Last Day of School 2016-2017

Technically, school starts in 4 days and I'm just now posting about their last day of school.  It's ridiculous I know, but I blame it on my Blogger app.  I'm just going to add pictures and maybe a few words to explain.  I'm not even going to do a comparison picture of previous years.  You can look at last years post if ya want.  I'm in a hurry. Ha Ha


My kids had a very happy and successful year.  Josiah loved being in middle school, Titus thrived in 3rd grade, and Amelia was a very happy 1st grader.  I also loved the school year too.  I was a teacher's aide for middle school and kindergarten part time.  It's hard to not fall in love with those kids.  I have been out of school for 20 years so, I had to work hard to be able to help these students.  I was surprised at what I did remember though and actually enjoyed the challenge of relearning a lot of things.

 The last day of school is also their awards service every year.  It's what they love and look forward to every year.  It's rewarding for all their hard work.


I'll start with Josiah.
I know he's mine and this may sound like bragging, but he's so smart.  However, he made the school year a bit stressful because he made everything so difficult.  He memorized everything he did.  Refused any shortcuts (besides getting his mom or other classmates to score for him).  So he made lots of 100's on his tests.  His goal chart was covered in Gold stars.  I just wished he would relax more.  As long as he stays on honor roll, I don't expect perfect test scores.  Hopefully, we have  a better year and he doesn't stress himself out so much.  I am very pleased with his grades and all his hard work this year.  He received the following awards.

Character award-Authenticity
Excellent attendance
Jr convention certificate
Honor roll
Scripture-memorized book of Ruth
Basketball certificate


Now for Titus......

 Bible award-read all 4 gospels
Academic-Creative Writing
Excellent Attendance
Character Award-Compassion
Honor Roll
Scripture-Memorized the book of Ruth
Reading challenge award
Jr convention award


Amelia...........

Bible award-Life of Christ
Academics-Math
Citizenship Award
Character award-Patience
Scripture-memorized the book of Ruth
Reading challenge-140 books
Honor roll


I'm very proud of them and hope they have an even better year this fall.


Amelia's class had dress up career day and she chose to be a Mommy!  There was no talking her out of it and it made my heart proud.

I also had to tell my kindergarteners bye!  They were crazy and I loved their crazy!!

LCA Zoo Field Trip

We decided to take Kindergarten through 2nd grade to Knoxville zoo for their big field trip of the year.  I decided to put myself in charge to try and get the best deal and to also arrive and depart safely.  Not that anyone else couldn't do that, but it's how I do!!!


Since we would be getting back home after school that evening, we had to take our boys along too,  Josiah was extremely excited, but Titus was a little bit angry for having to miss his class that day.  I think they had something planned fun too.


Maynard took a vacation day to be our driver that day.  We were very thankful for him.


We all met in the parking lot bright and early only to have our church van refuse to start.  We finally got into a smaller church van and was on our way an hour behind schedule.


We had perfect zoo weather!  Such a gorgeous day and everyone had a great time.  We split into groups and would occasionally run into each other throughout the day.  I got stuck being in charge of my kids, but I usually do.  Ha Ha  We also had another boy that we kept up with too.  That cheered Titus up a bit.  He had fun too.  Don't let him fool you.


I'll drop a few pics for this post.  A zoo is a zoo.  Not much I can say.

Group Photo, but some kids had already left.

Our Tram driver seemed to think we were a little crazy.  He may have mentioned we were his loudest crew that day.

If you look closely, my little buddy was trying to keep Maynard from sitting next to me.

Maynard took tons more pics, but I never did get them from him.  I may get them later and add them to this post.
By the end of the day, they were burning up and there was a wading pool.  I'm sure all the other responsible parents or staff members didn't allow their children to get wet.  I told my group they could wade.  They mistook wading for jumping in.  Before you knew it, we had kids coming out of everywhere joining in.  So we had some wet kids traveling home, but I'm sure it felt wonderful to them.

Mother's Day and my birthday 2017

I'm trying so hard to get caught up on my blog posts.  Here it is a month until school starts and I haven't even blogged about the last day of school yet.  I'll get to it, I promise.


Mother's day was May 2014.  All I wanted for Mother's day was 2 ferns to hang on my front porch.  I've never had a front porch before and I couldn't wait to hang ferns.  Of course, I wanted to be subtle and not come right out and ask for them.  So one day I went to Krogers with the kids and as we walked by all the plants and flowers outside, I mentioned, "Ya'll need to tell Daddy that I want 2 of these Boston Ferns.  They have to be just like these, ok?"  Then, I didn't really think of it that much anymore.  Maynard always takes the kids shopping the night before Mother's day.  They love it!!


