Last Day of School!

I can't believe Lily's first year of school is over.  What a fantastic first year!  Lily has grown so much, and we have loved watching her.  We are so proud of this sweet girl!

Getting ready to leave for her last day.

Ryan and I attended the year end chapel service where they handed out several awards and each class performed.  Pre-K, Kindergarten and First Grade all performed together.  Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoX0PHJLHAE&feature=youtu.be) is a link to some songs they performed; such cuties!  Lily is on the front row, third from the right.

Showing how "the rain came tumbling down" during one of their songs.

 "The wise man built his house upon a rock."

 After the chapel service, there was a school-wide picnic outside.  Liz and Mia joined us for this part.  Lily changed clothes, and then had fun playing with Mia and other friends.  They enjoyed a picnic on the playground, running all around and sliding down the big hill behind the school.  Ryan and I enjoyed chatting with friends too; we'll miss seeing everyone over the summer.  Unfortunately, the pork being grilled triggered Liz's allergies, so she stayed in the car most of the time and watched from afar.

What a great first year!  We are so thankful for ACCA.  See you all again in August!

Field Day at ACCA

During the last week of school, ACCA hosted their Greek Olympics field day.  It was so much fun!  Since this is a smaller school, all the classes were divided into different color teams, so kids from each grade were on each team.  Lily was a little nervous about being on a team with "kids from big kid grades," but she did great.  Here are a few pictures from the day.

Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Worrell starting out the opening ceremonies.

 All the kids started with a warm up lap around the parking lot.  Lily ran with Ashlyn Kelly who was so sweet to her.  Ashlyn is finishing up 3rd grade, and she took Lily under her wing.  When I walked in, they were holding hands, and Ashlyn was making Lily smile and totally relaxing her.  Lily told me later that Ashlyn made her "not nervous" anymore.  I sent Ashlyn's mom an email later on telling her how much I appreciate her efforts.

 Lily and Ashlyn after their run.

 Coach Meilstrup led the kids through warm-up stretches.  Here's Lily and her team doing jumping jacks.

 One of the events was a three-legged race.  Here's Lily and Taylor doing their best; they did really well!

 We didn't get to take pictures many pictures because Ryan and I were both in charge of events.  Ryan showed everyone the discus throw (how far can you toss a frisbee) while I did the javelin throw (who can throw a pool noodle the farthest).  Other events included an egg toss, long jump, water pitcher relay, hole in one and shot put.  The kids had a blast!

Towards the end, each team had to get a hula hoop around their circle.  It looked pretty tricky but like lots of fun!

 Tug of war!

 Lily with her best friend Jill during the day.  These girls always have fun together.

 Lily showing off her Olympic certificate.  She loved field day!

Gymnastics Shows

Lily and Mia have thoroughly enjoyed their gymnastics class at The Little Gym this past year.  Their skills have improved so much, and they have had a lot of fun.  It's been really neat to watch them progress.  Yesterday was Lily's year-end show, and Mia's was today.  It was during their regular class time, and I think they were excited to show off!  Here are a few pictures.

Lily doing a back bridge.

 Ta da!

 Lily really likes being on the uneven bars.

 Handstand on the beam; I was impressed!

 Showing off her medal.

 Mia's class does a lot of noodle work.  Look at the happiness on her face!

 Her class made a giant snowflake with their noodles.

 Ta da!

 Mia loves spinning around the bars too.

 Practicing her arabesque on the low beam with a friend.

 Mia was so thrilled to get a medal.  After she got down from the podium, she ran over to us with a huge grin on her face.  She said "I'm so proud of my star medal!"  When you ask why she got it, she replies "Because I did my very, very best!"  I love the enthusiasm in Mia!

 The Little Gym instructors are just awesome.  They have an amazing amount of patience, and they are so good at teaching these skills to kids with a wide variety of skill levels.  It's fun to watch.

Mrs. Maria and Lily

 Mia with Mrs. Maria and Mr. Patrick

What a fun gymnastics season!

Best Day of Lily's Life

Lily has been counting down the days to Monday, May 14th for almost two months.  Why you might ask?  Well, towards the end of March, her school put on a fundraising gala.  It was a wonderful and fun evening.  One of the items we won was a play date with Mrs. Worrell.  Lily absolutely adores Mrs. Worrell.  She comes home from school a lot of days and wants to plays school where she is Mrs. Worrell and Mia becomes Lily.  I remember Mr. Taylor (the Head of School) telling us before school started that Mrs. Worrell is the woman you want your daughter to grow up to be like.  That's a bold statement to make to the mother of two girls!  However, the more we have gotten to know her, the more our whole family adores her.  I would love for Lily to grow up like her!  She has a heart for God, and she is amazing with these kids.  All the kids (and their parents) love her.

So, we decided our play date would actually be an evening at the Braves game.  This past Monday worked well for all of us.  Ryan, Lily and I headed down and hung out for a few minutes while we waited on Mr. and Mrs. Worrell to arrive.  Lily thought the huge baseballs were really cool.

 Lily loves her Daddy!

 A picture with Mrs. Worrell before the game started.

 I'm not kidding, I don't think Lily stopped talking for the entire nine innings.  She wanted to soak up every single minute of her time with Mrs. Worrell.  Before we left, Ryan bought Lily a Braves hat and a tomahawk.  However, Lily was most excited that Mrs. Worrell bought her a baseball.  It's pink and silver and says "Braves" on it.  She loves it.  As we were leaving, I asked Lily what her favorite part of the evening was; she replied "Getting my baseball."

