A Flower Girl...

Dancing with the bridesmaids
With the groom, our cousin Matthew

Me & Vince

Chelsea & Matthew

Dancing with her Daddy

Matthew (the ring bearer) & Emilia

walking down the isle

Matthew & Emilia

Emilia & Carson

Our Family

With Matthew before the wedding

Emilia and Me

Just looking beautiful!!

On her way to the church,

my favorite picture!

With Chelsea before the wedding

Well, as you can see from all the pictures, Emilia was the flower girl in my first cousins wedding this past weekend in Gloster, MS. It was the first time we had been back since our grandmother passed away last August but thankfully, this time it was for a joyous occasion.

Matthew is about 28 and is the sweetest man. Chelsea is a lucky girl to have him and now that we've met her, Matthew's even a lucker man to have her!! They are the sweetest couple and we wish them the best.

Emilia was honored to have been a part of their wedding and she was so beautiful.

Thank you Chelsea and Matthew for including her/us in your special day!!!

First Day at Calvary for Emilia

Last Tuesday was Emilia's first day to be a "Calvary Kid". It was nothing new for her to pull up in the car pool line except instead of Carson being the one to get out like the past three years, it was finally her turn. I can't believe it's gotten here so fast. She is a precious little school girl and is loving being there!

Happy 4th Birthday Emilia

Friday, August 28 was Emilia's 4th birthday and Vince's birthday as well, I won't share his age for his sake! On Friday Carson, Emilia and I were here most of the day, Carson gave Emilia her presents from him, a princess thermos and an ice cream cone lip gloss she had picked out and then Vince had left her FJ Cruiser in the garage from us and nannie/papa and others that had given her money for her birthday. I did go to the church to decorate for her Tea Party, which was Saturday, while she and Carson played at a friends house. Then Friday night, Vince picked Taylor's in New Albany to eat, since that is his favorite. My parents and some friends also met us there to eat. We had a really good time and I did take time Friday to make "Angie's Chocolate Chip Pound Cake" another one of his favorites. I didn't want him to feel left out since he and Emilia share a birthday.
Then on Saturday morning, we had an all girls party - a tea party and it was the sweetest thing. Carson of course, had to be included so he was the host/server. The "ladies" wore dresses, decorated hats, had eye shadow and lip gloss put on and then went through the buffet for their food. After they ate their heart shaped peanut/butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit, Carson served each one of them their own individual cakes - strawberry of course, Emilia's favorite.

We had a great time and I think the little ladies and their moms did too!

The Apple Orchard

Well, school is going really well and today we will begin week 4. I really think that Carson and Emilia are enjoying it and I hope that they are learning all they need to be at this point. Emilia did ask me the other day if when she was old enough to have school like Carson was I going to teach her at home??? I thought, that's a good question, I probably won't have an answer to until that time!! :)
Anyway, last week we took our first class field trip! It was so much fun, since we had been studying plants, trees, leaves, then all about apples, including Johnny Appleseed, Mr. McIntosh, etc. We went to visit the Cherry Creek Orchards in Pontotoc, MS. Mr. Jessie, who runs the orchard, was so kind to give us a ride in his gator around the orchard, talk to us some about the trees and how he cares for them and even stop and let us pick a few apples from the trees.
Since the orchard is not far from my parents house, my mom took the trip with us. Thanks Nannie for being our guest!

Another Tooth....

is gone!! Well, the left front tooth has been "hanging" for sometime now but we have a dentist appointment on Tuesday so I was trying to hold out on making a "tooth pulling appt" until then. Thankfully, Carson & Emilia wanted to spend the night with my mom on Tuesday, so they did. On Wednesday, they went to eat lunch at George's (their favorite place in New Albany) and Carson told his Nannie he only wanted to eat french fries b/c of his loose front tooth, he didn't want it to fall out. And guess what??? Yes, his tooth fell out in a french fry! so then he proceeded to eat a cheeseburger.

As you can tell from the pictures, his most recent interest is cowboys. He got boots for his birthday, he wears his pirate pants and vest from his birthday party, along with his gun holster and guns he got last year for his birthday and his daddy took him to Scrugg's yesterday to purchase the new cowboy hat, and boy, is he proud.

The picture of Emilia is just one that we had to take to send in to Calvary for school. She's real big and so excited to be going to school!

Big Day...

Well, today we officially began school.... and it went really well. We had originally planned on getting our first allergy shot this am and then coming home for school, but my sleepy heads didn't get up in time to eat breakfast, get ready and get there by the 11 cut off, so we had school first instead, then went for the allergy shot.

We got a good bit accomplished and this week, we are actually discussing/studying the creation and making "creation" books. Emilia will be involved in this as well and they both did great. Then when Emilia finished she played a computer game while Carson and I worked on math and reading.

I just wanted to post a few pictures of school.

I made cupcakes this morning to help celebrate our first day of school and we had them for a school snack. It was fun.

By-the-way, the allergy shot went well too, no tears. I have a good little patient! I guess he's heard me talk about how bad kids can act and how upset nurses can get when they don't mind their mommies!

Visit to Grandmothers

I only have one grandparent left, this being my mother's mother who lives in Sevierville, TN. She was born and raised there and this is where my mom grew up as well. Growing up my parents made a point to take us to both sets of grandparents 3-4 times a year each. With my daddy being from south Mississippi, this took a good bit of time out of their schedules each year.
After I graduated from college, and got married, I've tried to continue visiting each of them about every 4-6 months until my daddy's mother passed away last August. Now I only have one and so I'll try my best to continue this with her. With all that said, this grandmother, has lived in several different houses in the area since I can remember. Several years ago after my grandfather passed away, she built a new house so that she would have a smaller yard to mow. This house is in the prettiest place and I should take a picture from her front yard . If you have ever vacationed here, I'm sure you've see Smokey Mountain Knife Works, well, her house sits up on the hill, above the river, looking down and the knife works but also that gorgeous view of the mountains. Anyway, we visited her about two weeks ago and since we don't really count this as a vacation, Vince wanted to do something different and vacationy I guess, take the kids camping! I agreed to ONE night of camping. So we called to see about bear activity and what to do if we encountered one, and we were off, to Elkmont Campground, home of only a potty in the bathroom and COLD water, AND NO cell phone signals. Knowing I couldn't take a shower was kind of disturbing to me, especially after getting all hot and sweaty from playing putt putt in Gatlinburg, but since I was only there for one night, I figured I could handle it. It was really pretty but I have to say I ended up at some point in the early morning going to the van to sleep. We forgot one air mattress and sharing a full size with two wiggly kids was not very comfortable.
We did roast hot dogs over a fire for supper, which was Carson's request. Then we made smores and had honey buns for breakfast, went on a short 3/4 mile hike and then were back to mamaw's for baths!!!!!