The First Day of School

Here are a few pictures of the first day of school. The kids are doing great and are easily adjusting to being back in the classroom. It helps that they all love their teachers, and for that I am truly grateful. Hannah starts practice on Monday for the school dance line that she is on and Noah begins fall soccer practice in a few weeks. Jonah lost his top, two front teeth the first week of school and also was chosen to test for the gifted program. He doesn't even know that that's the reason why he has to take tests everyday and I hope it stays that way. I don't want him to feel any pressure or to get upset if he doesn't score high enough. Hannah knows that he is testing because she is in the program and knows the teacher, but she has been told to keep quiet. That is not really an area of strength for her, so to make sure I've threatened her life. :) Landon's first day of preschool is Monday, so I will be posting pictures of that soon as well. Please pray that he doesn't get kicked out. Life just keeps getting busier and busier, but I guess that's just part of having kids. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Crazy Days of Summer

The past few weeks have been filled with activities, family visits and just plain fun. First of all I just want to thank everyone for their prayers and concern for our little Landon. I'm glad to say that he has made a full recovery and is back to his old spunky self. It's amazing to see him sleep now because it's so peaceful and quiet...which is exactly what we were hoping for. :)

Shortly after Landon made his recovery, our church had VBS. Somehow I was strong armed into being the preschool director. I was a little nervous as to how the week would go, but everything went off without a hitch and the kids had a blast, I was even able to have fun too. A few days after VBS was over Micah's family came to visit. We had 6 extra people in our house for 5 days!!!! Now our house is not that big, but somehow it all worked out and we all had enough space and no one ever had to wait to long for a bathroom to be available. We were able to go to Savannah for the day and celebrate the 4th of July together. It was so great to see the children with their cousins, they truly enjoy every minute with them. The visit was such a special family memory and a great time was had by all.

Shortly after their departure, our family made one last trip to the beach in SanDestin. I can't tell you how much we love that place. Our kids are ready to pack up our house and move there!! It was another few glorious days of sun and sand and we all miss it already. Summer is quickly coming to an end for us because school starts in 3 short weeks. I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by, but I guess the old saying is right...time flies when you are having fun, and we have definitely been havin' some fun!!

Sun and Surgery

Our family started the summer off with a trip down to SanDestin, Florida. Micah's Uncle currently lives at the resort and wanted us to come stay with him for a few days. We couldn't have had a better time and really enjoyed getting to spend time with Uncle Ron, whom we haven't seen for several years. The kids absolutely fell in love with the area and asked repeatedly if we could move there ourselves...I certainly wouldn't mind it either. We filled our time there with trips to the beach, swimming, playing tennis, walking around the Baytowne Wharf, and eating delicious meals. Not a bad vacation if you ask me!

As soon as we returned though, we had to start preparing for Landon's surgery. 4:45 on Tuesday morning my alarm went off so that I could get us to the hospital by 6:30. Micah stayed behind with the older kids and my mom came with me. We had decided that since Micah is the one who has really been struggling with this whole surgery thing, that it was best for him to stay behind in case he couldn't hold it together when we were there. There was no need in freaking Landon out any more than necessary, or the other people waiting there for that matter. The surgery went off without a hitch and we were home before lunch. It's almost been a full week and he is improving every day, but still is not himself and can be quite emotional at times. Hopefully that will be better soon too though.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, we have VBS coming up next week!!

Stage!

Last night Hannah had her school musical where she stared as Mary Poppins. The musical wasn't Mary Poppins, but was a compilation of many musicals and they called it Stage!. The kids did an awesome job and had a great time. Here are some pictures of our girl. Oh and kudos to my mom for making her costume, as you can see it looks awesome!!!

Neglected

Sorry that I've been so absent lately...I guess I just haven't had much to talk about that I thought was interesting or new. I'm sure after a while telling you about Noah playing soccer, going to the zoo, or about my weekend filled with lawn care gets a bit old. But that's all I've got these days, plus some pictures of our recent field day adventure. :)

Seriously though, Noah has been playing soccer and he has been doing awesome!! Every game he has played this season he has scored no less than 3 points with the highest being 6 and he basically dominates the field...but in a good way. In the fall we are going to put him in a more competitive league because he is outgrown playing with Upwards.

