Memorial Day weekend

It was kind of a last minute decision to go to Jacksonville for the weekend. The kids were asking about seeing Nana and Papa, and since I can't really think of many ways to help them out right now, other than letting them see the kids, we decided to head there for a short visit. It was a lovely weekend (NOT) as it rained the entire weekend. Silly me, I took my bathing suit and all my beach attire, as if I thought we might actually enjoy a nice day at the beach. Chris and Papa did take the kids to the pool for a short time when there was a break in the rain, but I had no desire to do that (it was cold!). The kids still had fun playing outside (who says a little rain is going to stop them?). You can't see in these pictures, but it is raining...

Cole LOVES to build, especially at Nana and Papa's house. He has a wonderful little friend, Cooper, who lives across the street. Cooper is the same age as Cole (just finished Kindergarten also) and they are really good buds. They love creating all sorts of projects out of my dad's "stuff" in the garage. Cole started working on this one on his own.

And my sweet husband just cannot sit still, which turns out to be a good thing for my parents (especially Nana, as she gets lots of yard work done while he's there!). They have a HUGE corner lot and it is not an easy task to complete the mowing. You can't tell in this picture, but it is raining - he pushed on even through the rain (and no shoes - only brought his flip flops, which he shed after the first few minutes of mowing).

Saturday night dinner...Luke just loves corn - especially corn on the cob. I found that out last week when I cut the corn off his cob - he was not happy about that and wanted the cob that was on MY plate. At my parents house, he ate his own cob and finished off mine and Ansley's. I think he would have kept on eating till there was nothing left if we hadn't stopped him.

Ansley's officialy birthday was on Sunday, though we have been celebrating for the entire month now, or so it seems. We gave her our presents and one more from Nana and Papa (and took her out to dinner later that night, back in Orlando).


The birthday girl with Nana and Papa.

End of the year for Cole

Cole has had a busy few days with all of the end of the year stuff. Thursday was the last chapel of the year, and Cole received an award in the chapel for the 100% Club. Students who participate in the AR (Accelerated Reader) program choose books to read and then take short tests online that cover material from the book that he read. Cole met his goal for the quarter and also scored a perfect score on each of the tests. Apparently there were only a few kids from his class that were participating in AR (based on the student's ability to read), so it was great that he was even able to participate in it, much less get this award.

And my precious ADD child...he was up on stage in Faith Hall, a big building where the lower school chapel was held. The choir (in yellow shirts) was behind him and he was so curious as to what was going on behind him (forget being up on stage and looking out at all the people...and mom, who had the camera!). I tried to get several pictures of him but in each one, he was turned around checking everything out.

Later that day, his class held their own class awards. His classmates voted him the "Best Smile" Award. I have to agree that he does have a pretty cute smile :-) Mrs. Cline also announced the AR readers and how many words they read... Cole read over a thousand words! I think one little girl who started AR back in the fall had read over 5,000! Cole just started a few months ago, so I thought he did great!

This picture above is from his class party, held on Friday. It was an Under the Sea theme, but unfortunately, it didn't get to be outside with the big water slide, as originally planned (due to this crazy weather!). They did have fun inside and now he is officially a 1st grader! I can't believe it!! And we survived Kindergarten...I thought for sure he would drive his teacher crazy (and us also) but he did really well. It amazes me to see how much he has grown in so many ways...academically, physically, spiritually, and how he has matured. Yep, still have a LONG ways to go, but he has done well!

Graduation Night

Every year at TFA's graduation, several of the Kindergarten kids sing a song to the Seniors. Well, Cole knows quite a few of the seniors - mostly from Chris' basketball team, but he knows a few others also, along with many other high school students. When Cole hurt his arm a few months ago, Chris was out of town, so he asked Ginger, the Asst. Athletic Director, to get Cole out of class and take him over to the high school building, where Dave (a former trainer with the Magic) teachers science classes. Dave is quite familiar with injuries, so he was going to look at Cole's arm and recommend if we needed to take him for x-rays. Cole ended up seeing several high school students he knew over there, so by the end of the day, it seemed like everyone knew Cole had hurt his arm. I had kids coming up to me asking how Cole's arm was, and I was left confused as to how they knew, until I put all the pieces together. And Cole thought it was quite cool to get to go to the high school building and see all the big kids...

So, back to graduation... first, as the kids marched up on stage (or rather, Cole was "bouncing" up to the stage), he saw a few high school kids so he turned to wave as he was walking up the stairs...and ran straight into the microphone! I couldn't see that it was him but I sure heard it (the loud thump) - Chris told me about it later, because he was sitting up front, on the side ramp and had a great view of Cole walking up the stage. And then the kids got all lined up on stage, and Cole decided to do a big wave to his favorite basketball seniors, Kacey and Jake. He did a great job though during the song, doing the hand motions and singing (he usually just does one or the other!). Someone took a few pictures of him for me. The first is actually a picture of the video on the big screen.


Cole is in the back row, yellow shirt.

