Terrible Job at Keeping Up!!

I have done a TERRIBLE job of posting to this blog this summer. We have been so busy and haven't been anywhere!!
We started off with baseball, then VBS, then two weeks of swimming lessons everyday, and now it's JULY. I can't believe it. The summer is flying by.
I started back to school the first of June. That is occupying much of my time and lots of energy, then I'm still trying to do all the things that need to be done around the house, play with my kids, and work a little. I'm tired alot but it won't last forever. School is going good, I'm learning alot and having to remember alot. I really don't know what direction I'm headed in but I know that God has opened so many doors and I'm thankful that in the end I'll be able to see his plan the whole time. It's about trusting Him! Speaking of, I still have no idea what I/we are doing about school this coming year. I can say I fell in love with homeschooling and I'm so completely torn about what to do -- and doing the right thing. I went to the Abeka display last week with the thought in my mind that I wouldn't be impressed with any of their second grade stuff. ..... boy, was I wrong. I saw several people that I knew, even from my high school days, that were so encouraging and I just wondered, "Lord, is this you? guiding me???" The achievement test scores should be back next week so hopefully that will give me more direction.
We have some fun things planned for the rest of the summer and hopefully they will all work out, Atlanta Braves Baseball, American Girl Doll Stores, the beach if it isn't covered in oil and maybe if it is, camping, cookouts, fishing, etc.
And by-the-way, I had a fabulous birthday yesterday! I turned 36 and had so much energy!!
I spent the day with my family, playing at the fountain, swimming lessons, an awesome dinner at Vanisi's in New Albany some yummy cake from Sugaree's!!

Happy 7th Birthday Carson!

Emilia with her new book from Mr. Terry too!

Looking at a new book from Mr. Terry

At Olive Garden


Carson & Emilia with Mr. Terry

Papa, Emilia, Carson & Nannie

Up to bat...

Hugs from a sweet sister...

Today my little man turned 7!!!! I can't believe how time has gone by so fast. We have had revival this week at church and one of the speakers made the comment that his daughter, a mother of young children had told him how the days and weeks creep by but the years fly. Oh, how I agree.

We had Carson a birthday party last Saturday b/c of revival and didn't want to be a reason for people to have to "choose" where they were since there were activities also planned for today at our church.

Today he also had ballgames at the Saltillo Sports Plex which made for a long, fun day.

His first game was at 1215 and his team played really well and won that one. It was actually over in 3 innings. We came home for me to wash a sweaty uniform in time for game #2 at 6:15 tonight. His request for the day was to eat at Olive Garden and eat one of their chocolate cakes for his birthday cake today. So, my parents along with their adopted grandfather, "Mr. Terry" all went to Olive Garden at 4:30 for an early supper. Thanks to Mr. Terry who got there before the rest of us to get our name on a list for the table, and then actually had the table by the time we arrived! Thanks Mr. Terry, we appreciate you!

So, we all stuffed our bellies and then left there for the ball fields again. This time, the team played really well but we lost 12-15. I was proud of the boys though, and Carson was especially happy to receive the "game ball", not because he accomplished any great plays during the game but b/c it was his seventh birthday and his seventh game! He's real proud of that ball that says "MVP"

As we were finishing up the game a few sprinkles began to fall and then the bottom fell out! So, needless to say, we didn't have fireworks and we hurried home to get baths and dry clothes and now we're ready for bed!!

Happy Birthday Man, I hope you've enjoyed your day as much as I have.

Releasing our Butterflies...

I will post pictures later but if you scroll down a little you will see the caterpillars we ordered a couple of weeks ago to go in our butterfly garden. We have had a fun time watching these five little furries change into beautiful butterflies. They did just as the instructions said, they ate and ate their food that was in the bottom of the cup they arrived in until they were fluffy, big caterpillars. Then they crawled to the top and began to form their cacoons, after they were all hanging, we removed the piece of paper that they were attached to and attached it to the inside of our mesh butterfly garden. They hung there for almost a week and then slowly they all began to hatch out, until there were five butterflies. Since the weather was stormy over the weekend we fed them watermelon and orange slices until today when we released them. It was a happy event to watch each of them flutter out the top and into the big world. We watched to see where they might go and then another would emerge. Carson asked if I thought they'd "come back home". I told him probably not b/c their life span was short but I was sure they enjoy being about to fly around. They all made it safely until the fifth one exited. Apparently one of our cats was nearby watching these fluttery things and thought it would be neat to play with it. The fifth one flew only a short distance and landed on the grass, when pounce, the cat caught it by the back wing. The cat went running, the butterfly fluttering as best it could and me chasing the cat. I was so upset with this cat. When I finally caught it, she let the butterfly go and with one mangled back wing, the butterfly flew. I was so grateful and Carson kept a close eye on it, wondering if its wing would heal. He actually found it on a bush in our front yard and was able to get it to walk onto his finger. He carried it around in the garage for a while and then put it up high in a safe place so hopefully the cat would not get it again. Later when we went back outside, it was gone, so hopefully it flew away. At least that's what we hope happened! It's so neat how God makes things to know exactly what to do, crawl, eat a lot, hang upside down, spin a tight cover around you and then EMERGE as a beautiful butterfly. Thank you Lord for creating butterfly's and how they teach us about your handiwork!

