Liberty Bowl Champions!

Photo by Joe Murphy/Getty Images/espn.com

Photo by msstateathletics.com

Congratulations to Coach Croom and the MSU Bulldogs for their win in the 2007 Liberty Bowl in Memphis, TN. The 10-3 victory for the Dawgs caps off an awesome season.

Thanks Amy!!

As Amy as shown you, she'll be watching the Liberty Bowl in ESPN HD today! Here's my TV for today's game... :(





I hope that I can tell the teams apart...

Liberty Bowl Pregame!!

We're at Jeffrey and Kasie's house for the Liberty Bowl, ready for our viewing on their 55" widescreen HD LCD tv (sorry Trey, had to do it :)).

Our pregame festivities consist of loving baby Lilli and playing Guitar Hero III!

Go Bulldogs!!!

Do you hear what I hear?

We couldn't have had a nicer Christmas present this morning than to find Rachel's picture on the front page of the "Region" section of today's paper! Her church choir was pictured singing in an article about favorite Christmas carols!

Click on the picture to visit the Free Lance-Star web site and check out the article!




Photo by Free Lance-Star

Go Elf Yourself (or Merry Christmas from the Talmadges)

Click on the picture below to see Becky and Rachel's Christmas dance!







Merry Christmas!!!

Yule Pizza and Other Christmas Stuff

The kids and I were hanging at the house (albeit coughing our heads off!) last night while Amy was out partying for the holidays. So, I couldn't let such an opportunity pass without a little party food of our own! Check our our yule pizza (uncooked and cooked)!

Both of the kids sang in church this morning! Check out their choirs!

Becky's choir:

Rachel's choir:

Becky in the news!

Becky was in the local newspaper twice this week!

First, she was recognized for getting all A's in school. Check out the article (look under "Parkside Elementary"):

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/112007/11272007/335579/index_html?page=4


Her soccer team was also in the paper for winning their league championship. They went undefeated for the season! Here's the picture taken right after the championship game:

Trey's Heisman Analysis

OK, I'm going to settle all of this Heisman nonsense once and for all. Here's the most definitive Heisman analysis you'll find anywhere!

For this Heisman race, you can boil it all down to two basic things, yards and touchdowns. The object of the game is to move the ball down the field and, most importantly, score, right? So, take a look at the four finalists and check out how they did in terms of helping their teams move the ball and score touchdowns.

Check out these stats...

Candidate	Total Yards	Touchdowns
Brennan *	4239 yds	46 TDs
Daniel **	4454 yds	37 TDs
McFadden	1889 yds	16 TDs
Tebow	3970 yds	51 TDs

* - Colt Brennan only played in 10 full games.
** - Chase Daniel played in 13 games.

Let's talk about each candidate.

Brennan - Colt Brennan, though he only played in 10 games, played against really poor competition. The teams he played against were a combined 42-80 with only 2 teams (Boise State and Fresno State) having a winning record. For of these teams had either 1 or 2 wins.

Daniel - Chase Daniel played 6 games against teams that had winning records and won 4 of them. His only really poor game was the Big 12 Championship against Oklahoma. He played well against them the first time they met, but not the second time.

McFadden - Darren McFadden, while he did have over 1700 yards rushing, virtually disappeared in 3 games. He had 64 carries for 192 yards (3.3 yds/car) against MSU, FIU and Auburn combined. He only played against 7 teams with winning records.

Tebow - Tim Tebow rushed for almost 900 yards and had more rushing touchdowns (22) than McFadden (15). He passed for 29 touchdowns and is the first player to run and pass for 20 TDs in NCAA FBS history. 10 of the 12 teams that Tebow played against had winning records. For the most part, he played well in their 3 losses. His "worst" performance was against #1 LSU, and still almost led Florida to a win.

Combining all of these factors, Tim Tebow is clearly the correct pick for the Heisman Trophy. He performed at the highest level against superior competition and his 51 TDs are tops in the group.

