End of School Year

The last few weeks of school brought lots of fun.  3rd grade and 1st grade took a joint field trip to the zoo, and I was so glad to chaperone this one.  It was such a fun day!

Mia and Danielle were excited to have a playdate together.  We started at the park, but about 15 minutes into our time there, Mia fell in a huge mud hole so we moved the party to our house.

Lily worked diligently on creating a new charm bracelet.

Ryan and I had a great date night at Local 3 and then at The Fox where we saw Paul Simon in concert.  He's still a great performer!

We celebrated "Last Day of School Eve" with some ice cream after dinner; it was such a beautiful evening.

Mia wrote this sweet birthday card for Mrs. Barbulescu.  She's been a great teacher!

The girls took different approaches to earning some extra money as they are saving up for something special.  Lily cleaned 40 windows in our house and cleaned out/swept out our very dirty garage; she earned $50 for her hard work.  Mia decided to set up a roadside stand "selling nature" with things like rocks, honeysuckle and pine cones from the yard.  She only made $2 as Granna happened to pass by!  She tried really hard to make a sale to one of our neighbors, but it ended up just being some playtime instead.

Decker wasn't quite as thrilled with the last couple of weeks as he had to wear the cone of shame after being neutered.

The girls had a blast on field day!  Big, huge thank you to my friend, Elizabeth Smith, who shared these fabulous pictures with me.

Lily and Nate competing in the 3-legged race.

Cambridge House working hard at tug of war!

Celebrating their hard-earned victory!

For the second year in a row, Cambridge took home the House Cup at the end of year awards ceremony!

After the awards ceremony, we changed clothes and headed out for bowling.  What a fun way to kick off summer!

The girls were exited to see a few of the fun things on this summer's agenda!

It's been another wonderful school year, but we're all happy to say "School's out for summer!"

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm so thankful to be the mom of these two precious girls; what a privilege.  We had a perfectly lovely Mother's Day celebration.  After church, we headed to The Georgian Club for their lunch which we always love.  After lunch, we stopped by my parents' house so I could wish my mom a happy Mother's Day; I love her to pieces!  From there, we all went over to visit Meme which I'm always thankful for.  What a wonderful day!  

Mia's sweet note to me.

Lily's class wrote poems for their moms; she nailed it!

April Happenings

All sorts of fun things going on around our home this Spring.  Unfortunately, I'm not there for a lot of it because it's tax time!  This year was actually a great season for me, and I got to be at home a lot more than normal which I greatly appreciated.  Still, I relied on Ryan and others for a lot of these upcoming photos.

The girls look forward to the Booster-thon every year at school.  They love getting in the school spirit!

The girls with some friends before the race.

 I'm so glad Ryan went and snapped these pictures!

  Lily pretty much walked the whole race hand-in-hand with Avery.  :-) 

At home, the girls made a basketball court in the unfinished part of the basement.  They used sidewalk chalk to draw it out (including cheering sections) and then made baskets.  They are loving this part of the house, now that it's cleaned out!

Easter morning promised to be fun with baskets filled with flip-flops, Tic-Tacs, new shirts, Legos, books and sidewalk chalk.

 Ready to head out for church.

 Instead of going to Judy and Robert's house this afternoon, we headed over to Birmingham to meet our new nephew/cousin, Liam.  He surprised Josh and Amy by arriving about 6 weeks early, but he's doing great.  In fact, he is home now and super adorable!

 We didn't dye eggs until after tax season was over.  The girls didn't mind; they were excited to do it whenever it was possible.

We also had our Fellowship Group meeting on Good Friday.  We were so glad to have a couple of refugee families with us.  One husband and wife are here after facing severe persecution for their Christian faith in their home country.  We were glad they could be with a fellowship of believers as we all celebrated our risen Savior together.  Another family is from a war-torn country; they do not know Christ, but this was a great opportunity to once again plant seeds with them.  We told the Gospel story, prayed together, sang together and of course, enjoyed food together.  We pray they will come to understand why we celebrate Easter.

 We also later tried our hand at making spider hard-boiled eggs which was an experiment Lily saw.  They turned out pretty cool!

 A few random items...

Lily pulled several items out of the recycle bin to make this basketball court in her room one afternoon.  She is one of the craftiest and most creative kids I've seen!

 Mia enjoyed some ice cream while out with Daddy one afternoon.

 Lily enjoyed a playdate with Alyssa one beautiful day on Spring Break.

 Both girls enjoyed playing this one!

 I love my little inventor!

