Last Day of School

I can't believe last Friday was Lily's last day of Kindergarten!  This has been such a wonderful year for her.  It has been amazing to see her develop in so many different areas.  We are so proud of how hard she has been working.  We feel so blessed to be at ACCA!

 Before the school-wide awards ceremony, Mrs. Worrell held a ceremony in her class where she gave each child a certificate for a Christian characteristic that they exemplify.  It was really neat to see because she was right on for each child.  It's amazing to see how all the different personalities and skills worked together to make up such a sweet class.  She awarded Lily a certificate for thoroughness and humility.  I was such a proud Mama!

 Everyone is going to miss Mrs. Worrell next year, but we're also very excited for her as she becomes a mommy to Lucy in August!

 In addition to Mrs. Worrell's certificate, Lily received an "Excellence in Music" award from Mrs. Lindemann at the school wide awards ceremony; she was pretty excited about that.

 After the ceremony and official countdown to summer, everyone headed outside to enjoy a cookout.  What a great way to wrap up the school year with friends!

 

Mia finished school the week before, but I forgot to put this memento in.  It cracks me up that it says "I like to collect: rocks."  She grabs a rock just about every time we go out somewhere!

Mia's Gymnastics Show

Mia had her gymnastics show at The Little Gym last week.  She has had some "serious fun" there as they like to say.  This has been such a great experience for her.  She couldn't wait for the show, and she was thrilled to have her entourage there.

 

After each child ran out, did a somersault and announced their name, the kids did some noodle work.  This helps them learn where to place their hands and feet as they learn skills.  Here's Mia working on her somersaults.

 Happy to gallop around.

 I simply love how happy she is here.

 Working hard (and I love the flying pigtails).

  Next up was the balance beam.  Mia did a great job!

 Nailed the landing! 

 Up next: the floor routine.  Here's Mia doing a backwards somersault.  After this, she did a twist jump, forward somersault and monkey jump (the beginning of a cartwheel).

 Last skill set was on the uneven bars.  Mia was loving this!

  I was actually impressed with Mia's arm strength.  Most kids just flipped around and then dropped down, but she was able to control herself after flipping around; she slowly lowered her body using her arm muscles, held still for a moment and then dropped down.

 Ta da!

 Yea for receiving a medal for working hard!

 Fun little class.

 She was so proud of herself.  I love seeing this confidence!

Josh and Amy's Wedding

We were so excited about last weekend.  Why?  Because Josh and Amy were getting married!  We packed up and headed over on Friday morning.  After lunch at The Summit, we headed over to check into the Marriott.  It was a pretty nice one too with a delicious breakfast buffet.  The girls loved being in the lobby where they could play around the fountain and enjoy this double chair.

 Ryan was a groomsman, and the girls were flower girls.  Amy sent these sweet invitations to ask the girls to be her flower girls.

On Friday evening, we headed to the rehearsal.  It was pouring down rain, so we practiced everything inside.  By now the girls are pros at being flower girls though, so I wasn't worried.  After the rehearsal, we headed back to Vestavia for the rehearsal dinner.  Liz's friends helped her put everything together, and it turned out great!  The food was delicious (we especially loved the cookies!) and the decorations looked great.  I loved seeing all the pictures they had put up of Josh and Amy through the years; they were so sweet. After dinner, it was time for toasts.  I was so proud of Lily for leading them off.  Here is a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eno3boKmS3k&feature=youtu.be) of her giving words of wisdom to the bride and groom.  So precious!  She was thrilled that both Ryan and Papa agreed to give her a dollar for doing it too!  Many others gave toasts too which were so sweet.  You can see how much this wonderful young couple means to their family and friends.  You could feel the excitement and love in that room!  Towards the end, Josh and Amy got up to speak and thank everyone.

 Thankfully, my parents were able to take the girls back to the hotel after just a few toasts so the girls could get a good night's sleep while Ryan and I enjoyed the rest of the dinner.  The girls did rest well, so they were ready to go Saturday morning.  After breakfast, we headed over to Bridges and Robyn's house for an early morning play date.  They have known Ryan for quite awhile, and we met in college.  It was great to see them and Bridges' sister Mary Allison again and catch up!  We truly wish we could see them more often because we always have fun together.  Their girls are right about the same ages as our girls so they played well together.  Hopefully it won't be so long before we visit again!