That evening I had to get something out of the back of the van and I found a pink flower petal.  I was kind of disappointed because I was afraid that Maynard had bought me the hanging baskets with flowers and all I wanted was the ferns.  Ha Ha  So, I prepped myself that the next morning I wouldn't be getting my ferns and it would be ok.


Maynard surprised me with breakfast from McDonalds and then he did all the ironing for church. 


When it was gift time I was told to close my eyes.  One by one, the kids brought me little flowers for me to plant in the yard.  One even had pink petals.  Then Maynard came out with my 2 ferns!!!  Yay!!!  So I got my ferns after all.  One day I will learn to quit being so nosey!!!


We went to church and took a few pics in front of the Mother's Day back drop.

We ate lunch at Gondoliers and I got cheesecake for dessert!!
Then they all let me enjoy my Sunday nap.


Amelia and I also got to attend the Mother/Daughter's tea party at the library.  She loves going to this every year.  I'll take her as long as she's old enough to go.

She was so torn between wearing her princess dress or for me and her to wear matching dresses.  She finally decided we should match. 


She made several crafts and even got her annual jewelry haul in her treat bag.


So I had a very special Mother's Day and I'm thankful for the gift of being a mother. 


I am also thankful for my Mom who taught me how to be a good Mom!






My birthday was soon after Mother's Day so I'll just post a couple pictures of that instead of another post.


I woke up on my birthday and could hear the kids rummaging around the kitchen.  They kept peeking at me through my bedroom door so I pretended to be a sleep so I wouldn't ruin their surprise.  They came to get me and told me to come to the kitchen with my eyes closed.

 The kids had made me a candle-lit birthday breakfast.  Josiah made the sausage and eggs.  Amelia made the toast and cut up the banana.  Titus lit all the candles.  My present was from Titus and it was his fidget spinner.  I thought this was super sweet.


We had my birthday dinner at Dave's Steakhouse and then I wanted an ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen.

 I also got a fitbit for my present.  I did really well with it at first, but now it's starting to loose its effect.


I am 39 and holding.  Why am I dreading turning 40 so bad?  I remember crying when my Mom turned 40 because I thought she was getting old.

Oh, my cat decided to bring me a birthday present too!!

Titus and Amelia's Baptisim

I am one happy Mom!  All of my children have been saved and baptized now.  We had a baptisim service on May 7, 2017.  It was kind of quick notice so my family wasn't able to attend due to other plans.  I was disappointed about that, but my kids didn't want to wait any longer.  Josiah had already been baptized so it was Titus and Amelia's turn.


Now, you may have noticed that I hadn't done a blog about Titus getting saved yet.  His salvation was one that I didn't witness so I felt I had to watch him to see how I felt about it.  Ha ha  I know that sounds terrible, but here's his story.


April 25, 2015 was the day before Maynard's birthday.  Titus and Josiah were in their room praying before bed.  Maynard and I was already in bed.  Both boys came running into our room and Josiah announced, "Titus just got saved!"  Titus was smiling and looked at Maynard and said, "Yep!!  I got saved for your birthday, Dad!!!"


So, you can see why I may have doubted that.  Ha Ha  Anyway, the last 2 years when the opportunity would arise I would always ask him whether he was saved or not.  No matter how I questioned him or even tried to get him to say he wasn't saved, he always declared he was and I couldn't talk him out of it.  So if he feels like he's saved than who am I to question him about it or not!  Just because I didn't have the sweet moment with him like I did my other children, doesn't mean he didn't get saved.  Salvation is that simple.  I think people make it more difficult than it needs to be.


So when it was announced that there was going to be a baptisimal service at our church, Amelia and Titus were both ready.


We ended up with 11 of our young people getting baptized that night.  How exciting!  We have such a great group of kiddos in our church.  They truly love the Lord and want to do what's right.

Titus was the only boy out of 8 girls.

They all went in order of their ages.  Look at that tall girl next to last in line.  Looks like she should be up closer in line.

Titus testifying.

Amelia's turn.

  Now Amelia had this big long testimony ready.  She had practiced and practiced, but when it was time to testify, she only got out, "I want to thank the Lord for saving me!"  She said she got too nervous.  So cute!!

She had a smile in all her pictures.

 I had both of them pack extra clothes to change into.  They just got baptized in their church clothes, because it was just water and wouldn't hurt their clothes.  That way they only had to change one time.  I got so tickled when I realized Titus had chosen a Goodwill bag to pack his extra clothes in.  No shame!!!  Ha Ha

I'm thankful for my church who don't leave the little children out.  They stress salvation and the bible to them every chance they get.  Going to a Christian school has been an added bonus to them as well!!!


