First Days of School 2013

I can honestly say this was the first year I was not looking forward to my first day of school.  I wasn't as excited as I normally am about school for 2 reasons: I'm moving to 8th grade, and I'm missing my kids.  I believe it's a combination of both and accepting that Rin is now going to school and Ell is my last baby probably play a big part in it too.  But after a week of workdays, I got my room almost the say I wanted it, and worked on my lesson plans so now I'm ready to start. 

My first day of school was Monday, August 26th.  Since I moved up to 8th grade, I had several of the same students from last year.  It's both good and bad since I already know them and they know me.  I'm also on the same team as Kline and George.  That's a huge plus since I enjoy working with them so much.  I will miss my 2 math teachers from last year S & A.  We met every week about math stuff but they were more than co-workers.  They were my friends.  We shared everything with each other and the past 2 days have been hard not seeing them.  That's the biggest con about moving away from 7th grade.  I'm not the type to be down about things, so I'm making the best of it.  This is a chance for me to branch out and meet new people.  Buck is my team leader so I'm excited about working with him and getting to know him.  Up until now, we've only talked football, so this gives us a chance to get past the surface level knowledge about each other.  I'm sure throughout this year, I will post more about school and my new team and grade level.  Here's a picture of B taking me to school on my first day.

Speaking of first day of school, my mom got into the mix also.  Here's a picture she posted on facebook from a long time ago.  I think I might be in 3rd grade & Bubba in first grade....maybe?

And now for the big one: Rin's first day of Kindergarten!  She's been waiting for this day all summer and she's super excited and ready! The plan is for R to go with B in the mornings and eat breakfast/get dressed at his office.  She will do something quiet for a while and then he will fix her hair and take her to school at 9:00.  Since it was her first day, I left my school to meet them there.  Here are the few pictures we took....I should have been better about this!

Daddy's hair job.  It's awesome!

Little girl named Kelli that had the same backpack as Rin.  Rin grabbed her hand to hold while walking down the hall.  The counselor didn't have the heart to instruct them to let go to walk in a straight line.  So sweet!

Rin's room....it's way too much for me but perfect for K!

I can't believe my first born is now school age.  She starts full time after labor day, but I think the biggest concept that I have to wrap my brain around is that she's growing up.  I'm not in control anymore.  Up until this point, I have controlled her friends, her activities, her surroundings.  I only have control over a few hours in the afternoon and the weekends.  We will spend most of that time doing church activities.  Small group on Tuesdays, Awana on Wednesdays, and church on Sundays.  God's gift of R has been awesome and taught us so much.  Our prayer now is that she will be the light of Christ in her classroom for others to see. 

Rin's 5th Birthday

5 years ago, Rin was born making us first time parents. I don't want to say we were clueless, but of course we were new to the whole scene.  Both B and I had nieces and nephews that we watched grow up, plus we had some friends who had just had a baby.  Together with those experiences and the parenting class we took from church, we felt as prepared as anybody to raise a child. One year later and a lot of change has happened.  Rin has another younger sibling, a girl this time, Noelle.  Rin loves sharing her room with Ell and is such a great little momma.  The other big news this time is that Rin will be starting Kindergarten this year.  She's so excited and totally ready.  I'm very happy for her and wish I could be a fly on the wall of her classroom.  She's going to rock it!

Here's how her 5th birthday went:
We woke up around 7 like normal.  We let her open her gift from Gran and Papaw because they facetime'd us to sing HBTY to her.  She got this cute pink brush that is supposed to be a detangler.  Then we had breakfast and got dressed, ready to head to the movies.

with friends: Baylor, Grayson, Wes, Rin, Abe, Julia  8/7/13

We saw Madagascar 3 with our friends and then had the Caldwell boys over for lunch.  After rest time, Bella dropped by to give Rin a drawing (they are BFFs) and played a short while.  Rin got to pick the dinner and invite one friend over for dinner so she picked beignets & Aiden.  Sheree' dropped Aiden off around 5:30 and they kids played for a while so B could cook.  Before dinner we let Rin play her new game Zingo, that her brothers got her for her birthday.  We first played it at Grayson's house several weeks before and she really wanted her own game.  It's very fun.  After dinner we let Rin open her presents and then played Abe's Bug Game.  We played games until it was time for Aiden to go home.  Rin had an awesome day and didn't want it to end.

Rin is extremely sweet.  She's very loving and kind.  Of course she can argue with her brothers, but she has a very tender heart.  She's very much a people pleaser and needs/desires words of affirmation.  For a 5 year old, she's very assertive and opinionated, which we love!  We are very confident that she will have a great year in school and won't be afraid to speak up for herself.  She's not shy and actually very outgoing when it comes to meeting new kids.  We have a new neighbor named Owen and Rin was the first to go meet Owen and his mom.  We expect great things from this little gift.