Advent Means "Coming"

On Sunday, December 2, the first Sunday of Advent, Becky and Rachel attended the Advent Workshop at our church. They made new crafts and ornaments for our tree, and when we got home, we decorated the tree. We are thankful for the season of Advent, to prepare us for the real reason we celebrate Christmas: the birth of Jesus!

Swimming in winter?

Yep, we have swim meets in the winter. The good thing is that it's indoors. The bad thing is that it takes ALL DAY! Both girls worked hard and did well. The girls have just gotten back into swimming. They started back to practice at the beginning of November after being mostly off since early August.

Below are a couple of videos from the meet!


Becky's 50 yard backstroke:

Rachel's 25 yard backstroke:

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Today would have been Mom's 66th birthday. I can only get away with saying that because she's not here to stop me! I hope you're having a great birthday season up there!







We love you and miss you!

Grandma's Killer Fruit Cake

One of our local radio stations carries area groups performing Christmas music. They play one local group per hour. Becky's school chorus, the Parkside Elementary Singers, are one of the groups being featured. Their next time slot is the coming Sunday at about 5:10 PM, though you should listen early just in case!

Becky has a solo speaking part in the song! Listen for the line, "I winced at Wilma's gizzard mousse."

The station provides schedule updates showing when each group is performing. You can check the schedule for future Parkside Elementary performances at this site:

http://www.959wgrq.com/xmas-spotlight.html

To listen, simply click the link above to get to the radio station page, then click the "Listen Live" link on the left!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

The Golden Egg Comes Home

Veruca Salt might not have fallen into the furnace if she had known what we all now know. You don't need to buy a special goose to have golden eggs. You just need a really bad 4th down play call by your archrival, a touchdown drive, a punt return for a TD, some big hits and a 48 yard game winning field goal in 10 minutes and 8 seconds! That's what happened in Starkville on Friday when Mississippi State overcame a 14 point deficit with 10 minutes left to beat Ole Miss 17-14! MSU hung in all game, even though we were playing horribly, and found a way to win!


Many thanks to Sylvester Croom and the Bulldog coaching staff for their hard work this season and to the players for never giving up!


In honor of the Bulldogs first winning season since 2000, here are some pictures and links to check out!


Our kids and their cousins with Bully before the MSU-LSU game 2 years ago:





Nick Saban in 2 more years:






MSU holding the Golden Egg after this year's Egg Bowl:







Courtesy mstateathletics.com / AP Photo/Jim Lytle


Croom carrying the MSU flag after the game:



Courtesy espn.com / AP Photo/Jim Lytle

For the birds (or the squirrels)

So, we thought that we'd be kind to the birds and make sure that they had something good to eat this winter. Grammy and Poppy had given the girls bird feeders a while back. So, they painted them and stuck them to the glass door in the kitchen. We thought that the birds could use one to eat from and one to nest in. However, the squirrels have had other ideas!

It seems that the squirrels really like bird food and will do just about anything to get some, including climbing our screen. Apparently, the blood doesn't rush to a squirrel's head as it does to our heads, because he stayed in this position for quite some time! The feeders are just out of view to the left. I guess that squirrels think best upside-down!


He's finally put together his plan and is heading for the feeder. I can't believe that bird feed is worth all of this. Maybe I should try it! It's probably pretty low in calories and fat!




Persistence finally pays off and this squirrel reaches the destination. Check out the video below to see the squirrel's Thanksgiving Feast!




We hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving as much as we and our squirrel did!

We ran the video through our squirrel translator, and this is what we heard:

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! this is a relly good feast. ok, what is looking at me? i dont care. this is still good. im geting ful. i want to have enouf to last the winter. what!? is that a dog? its looking at me!!!!!! ok, im ful now. oooh, that dog is freekie. well, got to go. that shur was good. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! that dog is relly freekie. good by!!!"

In Loving Memory...

After a year of "growing" anticipation, brushing morning knots, and monthly measurements, Rachel finally got her hair cut yesterday to make a donation to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. Inspired by her Grammy, she made an 8" hair donation to help make wigs for cancer patients. Check out the before and after pictures!


Before:



During:



After:







We know that Grammy is SO PROUD of her!!!