We were thrilled to have some international college students over for dinner one evening.  Did you know that almost 80% of international students won't be invited into an American home while they are here studying?  That's awful!  The Casey and Tyson families joined us in inviting 5 international students and our joint college friend to our home.  We had such a great time!  I loved learning more about them and their home country.  Unfortunately, these guys are returning home over the summer, so we won't see them again until the Fall; we're looking forward to next time!

 Ryan had the opportunity to present his thesis at a missions conference in NC in early April.  I'm so proud of him!

 Just a picture of Decker, 'cause he's cute.

 A few Cambridge House friends before the Poetry Competition.

 Lily thought it was super cool to explore owl pellets in science class one day!

 Ryan took the girls to the Braves' game recently which they enjoyed (even though the Braves lost...again).  They were excited to see a Toby Mac concert afterwords too.

 I'm down at the beach right now enjoying some time off after tax season.  Beautiful days and beautiful sunsets this week!

Happy Spring!

Mid February to Mid March

I couldn't figure out what to call this entry.  I guess it's technically still winter but it feels like spring.  There's hasn't been a specific event going on (other than the MOVE conference which was awesome, but we didn't take pictures of that).  So, I settled on the creative "where in the year we are" heading.  Here are a whole bunch of random pictures from things going on.

Lily has really become interested in cooking a lot recently.  She has gotten really good at making omelets; they taste great and she's improving each time with the presentation of it.  I let her make an entire meal one evening; each item was her choice.  She made: bulls-eye pizza (aka, pepperoni pizza), gold nuggets (chopped pears inside biscuits rolled in a sugar-cinnamon mix), bibbidi-bobbidi wands (baked tortillas with colored sugar) and dino juice (basically a fruit smoothie).  She did a great job with it.  I told her later that we'd work on planning out healthy meals and preparing them over the summer which she is very excited about.

 Most of the time, it cracks me up that I'll go into Mia's room to wake her in the morning and she'll be in some crazy position.  You never know what you'll find.  This particular morning though I actually became very nervous because I couldn't find her anywhere.  Do you see her???  After checking the side of her bed, the bathroom, living room and downstairs, I saw a little hand move in the fold near the foot of the bed! 

 Avery and Lily having fun in the snow flurries that happened at school one day.

 How sweet is this picture of Mia?  She hasn't taken a nap in years, but she was worn out after a long weekend recently.  I came upstairs and found her fast asleep.

 The girls and I went to visit Meme after school last week.  I told the girls it was their mission to learn some facts about Meme.  They asked her about what her favorite foods to cook were (chicken salad), favorite foods to eat (green beans - Mia's eyes became huge and she excitedly said "Me too!") and what her favorite games to play as a child were (Lily loved that it was making a "house" under a big tree with her best friend because she does that in our yard all the time).  Meme was in great spirits, and the hour we stayed flew by.  It was a wonderful visit.

 Mia is also getting in on the chef action.  She helped me make banana bread muffins the other day.  As we put them in the oven, she proudly proclaimed that she felt she was now ready for Chopped Jr or Master Chef Jr because "the judges always love muffins!"

 After school playground fun with Ryan one afternoon.

 And a frozen treat to go with that.  

 Decker has grown so much in the last few months!  The vet tells us he will be larger than we anticipated (it's a new breed, what can you do?).  He is doing really great with Ryan and Lily.  I'm simply not with him much this time of year though I love taking him on a walk whenever possible.  He still sees Mia as a playmate, so he often nips at her and tries to tackle her some.  We're working on it.  He's a pretty sweet dog though.

 Painting outside because the weather has been gorgeous recently!

 Mia's class recently went to the Carlos Museum to see the ancient Egyptian artifacts.  They all seemed to love it.  Here's a few of the kids gathered and waiting to leave.  Mia loves the all the sweet kids in her class.

 Ryan let the girls each have a friend over last week for a playdate after school.  Mia was thrilled Eliana could come and Lily was super excited to have Avery over.  They got their homework done first and then had lots of fun together.

 Ryan sent me this picture one evening while I was working late.  Love it.  Two of my favorite people right there.

 We had a great family fun night playing Trivia Pursuit Jr recently.

 Ryan sent me this picture to show me the girls had made their own dinner the other evening...cheese nachos and pinwheel cookies.  Again, it was enjoyable, but we need to work on the healthy aspect of dinner preparation!

 We went to see the Kurious performance of Cirque du Soleil today, and it was fantastic!  We all love these shows.  This one was very creative and upbeat.  They always have amazing costumes and incredible acrobats.  This was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

So that's it for the last month!