As I pray for my kids each day, my prayer for Rin is that she will start to really comprehend who Jesus is and what he did for us.  She knows the information about dying on the cross to save us, but she doesn't 'get it' yet.  We talk all the time, but my specific prayer for her is that she will live it at school.  We've talked about how she will say her blessing before she eats at school and that she still will pray even though the teacher won't make everyone pray; I pray that we are the Lord is setting a firm foundation for Rin because public schools need shining stars!

Sleepovers!

With 4 kids, it's not financially realistic for us to throw big birthday parties each year.  Last year we tried "just dessert" for our friends to come over, but it didn't turn out quite like I had imagined.  I made 3-4 different desserts, we had 30+ people over, and it was more work than what we wanted.  So this year we decided to let the kids have sleep-overs for their birthday in addition to a birthday dinner of their choice. 

Rin's birthday fell on a Wednesday so that following Saturday, we hosted her girl friends for a sleepover party.  Girls arrived at 5:00 and I brought them all the church (except for Emilie) the next morning.  Rin's princess guest list included: Bella, Julia, Lexi, Bree, & Emilie.  Once all the girls arrived, they requested to color so that's what we did while Prince Bryce cooked hotdogs for everyone.  We ate dinner (picked by Rin) of hotdogs and chips and cookie for dessert.  After dinner, Rin opened her gifts before playing dress up and having a dance party while all dressed up.  It was really cute!  Following dance party, the girls watched Tangled while I painted their nails. I believe we paused the movie about 8:30 to change from dress up to jammies and then finished the movie with some popcorn.  Bedtime was about 9:00, and I'm confident all the girls were asleep by 9:45.

Prince B made pancakes for the girls Sunday morning and we had them all up by 7.  They all had their church clothes packed so I dressed them and they ate pancakes.  Emilie's dad picked her up at 8, so after that, I loaded the 6 girls into Cherry and took them to church.  I'm proud of myself; I got to church with those 6 girls before any of their parents :) 

What were Abe and Wes doing this whole time you ask?  They weren't even here.  Originally we asked Keith/Jenni to take the boys since we would have Bree/Lexi.  They agreed, but then Nicole said she would take them for a boy sleepover at their house.  So, given the choice, the boys wanted to spend the night with the Caldwells so they could play with other boys.  I believe Nicole had 6 boys spend the night at their house (their 3, my 2, and Daniel 1).  From what I heard, they had a good time.  I know they watched a movie and all slept in Grayson & Baylor's room.  Abe slept with Baylor and Wes slept on an air mattress on the floor.  Bryce picked them up early Sunday before church.

 The girls were so good and it was a lot of fun.  I would do a girl sleepover again in a heartbeat!  

Ell 2 months

E turned 2 months while we were in MS.  Here are a few pictures.

At the doctor for her check up, she weighed 11 lbs 1 oz and was 22.75 inches long. She had to get 5 shots and was sad for about 5 minutes.   Dr. S said she was strong (legs and neck) and said she had good social skills.  I'm not sure how a 2 month old has good social skills but he said she's really good at making eye contact and changing her facial expressions. 

I think she's a cutie and we'll keep her!

MS trip

While Bryce was at Civitan Camp, the rest of us had to entertain ourselves in Mississippi for a week.  It wasn't very hard to do with grandparents here.  I'll try to recap the 2 weeks we were in MS.

Our first night in MS, my parents took us to hibachi for dinner.  This was the kids first time and they loved it.  They loved the guy cooking and also the food.  A actually ate the most, but after 2 days in the car, I was expecting them to be hungry for more than snacks.

Rin took this with my camera

This counted as B's birthday dinner

The first half of the first week, the kids were down on the coast with my dad and Ella.  I don't have any pictures from that time because I didn't go.  I do have pictures from our Friday night dinner with them when camp got out.  We met them for dinner at Cracker Barrel and then had frozen yogurt for dessert.  We had a fun time and Grandmalupe was able to meet and spend good time with her newest great-granddaughter.

Tuesday night at camp, the kids switched hands from my dad to my mom.  For the rest of our time in MS, the kids and I would be in Hattiesburg.  So starting Wednesday, I think my mom and AC took the kids to story time at the Oak Grove library before lunch.  Thursday we all went to see Monsters University after lunch.  Friday, Ryan and Ashley came down for a while and we went to Kids Rule then lunch at Q'doba.  Friday night was dinner with dad (above).