Doughnuts with Dad

Cole's class celebrated Muffins with Mom last week in honor of Mother's Day. Since school is out when Father's Day comes around, they go ahead and do something for the dads called Doughnuts with Dad. Of course, Cole was super excited about this one too. I didn't sleep much the night before (due to this stuff up my nose, crazy medications, not being able to breathe, etc), so I was a little out of it when they got ready to go that morning, but Cole was up bright and early, dressed and ready to go. Daddy (who I must take a moment to brag on and say that he is a SUPER dad) did a good job taking pictures - even thought to take a few pictures of some of Cole's creations (which Mommy did NOT think to do!)

Another birthday picture

I realized after posting that I had no pictures of my parents with Luke or Ansley (the birthday kids!). This is the only one I got - Mom (aka Nana) playing with Luke as he opened one of his presents from them. I think Papa was running around playing with Cole during these pictures.

What a week!

I read something a few weeks ago about being busy versus full... Busy was described as frantic, stressed, weary - Full is satisfying, fruitful, joy with serving. Busy gets distracted by many things - Full is receiving, trusting God as the provider and source. Busy takes control of my time and energy, while Full renews my strength and comes from a life in the Spirit. Busy gets results - Full brings rewards... I think I could say that we had a very "Full" week last week. Maybe a little busy but definitely full! Tutoring is in full swing for me (end of the year and exam crunch) and it was end of the year stuff for the homeschool program last week. I spent several days last week gone all day and most of the evening from my home... I LOVE my home - I am even more especially thankful for it after having been "homeless" for 3 months last year (very dear friends let us rent their home while we looked for a home to buy after selling our previous home, but it was not able to be much of a home - it was very temporary). This past weekend actually marked our 1 year anniversary of owning this home - May 9, 2008 was a very happy day for us indeed! So, we had one of those weeks where there was alot going on, and I have to say that I was almost (just a little) grateful for a little sinus surgery, so that I had a reason that I HAD to stay home for a few days!

Here's some of our Full week:

My dear friend Jen

I have been blessed with a very wonderful friend...I think it's been about 10 years now?... After living with them for a few months (many years ago, once again when we were in between houses!) and having a miscarriage during that time, Jason and Jen truly became our precious friends. We have walked through alot of "life" together. My heart hurts for all their family is enduring now, so I cherish even more so my time with her. Wednesday night at Bible Study we had a sorta-surprise birthday party for her. Yeah, didn't think it would be much of a surprise (she had an idea) but it was still fun. And we started a new Beth Moore study (Esther) which I am super excited about.

Thursday night Chris had the Athletic Banquet at school, so when he got home, I headed over to Jen's to celebrate her real birthday, since Jason wasn't due home till the following day. It was kind of nice to have a girls night after a busy (I mean, full) week (and a slightly emotional week after learning about all of Dad's cancer stuff). So we, along with Lindsey, Jen's wonderful sister, dove into a chocolate chip cookie cake (yummy!) and watched the movie Bride Wars (great chick flic!). (Sorry Jen, unfortunately there's no "air brush" on my computer to add some make-up on us!)

Friday morning was oh-so sweet. Cole's class had their Muffins with Mom (to celebrate Mother's Day). Cole has been talking about this for several weeks and was up bright and early, because of course, he was super excited about it. We had muffins and fruit (Cole served me breakfast), received gifts our child had made for us, and then the class sang several songs. Boy, I don't know how Mrs. Cline manages 16 little five and six year olds... Kindergarten teachers truly are special.

Friday night Nana and Papa came... Poor Papa, he had a biopsy on Friday morning and wasn't feeling up to par just yet. The kids were so excited to see them, and he was such a good sport, even though he felt crummy. Thankfully, he and Nana were able to get to bed pretty early, while Chris and I stayed up to finish this (thank you honey! I know you wanted to go to bed but you were a great assistant!)

Ansley's dance recital was on Saturday morning. While I think she enjoyed taking the ballet and tap this year, it wasn't her favorite (and don't think she's meant to be a professional dancer!). But I do have to say she sure looked cute in her little outfit and up on stage.

Chris and I got tickled at this...she is such a "stop and smell the roses" type child and sometimes gets out in lala land. Her class was lined up to come back on stage at the end with all the different classes, and she was still standing there, twirling her flower and looking around while her class filed on to the stage. The lady who was helping is motioning on the side of the picture to tell her to "come on!". :-)

And finally, while I'm going for the longest post ever... Luke's birthday party was that afternoon (and sort of Ansley's - we will celebrate hers later this month with a few of her little girl friends but the family brought her presents too). Luke was so tired by the time we got to the cake (it was past nap time for him), so we didn't get much enthusiasm from him.

The poor child...we FORGOT to let him open his presents...after eating cake, Chris put him down for his nap. So then we woke him up early (he did get a good nap in and needed to be woken up so he would go to bed at a decent hour, but he was a little dazed when opening his presents!).

Swimming Lessons

I liked swimming lessons better last year when Luke couldn't talk. This year he cried over and over "Mommy! Mommy!" for the first two days. It was much better on the 3rd day - I think he realized "she's not getting me out and it's much better if I stop screaming"...