We are so thankful that Lily's first true experience with a school has been in Mrs. Worrell's class.  We could not have asked for a better teacher.  PreK has been fantastic, in large part due to her.  Thank you Mrs. Worrell!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

I love being a mom to these two wonderful little girls.  I can't imagine my life without them!  It's such an awesome responsibility, and I couldn't do any of it without a lot of help.  I want nothing more than to teach these girls to love God and follow Him.  I try to fill our home with happiness and fun, so they will have lots of great memories.  I am so thankful for these amazing blessings.

I always love a good balloon, and this one is huge and fantastic!

I love this hand print bouquet that Lily made.  Absolutely precious.

Mrs. Worrell sent home this picture of Lily with the floral centerpiece she made and gave me.  Love it!

A cute teapot with tea inside that Lily made along with the sweet centerpiece.  They made lots of sweet things at school!

The girls gave me a couple of store bought cards and they each made me a card too.  They had recorded themselves saying "I love you Mommy.  Happy Mother's Day" into one of the cards.  I can't get enough of it!

The front of Lily's card.

The inside of Lily's card.  She said she and Mia are the trees, and that's me in the middle.

The front of Mia's card.

Mia traced her name and colored some birds, flowers and the sun.

We were so glad that Josh and Amy came over on Saturday afternoon to celebrate Mother's Day with Liz and us.  We had a fun evening together just catching up; the girls LOVE having them around!  On Sunday morning, we all went to church together, and then we met my mom and dad at The Georgian Club for brunch.  We used to go there each year for Mother's Day when I was a kid; this brought back lots of good memories.  It was delicious, and we all had a wonderful time together.  On Sunday afternoon, I took a nap too; what could be better?  This was a great Mother's Day!

Grandparent's Day at ACCA

ACCA hosted Grandparent's, Friends and Family Day a couple of weeks ago.  Lily was so thrilled that Granna, Papa, Bama and I were all able to come.  We started out in the auditorium where each class made a presentation.  PreK, Kindergarten and 1st Grade sang a couple of songs together which was really cute.  A little bit later, just Lily's class came back up and did a presentation.  Here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoX0PHJLHAE&feature=youtu.be) is a link showing the video I took.  Lily is second from the left.  How cute are these kiddos?

After all the presentations, everyone dispersed into the kids' classrooms.  I snapped this picture of Lily with her three grandparents in attendance.

 The class did a little art project for fun and show how well they follow directions.

 Lily and Me

 Showing off a hand print butterfly that she had recently made.

 Lily with her awesome teacher, Mrs. Worrell

This was such a wonderful morning!  It's always fun to see Lily in her element at school.

Zoo Field Trip

Ryan and I helped chaperon Lily's class trip to Zoo Atlanta.  It was so much fun!  These kids are so precious, and it's fun to watch them interact with one another.  Several other parents were there too, and it was fun to talk with them.  Here are a few pictures from that morning.

Lily's class waiting to go in.  We were all excited to have the adorable Jack Sandel, Jill's little brother, join the class.  He's front and center.  Everyone calls him Jack Jack.  Seriously, all four of the Sandel kids are some of the cutest and sweetest kids around!

 Checking out the flamingos.

 Lily and Jack Jack admiring the elephant.  The elephant was a big hit with all the kids because he was eating.

 Mrs. Worrell's chickadees in the nest.

 The kids were excited to go on the carousel before leaving.  Lily and Ryan wrote together and loved it.

I'm so glad we were able to go on this field trip with the class!

Poetry Reading

Lily amazed me the other day.  Her school had a poetry reading competition.  Each class had a competition.  The winner from each class then participated in a several grade competition (PreK through 2nd, 3rd through 8th) during an assembly.  Ben won in Lily's class, and he represented PreK well in the school wide assembly.  Lily was the runner-up for her class!  Even though she didn't compete later on, she did get to recite her poem at the same assembly in front of all the kids, teachers and a lot of parents.  I was blown away that she so confidently walked up on stage by herself and recited four stanzas of Mary Had A Little Lamb while holding Mia's stuffed lamb as her prop.  It was adorable.  I filmed it on my phone but unfortunately, I was too far back for the sound to really pick up, so I'm not posting it here.  She did awesome.  I was amazed that she got up and did this!  She has come so far, and I am so proud of this precious girl!

Another Language

This morning on the way to school, Lily was telling me about her sleepover several months ago with my niece Molly at my parents' house.  She said how they had started watching a movie (The Sound of Music), but it was hard to understand, so they took that movie out and watched The Nutcracker instead.  She said "Yeah, it was in another language.  Probably Franch or Chicago."  There were two parts of this statement that made me laugh out loud.
1. That Lily says "Franch."  As in, "France" with the "ch" sound at the end.
2. That apparently "Chicago" is another language.  I guess we will have to study up before we go visit David and Jan!

Busy Times

These last few weeks have been busy, busy around here.  Lily's school is winding down so there's lots of activities up there, work has slowed down so we're trying to catch up at home, and with more sunlight, the days just feel longer.  It's been wonderful though.  These are just a few miscellaneous pictures we have snapped recently.

Lily with her best friend from ACCA, Jill Sandel.  "Jilly" is such a sweetheart.  We had her over for a playdate after school one day.  These two had a blast playing with one another (and Mia).  We are going to miss Jilly so much next year as she goes to a different school.

 Mia finds a way to get a boo-boo (real and imaginary) multiple times every single day.  Luckily a band-aide usually makes it better.  She was convinced a dot on her nose desperately needed one!

 Mia loves to go letter fishing!

 Getting ready for summer!

 Liz and the girls went to Steak and Shake with Granna and Meme for lunch one day.  So glad they had the opportunity to do this.

 I took this picture simply because I love the shirt.  It makes me laugh every time I see it because it makes me think of my all-time favorite movie, "Back to the Beach."

 Camping in our living room is my favorite kind of camping!