I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.  3 John 1:4

Suprise Disney on Ice trip

So several months back I asked Amelia if maybe one day she would like to go to Disney on Ice.  She had to ask questions because she wasn't too sure what it even was.  Her most important question was "Do we get to skate too?"  As most of you know she's really into skating right now.  I told her "no", that we only watch the Disney characters skate.  Her reply was, "BOORRING!!!!"  So we never really talked about it much anymore because I knew I would get the same response, even though I knew she would love it if she went.  I hadn't even checked to see when the next show would be.


One day my friend Heather asked me if I was interested in going with them to Disney on Ice.  This was right in the middle of us still living at the Hotel and I was a little hesitant to say "Yes".  She had 2 extra tickets at a reasonable price and did Amelia and I want to go?  We could even ride to Lexington with her.  I talked to Maynard about it and we both agreed that the boys would rather do something else and he absolutely didn't want to go.  Ha Ha  I told her would go with her and Amelia and I would have a "Girls day out" and daddy would do something fun with the boys.

Here's a video of when she first found out she was going.  I thought I was videoing the first part when I actually told her, but I wasn't.  I had her a special shirt made to wear that day and that's what I gave her to surprise her. 
She found out at school, the day before, that her friend Lacie was going to Disney on Ice.  Then she continued to beg all day about going.  Lacie wasn't supposed to mention it and she had accidentally found out herself that she herself was going.  I kept telling Amelia that we would go maybe next time.  She was so persistent, but I wanted to surprise her so bad and she wasn't letting me.


The boys were kind of mad, which I suspected, but Maynard took them and spent the whole day with them.  They got to go bowling and ate at Taco Bell.  They were happy with that, so all was well.


As far as our trip, it was great!!!  Absolutely wonderful.  Amelia took it all in.

 
 We enjoyed the show and even enjoyed our snacks that was hidden in our purses.  Sorry, I'm not paying $25 for popcorn, Disney!

Snow White and the 7 Dwarves were my favorite.

My pictures were saved from my Instastory so that's why they look different here.  I did do a few pics and live vidoes on Instagram so my boys could see some of it.  I didn't video the whole time though like this lady did.

She videoed her grand kids the whole time during the show.  You can see in the picture that she was using my legs to help hold up her arm.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't even tell Heather what was wrong.  I just had to motion with my eyes.


We got to see an awesome show of Tangled.  It was really amazing and captivating.  There was Snow White, Cinderella, Micky and Minnie, Donald Duck, and so many more.  I am so glad we had the opportunity to go.

So glad that I got to be with my friends and Amelia got to be with her friends on such a fun day!!!

Easter 2017

The week before Easter the kids had activities planned at school.  I decided to make Resurrection Rolls with Kindergarten through 2nd grade.  We had a lot of fun making them and it was so yummy to eat.

Amelia making her resurrection roll.

Kindergarten Class making their rolls.

1st-2nd Class making their rolls.

1st through 2nd accused me of stealing Jesus.  When they bit into their roll, Jesus, the marshmallow, was gone.  It was a cute lesson about the resurrection of Jesus just in time for Easter.  This is probably a tradition we will continue to do every year.


The younger classes also got to have an egg hunt that day.

Josiah's class didn't hunt eggs.  It's sad when they start growing up. His teacher played games with his class so he still had fun.


Friday night I realized we hadn't dyed eggs yet.  I was in town getting last minute things so I picked up what we needed to dye eggs.  We didn't even get started on it until 11 at night.  This is something Maynard always does with the kids.  I try not to help because I tend to want to take control and I kind of ruin the fun.

The next day we went to E-town for the Harper Easter dinner.  We had a cookout at Mom and Dad's.  All the cousins, but one, was there.  We had so much fun.  At one time or another one of the aunt or uncles was playing games with the kids.  It was perfect weather outside for a cookout.  They played kickball and volleyball and lots of other games.  They also got lots of candy and money on their egg hunt.  See, egg hunts at Mamaw's has no grandchild age limit.  I'm not sure what the cut off is and it makes me sad to even think about them all growing up.

All the grandkids, but one.

Dad and Mom

We had a lot of fun and took some tired kiddos home.  The next morning was Easter Sunday and they were excited.

I got them all a chocolate bunny and a special drink.  The rest was socks and underwear.  My kids are actually always appreciative of new socks and underwear.  They had gotten enough candy from school and my parent's house that they didn't need a lot of candy anyway.


We got dressed, took a few pictures and headed to church.  It was a rainy day.  The kids actually had to have their egg hunt in the classrooms at church.  I didn't get any egg hunt pictures because everything got a little crazy.  Here are our family Easter pictures.

Amelia was excited to be matching her Mom!

We had a great Easter with wonderful services.   Thankful for my family and a risen Saviour!!!!