Soccer Girl

Here is our sweet ( and sassy) girl. This is the first year she has played soccer. She had fun. That's all that counts right?Already looking like a pro!
Somehow, Sarah and Jack got on the same team. I'm sure it's because they are soulmates. Ha!! They had fun, as always. Jack scored 2 goals!! Sarah kept wanting to be the goalie.
This was her favoirte part (except for the snack).

Ricky and Hunner

My nephews recently visited for the weekend. It was Ricky's birthday, so we had a mini-party for him. The funniest part was the kids eating their cupcakes.

We thought we would wear the cupcakes!! This is Ricky, the birthday boy. He is named after my daddy.

I like the way the cupcake matches Sarah's shirt. Hunner (below) refused to participate in the messiness.

First Day of School

Yes.....it has really taken me this long to sit down and post about their first day of school. Ethan really loves his teacher, Mrs. Cheatham. She is a team leader and is great!! Sarah is at Discovery Point, which is where she has been for the past 3 years for daycare, so she is very comfortable. All of her friends are there. Her teacher is very nice. Sarah and Ethan have always been competetive. Now, there is a competition every night at dinner for who had the best day and learned the most. Sarah has learned to sing the good morning song is English AND Spanish, with sign language. She is hilarious! They have also been on 2 field trips already. Last week was safety week, so we all had to practice the "stop, drop and roll" technique.

This is a picture of Ethan from his first day of LAST year. I just like to see how much he has grown.

Summer Projects

I certainly can't say we wasted the summer, or that we just played. We had several projects going on at the same time. My brother-in-law's brother was in town around July 4th. He's a painter and we had been wanting him to quote painting just our trim and shutters. It turned out to be alot less expensive than we thought, so we went ahead and had it done. We love the difference it has made. The previous color was a teal. I love the house but can't say I loved the teal. Here's the before............

And the after....................

We also decided to lay laminate flooring on our own. We knew it would be a challenge, but it wasn't that bad once we got going. Here is our living room before we pulled the carpet up...

Here's my man working on the hardest part, which was pulling up a small area of hardwood that was in the entry. It was glued down and very difficult to pull up.

And here are some after pictures. We still aren't quite done, but we feel almost done, anyways.

I don't have pictures of our biggest project, yet, but we also screened in the back porch. We have a triple deck in the back and I had a fear of one of the kids falling over. We had a metal roof put on, then did most of the other work ourselves. My mom's husband, Ed, helped us install electricity on the porch.

Well, I do have a few pictures of some baby birds enjoying the new porch. Their parents made a nest while we were building it. We decided to wait to put the door on until the babies hatched and flew away. This is the day the babies first flew out. It didn't take them anytime to learn to fly.

We enjoy sitting out on the porch in the rain!!

Stone Mountain

Summer.....The End

We went to my mom's cousin, Lynn's, for July 4th. We always have a fun afternoon there. The kids swim, then we cookout. This year we had a lighter crowd, but still had just as much fun. After Lynn's, we went home for awhile, then headed to the fireworks in Peachtree City. We pulled into the shopping center they have there and got a great space. Some of our neighbors happened to pull in a little while later and saw us, so they parked behind us. I got a picture of the kids with their sparklers. Sorry it's not a better picture. I took it with my camera phone.


Scott took 1/2 day for us to go to Callaway Gardens on July 18th. We had a blast, riding bikes, going to the butterfly center, then going to the beach. I would love to go back in the fall when it's not as HOT and ride bikes again. We went when the weather was in the 90's.......I look forward to going back in the fall, when it's not so hot. After CG, we went to see my mom. She had a pinched nerve in her neck and had to have an epidural. She had to have this done several years ago, too. It is a little painful at first, but helps in the long run.

July 18th is also my dad's birthday. He would have been 58 this year. I am so excited that I will see him in heaven one day!!

Isn't she gorgeous!! Look at my handsome boy!!!

Our last official trip was to Stone Mountain. We are with the Statzers and Nadreaus again. Kim, Lisa and I are all teachers, so it was easy to plan things to do with them. We had a fun summer. Hopefully, we'll make plans next year too!! Anyways, we went at 4. It's a great time to go. First of all, you get a discount and second, it's not quite as hot. I started posting pictures, then realized that there were way to many, so i will make a slide show and post it later.

We went into the barn first. It's like a foam factory. The kids pick up balls, then go upstairs and shoot them. They had a blast. Then we went to the bucket ride and rode to the top of the mountain. Being on top of the mountain reminds me of how awesome God is to make such a beautiful creation. Psalms 36:6 says that his righteousness is like a great mountain. How awesome is that!!

We went on the new Sky Hike, which was so cool. Sarah and Jack had to go on the mini hike, but got to climb the rock wall. Sarah amazes me.......she beat everyone to the top the first time she tried.

The kids had fun listening to the music and waiting for the laser show. They danced, ran around, then settled down and played UNO. They were all so good!! My favorite part of the evening was singing "I Will Always Love You" at the top of my lungs with Lisa. I'm sure everyone around us thought we were crazy, but it was fun!!How awesome!! They are looking at Atlanta, where there daddies work. Speaking of....all the daddies joined us for the laser show after a hard day at work. I have lots of good pictures, so I'll make a slideshow in the next few days.

Summer Part 3

We took a trip to Whitewater at the end of June. We didn't get many pictures because........it's wet! Here's one of all of the kids, though. They had a good time. Caroline, Ethan and I rode the tornado, which was the highlight of my day. I had always wanted to ride it, but there was an eternal line. We go there early this time and this is the first thing we did. The rest of the kids were not tall enough to ride........maybe next year.

The night before we went to Whitewater, I found out that my friend, Maribeth, had lost her oldest daughter, Kate. Kate had become suddenly sick. Apparently, she had an enlarged heart. When I was pregnant with Ethan, Maribeth was pregnant with Kate. We also had a friend, Nellann, who was pregnant with her son, Evan. We made frequent trips to Arby's and shared our pregnancy stories. This was the first pregnancy for all of us. Maribeth had 3 girls, Kate, Claire and Lauren. Nellann had 3 boys, Evan, Tate and Reed. Ethan remembered Kate, mostly from pictures. He wanted to go with us to the funeral home. It was absolutely the most heartbreaking experience. I can't imagine going through this kind of loss. Nellann happened to get to the funeral home right when I did, so we got to see Maribeth together. She encouraged us to go up and see Kate, so we did. The next day, I went to the funeral. The sweetest thing was that her middle child, Claire, who Maribeth says is the shy one, wanted to sing a song. She sang "Where He Leads Me, I will follow". The younger girls had also written a letter to be read at funeral about their sister and what a great big sister she was. Kate's dad, Clay, was an Auburn football player. I found this picture from when Clay got to do the Tiger walk and he took Kate with him.

We also took a trip to the Fernbank. We loved the Imax. It was on Antartica and had alot of penguins in it. There was a young boy volunteering who told the kids about the fossils that were built into the floor. The rest of the time we were there, the kids found fossils.....even in the bathroom.

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