Our Kindergarten Graduate

Emma graduates from kindergarten today, although she still has three weeks of school left. I think they scheduled it before all the snow days! :) I am not sure what exactly happens at Kindergarten Graduation, but Emma has said they will walk the stage and get a certificate. They are also going to perform some of their songs they have been doing in music. It should be fun! We are going to check her out for lunch after, but be back in time for their celebration as a class! I am sure there will be more to blog after the event, but for now, I had to post this precious picture for our scrapbook.

This picture cracks me up!! I love it and I think Emma looks so pretty! (I took a picture of the actual picture, so it is really horrible quality-sorry!) I can't believe the year is almost over. We ALL survived the transition!! Emma has learned a ton, made lots of friends, and is reading like crazy and loving it! I never dreamed she would be reading as well as she is. I'm excited to do summer reading with her since she is now able to read some of the books I grew up reading!

It has been a great year and we have loved Ms. Norris. We had heard mixed things about her, but she was great and such an answer to my prayers about her kindergarten teacher. God is faithful to provide exactly what we need!

Summer break starts on June 7th. Hooray!

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day and this year my entire weekend was full of fun! My Mom and Dad came on Thursday to watch Emma play softball, so our weekend started early. My Mom, Brooklyn and I went to the Botanical Gardens on Friday morning. Our gardens opened a few years ago and my Mom had never been. We had a great time exploring the different paths and smelling all the flowers.

On Friday night, we served at Laundry Love and took my parents along with us. The girls did great although they were tired and Emma was especially ready to go home and get to bed after a long week at school. It is amazing what you can learn about your children's personalities when you serve those with less than you. I will have to blog about that at some point!

On Saturday morning, we had a big brunch at our house. I made egg casserole, fruit salad and cinnamon rolls. Yum! I invited my Mom up this weekend because I really wanted to take her on Fayetteville's Historic Home Tour. Washington Elementary does it every year on Mother's Day weekend as a fundraiser. I went two years ago and could not wait to go again! We left my Dad and John in charge of the girls and spent about 5 hours touring some really cool homes. My parents drove back on Saturday evening, so they could spend the second half of Mother's Day weekend with my sister and her family. I loved having my Mom here for Mother's Day. We love so much of the same things, so it was fun to look at homes that we both have much admiration for. She is a great Mom and such an example for me in how she took care of us growing up and how she loves my Dad.

Our family of four woke up on Sunday morning and got ready for church as usual. We heated up our many leftovers from brunch the day before and I got to open my presents. They got me the new James Dobson book, Bringing Up Girls. I am very ready to start reading it. I had also asked (and have wanted for a while)for the Live Butterfly Garden to do with the girls. I love butterflies and I can't wait to start it. It should arrive soon! My most favorite gift was the card that Emma made me. The picture is below and it is so cute. It is hard to read, but it says, "She makes dinner. She looks like me. She loves me. I love my Queen Mommy." I could get used to being Queen Mommy! :)
I asked John to get a few pictures before church. It was pretty chilly outside, so we stayed inside for pictures. I love these two girls. I looked at them all day in amazement and thankfulness. I can't believe that God entrusted us with them. Such blessings.

I was craving grilled shrimp and was ready to get the Red Lobster gift card out of my wallet (we've had it for 2 years), so we headed there for a yummy dinner.

Although, we were not able to be with John's Mom for Mother's Day, she was not forgotten. I was blessed with a great MOther in Law who accepts me as one of her own and who loves our girls so very much. I will forever be thankful for her because she shaped John into who he is today. She did a great job!

More thoughts from Brooklyn....

Today Brooklyn and I were sitting up on the bar stools having lunch together. The conversation went like this:
B: Mom, lets talk.
Me: What do you want to talk about?
B: About Jesus.
Me: Ok, what about Jesus?
B: How he was on the cross for our sins.

Who says you can't have deep conversations over lunch with a 3 year old? Love her!

Three Tea Design

My friend, Mandy Baker from Three Tea Design, has been up to some fun stuff lately. As we speak, she is participating in the NWA Boutique Show. Mandy and another one of my friends, Lindsey Kelley, are sharing a booth and it looks awesome! Mandy has personalized placemats and precious silhouettes that you can choose from. Lindsey has some really cool handpainted canvas' and barn wood signs.

Mandy asked if she could use my girls pictures as samples on her placemats and I immediately said yes! If you scroll down past the silhouettes (which I just ordered of my girls today! I got the simple scallop b/c I'm simple like that), you will see the placemats. So cute! Go visit both of their sites!