Playing with my kids.....

I often end a day thinking, why did I answer in that tone? why did I react this certain way? what was I thinking when I said that? was that really a big deal? ect. and after telling Carson and Emilia goodnight, saying our prayers and telling them how much I love them feeling a yuck feeling that I need to apologize to them for my actions at some point that day. I often find myself wondering, "when they are grown, what will they remember most about the mom and wife that I am to them and to Vince now?" I dust my furniture and see pictures of them while they were still babies and even still at the hospital. I see more of them when they were just one and then just two and now 6 and 4, almost 7 and 5, and I wonder, "where in the world has the time gone?" I know that it will be over all to quickly and then I ask myself, "what will I remember about these days I'm living now?" I so want to be a mom who taught them what was important in life, who spoke gently but got my point across when I needed to, who disciplined in a way that they learn from their mistakes and hopefully don't make the same ones again. I want them to want to come home to visit, to call me when they need help or just need to talk, to have a smile on their faces when they talk about their childhood. With all this to say, my days are never slow paced, there are always 100 gazillion thoughts going through my head of what I need to do next, laundry, iron, cook, clean, get myself ready, lay pj's out for that night, get clothes out for the next day, clean out a closet, go to the grocery store, dr's visits, etc. And so often, I don't take time for just them. Last week, I didn't plan this, it just happened. It was a beautiful day and we were outside, and they say, "hey, mama, will you play hide and seek with us?" and I said sure. Oh my, I haven't played hide and seek, since I was a kid!!!! But you know what??? I had a blast. It was probably more fun that day than when I was a kid, and then we threw the Frisbee, and we threw the baseball and we played kick ball and you know what? I felt SOOOO good inside, b/c I had taken some time out with my kids to be a kid to them and let them know that what they want to play and what they would like to spend time doing with me was important to me. Today, we sat chris-cross-applesauce in the driveway, in the sun, we talked about all the birds, and wondered if they were like the ones in Cinderella and snow white, we ate lunch while we watched Beatles crawl and talked about how fast they got from one place to the next, we talked about how our cats just lay around and about why it's so neat to find a four leaf clover. Then we played tag and hide and seek again and even threw some baseballs. And you know what? I felt soooooo good inside. If you are completely stressed out about something or you just don't feel like an adequate mama b/c you have so many other things that have to be done, just take about an hour to PLAY with your kids, it's amazing what it will do for everybody!!!!!!

Pedicures

The Saturday before Easter, Emilia and I had our first pedicures together. Since we had been gone that week to Memphis with Carson, I had made us an appointment to have this done Saturday morning. Bless her heart, her little feet could barely reach the water, but she had a great time getting pampered and I hope that when she's a mom, she will take more time to do these little relaxing things for herself than I do!!

Easter

We had a fun day on Easter Sunday. Carson had surgery on Good Friday in Memphis and when I went to pick Emilia up on Friday afternoon, she had a small, white, fluffy, little ball with two tall ears to bring home with her. This is Ella. So now to go along with our dog, two cats, we have a sweet bunny rabbit. Easter Sunday we went to Sunday School and church and then came home to eat. Then we played outside, we hid eggs for Carson and Emilia to find, and then they hid eggs for us to find. It was a fun day!

Fun Stuff

Last week we did two fun activities in school. First our butterfly caterpillars arrived. These little ladies are amazing. We actual did a study on butterflies in the fall but the weather was not appropriate to order our caterpillars to be able to release them. We have five, all alive and well. Right now they just eat and sleep and my have they grown. They remind me of the song about sitting on a fence post chewing my bubblegum and along came Herman and the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" We are waiting for them to start forming their crysilis. How exciting.

We also planted carrot, onion and radish seeds in a small test tube garden and have already got some little radish sprouts! We are excited about these as well as our real, big garden we planted at Nannie and Papas house!