Books

I don't ever want to forget this stage with Callie. She loves books. Seriously. I find her this way about 4 or 5 times a day - at least. Sitting on the floor with the library bag right next to her. Holding the books this way - like a little teacher. Reading them out loud. With an amazing amount of expression. Some of the books she remembers parts of the story if we've already read it together. But if she doesn't, it doesn't matter! She just makes up a story!! I LOVE it!

Callie and Matthew

These two are a hoot. They are 4 months apart and are cute as can be together. They couldn't get enough of themselves saying goodbye to each other. I'd take a picture of them, and then they'd want to see it, and then they'd say "do it again!" :)

A little bit more time...

When I woke up in the morning, this was how I found the boys. Luke brought a small sampling :) of his vast silly band collection and they had them all out and were trading.

This is what Matthew was up to - playing with Callie's dress up stuff....he looks like he was caught red-handed, doesn't he? :)

Moving on to R2D2 Trouble and another Star Wars board game...these boys are all cut from the same cloth, aren't they? :)

John couldn't get enough of Caleb - and Caleb LOVED him!!!

Luke giving Caleb a goodbye hug too...

Spending a little time with cousins!

We were so excited to get to be a pitt stop for the Oates family on their way to Virginia! When I first told the kids their cousins were coming and were going to get to see us on their way to vacation, they were thrilled!! Jacob said "So they're going to come in our house and play for a few minutes and then keep driving to their vacation?" :) He was excited to hear they were staying for more than a few minutes and were in fact going to spend the night before continuing their trip the next morning!

They arrived at about 3:00 pm and it wasn't long before everyone was getting bathing suits on to head down to the pool for a bit!

John was working on teaching Caleb his shape sorter ball :)

Matthew and Callie had a lot to catch up on the walk down to the pool (and yes, Callie was "mowing the lawn" on her way...)

The big boys - Josiah, Luke, Jacob, and John....they tend to be in their own world and I hardly see any of them when they are all together! :)

Mary was relaxing poolside...

Kim...an obviously experienced Mom of 4. She's got a 2 year old in the pool, listening attentively to my 3 year old talk her ear off, and has a hand on the 10 month old baby....she's a pro!

Walking back home to get dinner going...

It didn't take long for the Pastor Davids to delve into a deep theological or ministry-related conversation! :)

We let the big boys play the Star Wars video game for a few minutes while we were getting dinner on the table.

Mary and Callie (the ONLY granddaughters!!!) painted their nails (this is what Callie had been talking about for DAYS! Wondering if Mary would paint her nails...)

I caught David Oates sitting on the couch reading to Caleb...it was so precious! He's a great dad to his kids - and a super uncle to mine! :)

This was the goodnight hug between the 4 boys - I thought some of their heads might pop right off! :) I love that they love each other so much!

The day just gets more and more fun!!!

After Josiah's end-of-the-year party, we all went home, grabbed lunch for Caleb and my coupon book, and headed out to meet David at Chick-fil-A for lunch. We got to be two of the lucky ones that made a "reservation" as a "chick-fil-a insider" to try the NEW spicy chicken sandwich that they are adding to their menu on June 7. We had our coupons to try one for free and decided to have it coincide with our celebratory lunch. For the record, the spicy chicken sandwich was too spicy for me, but David absolutely loved it and will probably order it every time he goes from now on!

David had to pretty much eat and run since he was doing a funeral later that afternoon. The kids and I finished up and then headed over to Sam's to get our weekly allotment of milk (6 gallons!) and were able to enjoy a few samples along the way. On our way to checkout, Jacob said to me "Mom! This is such an exciting day! We had Josiah's party at school, we got to have lunch with Daddy at Chick-fil-A, we got to taste samples here at Sam's Club, and now we get to go home and our cousins are coming!" :) Indeed, it was very fun going from one fun thing to another! And so we headed home to wait for our cousins (my sister Kim & her family) to arrive!! They were going to stop through and spend the night on their way to vacation in Williamsburg, and we were so excited to get to see them!!

Josiah's Last Day of 1st Grade!

The kids and I joined Josiah at about 9:00 on Thursday for his end-of-the-year party. It had been such a fun week and I knew he was excited about the party.

The kids headed outside to the courtyard for some fun games including a sack race...

...and a good old water balloon toss!! They thought this was hilariously fun (and were too young to think about sabbotage!)

Josiah made it to the final four...

...and then the final three. On the next toss, all 3 teams popped their balloons at the same time!

The room mom had arranged for two of the high school cheerleaders to come and do face painting for the kids (Cougar Prints...that's our mascot). See how EXCITED Jacob was (remember the disappointment from the library the day before?) It made my heart happy! :)

These kids sure do love to get their faces painted! (and they used these cool face painting markers - so much easier!)

Ella and Josiah (that's an awfully big smile from Josiah...)

The party was a carnival theme complete with popcorn and cotton candy!

Mrs. Bickley and Josiah

We had such a great year this year in 1st grade. It was a huge unknown heading in to the year - new school, new grade, new class - everything. Josiah has really grown this year - he's done great academically, but we knew that he would. What he has surprised us with is how much he has grown socially and in his confidence. He has come out of this year with this newfound confidence and self-assurance that we have been so excited to see! Mrs. Bickley was the perfect teacher for him - exactly who we prayed for. She encouraged him all year long and challenged him to keep growing and learning. We are SO thankful to have had her, and hope she can teach all the rest of our kids!