Easter

Easter weekend could not have had more beautiful weather. On Saturday, we dyed Easter eggs. As we thought back, we realized that we had not dyed Easter eggs as a family since Brooklyn was 6 months old. John and I both could picture B sitting in the Bumbo on our kitchen table while the rest of us dyed eggs and stuck stickers on B. My sweet B! Gosh, I had forgotten how scrumptious her cheeks were! And Emma, looks so little! Look at these flashback pictures!







On to the present-we had a great Easter weekend! Friday night, we were able to take the girls with us to Laundry Love in Springdale. Our Community Group has been serving there each month. We help out a local organization called Cornerstone Project and go to a Fayetteville Laundry Mat and help serve a meal and pass out free quarters and detergent to those who are in need and need help doing laundry. This was the first time for the girls to come with us and they did great. They were both eager to help pass out water bottles, napkins and silverware.

On Saturday morning our family dyed eggs!








Saturday night, we went over to the Hannon's house with Sam and Amy's crew and Sam's brothers family. We have done this the past few years and it is super fun. We all bring items for a YUMMY meal and then the older kids hide eggs in the front yard for the little ones. We had a lot of eggs this year and a lot of cute kiddos to find them!







We woke up Sunday morning and gave the girls a few little Easter goodies. We ate breakfast, got dressed and headed to church for the 10:00 Family Service.

Easter is crazy at our church and in order to get as many people into seats they change the normal Sunday schedule up a bit to provide more services. They also have a Family Friendly Service and we have always gone to that one, so we could all be together. Emma grasps more and more each year of the Easter story. It is neat to see her heart and mind wrap itself around the greatest gift of all time. Brooklyn is also really starting to "get it". She really understood this year the pain that Jesus went through on the cross. I say she "understood". I don't even understand that amount of pain, but she understood that it hurt a lot and how sad it was to think about seeing Jesus go through that.

Here are the girls in their Easter dresses. I had to add another sentimental picture from Easter 2007 because the dress Brooklyn wore this year is the dress Emma had on in 2007.









After church, we came home to change clothes and headed back over to the Hannon's for a quick lunch (PIZZA!) and then headed to the Razorback baseball game. We had no idea how long the girls would last out there, but it was a beautiful day and we wanted to give it a shot. The girls and I stayed for almost 3 hours and the rest of them stayed to watch the awesome ending of a Razorback win. The girls watched for a bit, then did some face painting, had a snowcone, and went to the outfield to play. At that point, it was getting cloudy and windy and I was even ready to go! The rest of our night was spent relaxing and getting ready for the week ahead. It was a great family weekend and always great to reflect on the price Jesus paid for our sins. How thankful I am for that gift!

I love these faces to pieces........

I just love this picture! John took it of Emma on the day she started riding her biking without training wheels. They went exploring together down at the creek near our house. If we ever move, this picture will make it into a frame and onto a wall.






There was just something about Brooklyn this particular morning that made me want to kiss her cheeks constantly. Not sure if it was the thrill of getting to put on new spring clothes that day or how happy she was to be in something pink and flowery. Obviously, I took this picture on our little camera (its not as great as the above picture on J's camera), but I caught it. Gosh, she's cute!

Emma is playing softball......

Emma started softball practice last week and is loving it. She is on a team with a few girls that she knows. Her good friend, Katherine, got her interested and her Dad is coaching the team. She missed last nights practice due to Brooklyn having the stomach bug and Emma coming home from Art with a fever virus. We are all at home today and trying to get better! Games start in a few weeks. It should be fun!



This is Emma at home practicing batting. She hits it pretty darn good for never doing it before!

Spring Break 2010

Finally, time to catch up on a few blogs. I will start with Spring Break and begin working myself forward to the present. I hate being behind. :(

This was our first official spring break. All the years before, spring break seemed like just another week, but with no Mother's Day Out. This year, this Mom needed spring break. I was ready to not have to hustle around the house each morning to get Emma ready for school, I was ready to have BOTH of my girls home all day for a week, and I was ready to travel to LR to see my family.

When Emma got out of school on Friday, we got ice cream at Braums and then grabbed bikes and went to a local trail to let Emma practice her bike riding skills. It was a beautiful day, sunny and around 70.





The next day, it got cold quick!! I went into the mall to buy Emma a bathing suit and came out to freezing temperatures and snow starting to fall. By Sunday night, we had about 12" of snow. Gotta love Arkansas weather!









On Monday, we spent the day at home relaxing and playing. On Tuesday, we headed over to the Jones Center because they were having some fun spring break activities. We met the Elleman's there and ran into the Robinson's in the parking lot. They had blow ups to play on, PBS characters and crafts. We saw the Super Why characters, but they were going on break, so we didn't get their picture. The kids jumped in for their pictures with Clifford and one of the dinosaurs from Dinosaur Train.