After a light lunch and a good nap, the girls and I headed over to the wedding; Ryan had gone over earlier with John.  We got them dressed and their hair fixed.  They were ready to go! 

 Before they could walk down the aisle, they took some pictures with the beautiful bride and her bridesmaids.

 I know I'm a little biased, but aren't they precious?

 The wedding went off without a hitch.  The ceremony was so sweet to watch because you can clearly see the love they have for one another and that they take this commitment seriously.  The reception was a lot of fun.  Everyone enjoyed dinner, a yummy cake and some delicious popsicles.  Also, they had what could possibly be the best lemonade I've ever had.  Lots of people enjoyed dancing; I know Ryan and Lily had fun for several songs together!  We finally had to head out as we were already a couple of hours past the girls' bedtime and the couple didn't plan to leave for over another hour.  We missed the end of the reception, but their photographer put up this awesome picture of them leaving.

 We are so proud of Josh and Amy, and we love them very much.  We pray that God will bless them and their marriage.  We look forward to seeing what their future holds!

Randomness

Just wanted to put a few items in here to document for future reference.

One of Lily's art projects from school.  I thought it was kind of cool.

 Lily loves to create scenes.  For this one, she taped four pieces of paper together so she could make an amusement park.  She drew pictures, colored, wrote and taped items to it.  This scene includes a farris wheel, balloons, roller coaster, water ride, bouncy house, cotton candy seller and a four person trampoline like Mia jumped on at the fair.  I love this girl's imagination!

 Mia wrote this note and drew our family; so sweet!

 Lily's butterfly when they were learning about symmetry.

 Lily's friend Danae made this card for her.  The girls in her class are always making sweet cards for one another about how much they love each other.  I love seeing her develop these friendships.  We are so thankful for ACCA!

 One of Lily's math projects.  It's a color by number page, but they have to solve a math problem to know which color to use.  I thought this was really neat and wish I could find a whole book of these to help her continue to build her math skills this summer.

 An assignment at school to practice penmanship and phonics.  I love the picture Lily drew of Ryan grilling the hot dogs that she just wrote about!

 It may seem odd to have a picture of Woody in here.  For a couple of weeks though, Mia has been praying every single night that God would help her find Woody.  When I switched out her clothes and put up some toys recently, I thought for sure I would find him but no luck.  Ryan and I had given up on locating him when we started to pack up for a weekend trip last Friday.  Mia grabbed her backpack from the closet, opened it up and there was Woody!  She and Lily started yelling and getting so excited before moving into a song about answered prayer; it was precious!

Little bit fell, twice, last Tuesday at the food trucks and scraped up her knees pretty badly.  I felt so awful for her; it had to hurt so much.  She's a little trouper though, so she's recovering.

The last little bit of randomness is from this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kPR6w60Kmc&feature=youtu.be).  It's one Lily recorded of herself one morning while she was hanging out in our room telling us jokes.  She loves to tell jokes right now; she's always trying to find new ones to tell.  The video is just under two minutes long, but it makes me laugh.  Welcome to our world!

Lily's Gymnastics Show

Last Wednesday was Lily's gymnastics show at The Little Gym.  Her skills and coordination have improved a lot over the last few months as she has taken this class.  It's been fun to see the improvement.  Sweet girls at the gym.

 They started out with a running cartwheel; Lily has enjoyed practicing her cartwheels!

 Lily's first station was the uneven bars.  She was so scared of these when she first started gymnastics a couple of years ago, but she has come a long way.  Now she flips right over!

  She moved to the beam after the bars.  I love seeing how hard she concentrates.

 Mia wasn't performing, but I just loved this picture. 

 They finished up with a choreographed floor routine to show off somersaults, cartwheels, back bends, marching and their rhythm.  It was pretty neat, and Lily did a great job.

 

  Each child receives a medal for their hard work and efforts. 

 Lily's class with Ms. Tara.  What a fun way to end the class!