Now I'm excited to have Josiah back home with us every day. A change in routine and schedule that I'm looking forward to. It will change the dynamic again to have 4 back at home, but I am SO excited to have all my little chicks back in the nest! He's excited to get to be home too and do all our "daily" stuff with us. Hooray for summer vacation! :)

Make a Splash and READ!

Anyone that knows me knows that the public library is part of our schedule EVERY week - no matter what! It's one of our favorite days that we ALL look forward to. On Wednesday afternoon, they had a party to kick off their summer reading program "Make a Splash and READ". They have reading logs and listening logs (for kids that can't read yet) and offer incentives and prizes as the kids complete each level. We were excited for the fun and it didn't disappoint!

Waiting in line at the big dolphin slide...

Bouncing away in the inflatable...

We headed inside at this point to get in line for face painting (something Jacob talked about ALL DAY LONG) only to find out they had closed the line....very sad. But they handled it well and we moved on. We chose our books for the week, checked them out, and headed outside for a popsicle before making our way to church that night. What a fun afternoon adventure! :)

The Designer and His Design

This is Josiah wearing his "100 Book Club" member shirt. The medal in the center was his design! :) (I'm wishing I had kept that picture he drew...I had no idea he was going to WIN!!! I do remember it was around the time of the Olympics...hence the gold medal....you know how Olympics-crazy our family is!) :)

Visions of Sandi's House Dancing in my Head

Remember my "funky" post from Sunday night. Well, I went to bed and was hopeful to wake up with a happy heart. I was okay when I got up, and then as I sat down on the couch to nurse Caleb, David says to me "by the way, the upstairs hallway carpet is soaking wet." WHAT?!?!? Turns out our washing machine had an "issue" during the night and soaked the carpet uptairs in the hallway. Good grief.

A little background - I've noticed some small amounts of water on occasion in the laundry room over the last couple of weeks. SMALL puddles - seriously. Never got close to exiting the laundry room where the carpet is. David looked (not intensely), but looked to see if he could tell where it was coming from. Couldn't. It was on my list - to pull out the paperwork from the extended warranty (which I NEVER buy, but did for this because of what my friend SANDI went through last year...). Was going to pull the paperwork, call, etc, etc, but hadn't gotten around to it. I've just been keeping an eye on the machine when I run it to make sure everything is okay.

Well, Sunday night, before going to bed, I checked the washer and it had 9 more minutes left on the cycle. There was some water on the floor, so I cleaned it up with the pool towels that were on the floor in there to be washed. Figured it would be okay since the cycle was almost over. Apparently NOT a good idea! :)

to make a long story short, the connector hose came loose in the back and water just poured out of that thing. Sigh. After calling the service plan people on Monday morning and hearing that the connector is NOT covered (even though THEY are the ones that installed it! grrr...), David investigated a little more and was able to fix the problem himself by tightening the connector...or whatever it's called. Had to drain some water from the bottom of the machine (which means tilt the thing over and hurry and sop up the water with towels....) but all is well. The carpet is now dry, but I'm waiting to hear back from the carpet cleaners to see when they can come out and clean it. There is one LITTLE water spot in the kitchen (underneath where the water spill was), but it doesn't look like anything major.

So my Monday didn't start really great. :) Yesterday was better though - and it ended with the other Pastors' Wives coming over for dessert and coffee. It was SO good - just what my heart needed. Some fellowship with other women who are in the EXACT same boat that I am - who know the stresses and heartaches like no one else does. Women who are at the next stage of life and can encourage me with the stage that I'm struggling with. It was so good to just connect with them again and spend a great time in prayer together and for each other. Very thankful.

100 Book Club

All the 1st grade classes at Josiah's school took part in a reading challenge all year long - for each child to read and log 100 books read. It was a great way to motivate and chart the kids' progress throughout the year. I remember when we first got to see Josiah's classroom at the beginning of the year and he saw the chart, he thought 100 books sounded like SO many!!! Well, he ended up reading over 300 - and in truth, he probably only logged half of the ones he actually read. He is a reading machine!

Tuesday was the celebration day for all the kids that achieved 100 books read. They each got a certificate and tshirt if they met this milestone. The kids were astounded to hear that, in total, the 1st graders read 21, 570 books this year! That's awesome! Of the kids who reached 100 books, 4 students from each class were picked in a raffle to win a $5 gift card to Books-a-Million, and Josiah was one of the lucky ones! Very exciting - it's going to be HARD for him to decide what he wants to buy there, I just know it! :)

Here's Mrs. Bickley handing Josiah his certificate, and Mr. Cook (one of the Asst. Principals) handing him the tshirt...
...and then my camera battery died and I couldn't get any more pictures!

The other exciting news is that they picked Josiah's design to put on the tshirts! All the first graders had to draw a picture that went along with the theme for 100 Book Club this year, which was "Cougars Win in 2010". Josiah drew a gold medel that had a "100" in the middle, with cougar paw prints around it. I was SO excited for him - when I congratulated him afterwards, he said "that's not what I drew. I drew my picture on a piece of paper." He cracks me up. After explaining to him the process and that they used his DESIGN to put on the shirts, he was excited too! Once my camera charges, I'll take a picture of the shirt he designed! :) All this end of the year stuff is so fun! :)