Corn Maze 2008

"Today we went to Carlton Farms
First we went to the corn cannon and dad hit the bucket but didn't get it in. If he got it in he would have gotten a free tee-shirt.
Then we went to the one way maze (you could only make right turns-NO LEFT TURNS, GRAN).
After that we went to the second mini-maze which was not one way.
We got to go play with the ducks and have duck races.
We visited the petting zoo after that.
Finally it was time for the corn maze. We got to all the bases but the 10th hole puncher did not work.
When we got out we went to the hayride and got to feed the cows by hand.
Then we went to get some cheese and milk, then went to the ticket booth and got prizes for finishing the maze.
We came home and had ribs for dinner and FRESH-JUST MILKED-milk with brownies."--Jared

"This video was produced, edited and composed by Jared Homer. Great job little man."

--mom

Gold Invite October 11th-12th

Well, this was a crazy busy weekend for the entire Homer house. Saturday the alarm went off at 5:30 am to get Jared and Ryan to warm ups for the first Gold swim meet of the year. This was Ryan's first Gold meet. Kevin had a soccer game at 10:30 (thanks Grammy and Pop Pop for being there for him) where he was goalie and did great! Grandfather pulled double duty and saw all three at sports. After the meet Tracey, Jared and Gran then headed off to the Bartow's early for pictures and finalizing wedding plans. The rest of the group followed for a beautiful back yard wedding at 5:00. Sunday the alarm went off again at 5:30 but we were done by noon.

Jared did really well considering he aged up for this meet. Ryan did more then we could have asked of her. In her 50 Free she beat all of the 5 year olds and all but one of the 6 year olds...that's girls AND boys...
Jared placed in 1 event out of 8 and Ryan was in the 40's out of 50 something entrants but that included some kids that were almost 9 years old...they did not have a 6 and under division, only 8 and under. The saying, "run with the big dogs or stay on the porch"...no one told her that she wasn't a big dog and she stepped up to the challenge. It will be fun to watch her grow into her sport.

GO GOLD!!

**add on**-Coach Karen came up to me at practice today and said that I needed to watch Ryan. I asked her what she did now and she replied, "all the coaches at the meet would see her get on the blocks and 'awwww' in unison". I laughed because when I was editing the movie I could see the coaches doing just that in the background of her videos. You can still see it in her first event (the 50 free where she is in lane 9 close to the coaches table). Coach K said that we shouldn't be surprised if she ends up in Dalton, Columbus, LaGrange etc, they all thought she was so cute. What we love is that she is having a great time, she's making friends and she feels great about herself...

Rehearsal Dinner

This weekend the Harvey family came back into town. Jennie and Tom got married on Saturday at her parent's house in Roswell. Jen's sister Angie took these pictures when we were at the rehearsal dinner. I have serious camera envy---look at these pictures!!

Spencer and Jared

Ryan & KieKie

Mikayla & Jared

Jennie & Tracey