I had made the girls a deal a while back that if they went through their stuffed animals (they are taking over our house!) and choose the ones they didn't want, then they could sell them in our garage sale and they could keep the money. Well, I don't see the garage sale in our future anytime soon, but I need these animals out. I told the girls I would buy them from them and then we would take them to Salvation Army. They could use the money to buy something. They wanted to go to Build a Bear (which defeats the purpose of getting rid of stuffed animals although these are nicer than the claw machine animals that they got rid of!) and I had a few coupons to help them out. Here they are with their animals!

On Wednesday, we packed up and headed to Little Rock to see my family. It is hard for us to get down there now that Emma is in school, so it was a treat. We had beautiful weather, so we were able to play outside a lot. It was so fun to watch Claire, Brooklyn and Emma play together. Sweet cousins!








It was a little rainy on Thursday, so we went to a local church to play on their indoor playground. The girls loved it.







John drove down on Thursday night and on Friday morning, the whole fam drove to Hot Springs to walk through Garvin Gardens. It was amazing. There were over 100,000 tulips in bloom along with many other things. We got to see the beautiful chapel that is on the grounds there. My Dad's company built the chapel a few years ago, so we had been over to see it then, but it never gets old to look at it. The craftsmanship is amazing! John took some amazing pictures of it!
We went to eat lunch in Hot Springs and then all parted ways. My parents went to do some stuff in Hot Springs, my sister and her family headed home and we went downtown to stroll for a bit. We took the girls to get ice cream, look in the toy store, and walk up by all the springs. It was a fun day!









On Saturday, we got up and headed to the LR Zoo. It was a beautiful day and a lot of the animals were out and about. The otters were really fun and I loved seeing the Mama monkey and baby. We ate some lunch at Arkansas Burger and then headed back to NWA. We ended spring break with a relaxing Sunday morning at home. It was a great week and a good break to get us to the end of the school year. I can't wait for summer. I love having both my girls home!

Brooklynisms....

Brooklyn has been saying the funniest things lately. I know I won't remember them in years to come, so I must write them down!

A few weeks ago, Brooklyn and I stayed at home and cleaned the house. She helped take all the animals off their beds for me and then I changed their sheets. She also wiped down some door knobs and dusted her kitchen. She worked hard! I told her when we were finished and wrapping things up to eat some lunch, "Brooklyn, thanks for helping me today. We worked really hard." She replied (insert very tired sigh), "I know. I feel like Cinderella."
She has a hard life. :)

I was helping Brooklyn go potty just the other morning and this was our conversation:
Brooklyn: Where does our potty go when we flush?
Me: Down into the ground.
Brooklyn: Like down to Satan?

I love 3 year olds and the things they say. Don't always love their behavior, but they sure are funny.

Emma Learns to Ride Her Bike

We finally took the training wheels off Emma's bike. We had tried riding it a few times, but she was nervous. I gave her a "controlled" fall (meaning I held the handle bars and lowered her down to the ground), and she immediately hated riding her bike. Yeah...I've got serious Dad skills.

I searched the internet and spoke with Brett Harkey about how to teach her how to ride her bike and gain confidence. Brett's idea seemed plausible, so last weekend I took Emma to the old driving range near Lewis & Clark. They have a ton of grass, and a few little short hills. I held the bike for her halfway up the hill, then let her coast down it, learning how to balance. I reminded her to use her feet to keep from falling. She coasted down and used her feet to not fall when she slowed down!! She was SOOOO stoked! We kept doing that over and over, going higher and higher up the hill. She started pedaling at the end of the hill, and was riding all over that driving range! It was awesome! We called Mommy, and she beamed the news over the phone. She eagerly wanted to ride on the road, so we got in the car to head home.

On our way to all of this, Emma found her camera in my car. On our way home, she said she wanted to go on a "photo adventure" with me. So we stopped at the railroad tracks in Johnson and went exploring with our cameras. It was so fun! I'd take a shot, and she'd try a similar shot, then show me and ask me if that's what I was trying to do. There are some pictures from the adventure (her's & mine) below.

When we got home, the fam went outside to see Emma show off her new riding skills. Here's the video. Please disregard my fatness and moobs. It was a pretty perfect day!

Emma's First Art Show

Emma's art class is divided into three sessions a school year and she just finished the second session (her first session to take). At the end of each session, the teacher holds an art show at a local restaurant where all the students work is displayed. They can price their art to sell as well.
This all took place last Friday night and it was really neat. I LOVED seeing all the other students art. The ages range from 3 years old to adult and there was some amazing stuff. Emma was so proud to see her art hanging on the wall and loved showing it to those who asked what belonged to her. They even had biography pages with a picture next to their pieces. So professional! These pictures are from my phone so they are not great. I will have to add the pictures from John's camera later.

Congratulations Emma! We are so proud of you and the way you are using your creativity that God gave you!