Hannah is currently in her school's chorus group and they have their end of the year performance on Thursday night. It's called Stage! and is basically a compilation of songs from a bunch of different musicals. Hannah has one of the lead solo's, singing a song from Mary Poppins. My mom made her a fantastic Mary Poppins costume, so I can't wait to see her all ready for her big night.

Only 2 more weeks of school for the kiddos and then summer break will begin!!! I am so ready for this school year to be over it's not even funny. The kids have had a awesome year, but I'm just ready for a break. I'm still running, but haven't been able to be as consistent as I would like, but once summer is here that will change because I can go in the morning while Micah is still here getting ready for work. Hopefully, I will be able to run a little faster and a little further before I know it, and would really like to run a 5K soon.

The bad side to the summer though is that Landon is going to be having his tonsils removed. Which is actually a really good thing because his tonsils are HUGE and make it very difficult for him to swallow certain foods and breathe at night. He wakes up so much during the night and I really worry that he is not getting the proper amount of sleep that he needs, but hopefully he will after the surgery. Micah can hardly stand to think about Landon having this done and didn't agree to it at first because he didn't like the thought of him being put under or being cut on. But after a few weeks of thinking about it and really watching Landon struggle at night he realized that not doing the surgery was worse. So please keep Landon and Micah in your prayers, as the surgery is in just a few weeks.

Well, I guess that's it for now! Hopefully I won't be gone so long this time! :)

Yay Spring!

Last week the kids were off from school for Spring Break. It was a wonderful, relaxing week that ended much too soon. The break started by our friend Pam, who lives in San Antonio, coming to visit us. (Hi Pam!) She and Micah worked together when we lived there and we've remained friends through the years. It was so great getting to see her and we can't wait until we can visit her in SA, we love it there.

On Monday, after dropping Pam off at the airport in Atlanta, we took the kids to the zoo. It was actually really cold that day, high around 45 degrees, but we didn't care. We got to see a cool new Parakeet exhibit were the kids got to feed the birds and hold them on a stick if the bird would come to you, and we also got to see the new baby panda named Xi Lan. The rest of the week we went skating, went to a pottery painting place and played outside. Micah and I worked in the yard on Saturday getting the yard raked, mowed and edged, laying down new mulch and planting a few flowers. Micah has also been in the process of sealing our deck and he's about 1/2 done with that.

Saturday ended with me having to take Landon to the Med-Stop around the corner. He woke up that morning with his eye red and swollen. After giving him a couple doses of Benadryl and his eye not showing any sign of improvement, I thought it best to go ahead and have it looked at. The doctor didn't seem 100% sure of what was going on but thought that he may have allergy related pink eye and prescribed some drops to get rid of any infection that might be there. It seems to be working and his eye is looking much better than it did. Holding him down to put the drops in has definitely been a challenge, but today he is actually starting to let me do it without much of a fight.

We had a wonderful Easter day, spending most of the afternoon with friends. The kids hunted for eggs in the backyard and then rode 4-wheelers with our neighbors. Only about 6 more weeks until the kids are out for summer and we can't wait!!

Runnin'

As the weather continues to get nicer outside, I have been able to get out and exercise more and more. Especially now that it stays light out longer. This week I have gone 3 times and hope too at least go once more over the weekend. Each time that I go, I start out walking and am slowly trying to work my way back into running after taking the winter off. I have been doing some research on the "right" technique for running, so that I don't hurt myself and so far it seems to be working.

When I was younger, I never was a "runner". I have always been an athletic person, but my body never had the endurance for running more than just a minute or two. So tonight, I was thrilled when I ran for 10 minutes straight going a distance of one mile. Now 10 minutes doesn't sound like a long time, but for me it was a big deal. I ran more than just that 10 minutes, but that was the longest stretch of time that I went before stopping to walk. Hopefully, it won't be long before I am able to go 15 minutes. It's funny how much I am really enjoying this and how good it makes me feel.

In other news, life is just busy as normal. Almost every night of the week one of us has something going on. Noah had his first soccer game last weekend and he scored the only 3 goals of the game. The time that the other team was able to try to score, Noah happened to be playing goalie and he stopped both shots. The sad thing was that I was not there to see it in person for myself. That morning, the AWANA girls group that I volunteer with on Wednesdays had an outing at a pottery painting place, so I wasn't able to go see my Noah play. Micah thankfully was able to fill me in and took several pictures for us to see. He is supposed to play again this weekend, but it looks as if it will be rained out. We shall see.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and is able to enjoy the Springtime!!