Our weekend went by quickly with the cookout on Saturday and then taking B to the airport on Sunday (for his California trip).  I don't have any pictures from the cookout:(
The next week was spent going to Pep's Point with only 1 picture from my mom's camera.

The kids also went to story-time with Gram and AC at the Hattiesburg library, another movie (Turbo), the zoo and splashpad with Gram & Granddad, and also swimming at Wesley about every other day.  AC also took each kid (except E) to get new shoes, and she took R shopping for a few school outfits.  Bryce returned home late Thursday evening so I was the only one to pick him up.  Friday we had a nice family breakfast at Cracker Barrel before getting back on the road.

Both on the way down to MS and the way back to NC, we stopped at Chris and Heather's house.  Atlanta is about our half way point so we like to break the trip up into two days.  C/H have become great life-long friends and actually H is due later in August.  Lincoln's due date is just a day or so before R's due date in 2008.  H looks fantastic and is having a great pregnancy.  We talked a lot about labor and delivery and the first few weeks.  H asked a lot of questions and seems to be excited and nervous as would any first time mom.  She and C will do a great job and be awesome parents. 

As summer is quickly coming to a close, I'm so thankful for my family and friends.  Even though I didn't go to camp, I still had a great time and love the time the kids got to spend with their grandparents.  That time is so important and even more so for my family since we live so far from our parents.  Our kids only get to see their grandparents 2-3 times per year (we skype a lot) so the time is very special. 

Civtan Camp 2013

Our annual Civitan Camp trip was planned as usual this summer except Bryce was working and not me.  Since E is so small and still nursing, I wouldn't be able to work camp and feed her every three hours.  I'll be back next year though.

Bryce had to be there at 1:00 so we pulled up at 12:45.  I love driving into that gravel road called Camp Ita Kana.  Camp is the best place in the world!  Bryce's assignment was boating/fishing (like usual) with Rob.  Boating has changed quite a bit since Bubba and I used to run it adult week.  Sand was brought in and now we have a pontoon boat called "Miss Abbie" for camp's founder Abbie Rogers.  There are even some motor boats as well as canoes and kayaks.  The pontoon boat is especially great for kids/adults in wheel chairs.  At last, they can experience boating in comfort instead of a nasty bean bag in the bottom of the canoe. 

Captain Rob

me and Jacob Bush

Me and Braydon

Me and Jackson

Bryce had to sleep in the science cabin this year with 5 other guys.  In all my counselor years at camp (8th grade through 12th grade) the science cabin was never used, overgrown, and didn't even have power.  I'm not sure who worked on it and fixed it up, but it's nice now.  There's not bathroom, so the nearest toilet and shower was Native Village, but it did have a sink.  I'm not sure who gave B the mattress, but he slept on a queen size blow up mattress all week.  Way better than the cots the other guys slept on!

Bryce with Bryce

Bryce with Jordan

Bryce with T

Ian at Native Village

J and Dale

Staff and counselors moved in on Saturday and campers came Sunday.  I rode down with Deane on Sunday for registration and we got there in time to hear B lead the worship time down at the camp fire.  Camp has gotten too big and populated for activities at the camp fire anymore.  A long time ago, we would have a night activity at the camp fire and when Miss Abbie died, we planted her tree there. I took B there one of his first years with me and we just stared at the stars.  I visited B Sunday and then again on Tuesday.  Bubba also came over on Tuesday and we met at camp around noon.  It was really good to see him and hang out.  I left E with my mom and my dad had the bigs, so I was kid-less for a few hours! We went to boating, swimming, moved some chairs, and sat on the porch for a while also.  Both sets of parents met at camp to exchange the kids back from dad to mom.  We had the whole family there for a few hours and it was fun.  I know Bubba misses camp, and maybe some day he can come back.  He's working 2 jobs and hard for him to get off work.  Maybe one day.

Ryan Smith and Cal Pierce (camp babies)

  I also came Thursday to visit B again, with just E.  Typically Thursday is the big fish fry night, but the directors decided to not to the community event and try to keep it smaller.  I think feeding so many people became too expensive and with so many visitors, it caused a lot of distractions and maybe became a little unsafe.  I surprised B and he was very happy to see us.  We had a nice evening of the talent show before I headed home around 8:30. 

Camp got over on Friday and we (me and the kids) picked B up to head down to the coast for dinner.  We met my dad, Ella, and Grandmalupe for dinner at Cracker Barrel in Gulfport.  We've done this for the past 3 years and it's just become our tradition I guess.  This way I get to see Grandmalupe, which is very important to me.