Birthday Time



Emmy and Ally both had a birthday this summer.  Emmy turned 11 and Ally turned five and was able to get her ears pierced.  Something she has been dieing to do. Ally also wanted to have her party at Chucky Cheese so we did.  We even added Emmy to the party and she had a blast.  We usually have about 3 parties per child so it was nice to combine some. 

 Love that smile.

 Love her personality.

 They still love all the games and I'm glad because it's hard to find a way to entertain all four kids.

 

Here they are with their hats.  Too cute

 

 

I love to see them dance and carry on.  There motto is perfect, it truly is where a kid can be a kid.

 

 



Emmy's 5th Grade Graduation

Emmy is growing up!! I can't hardly stand it.  She will be in middle school

 this year and recently had her 5th grade graduation.  It was short and

sweet, just the way we like it. 

She had a great year and we will really miss Timber Drive, but she's super

excited about going to middle school and so is her BFF Abby.

 Sydney, Ashlyn, Emmy....Emmy is by far the shortest of all her friends.  We

hope she gets a bottom locker next year because I don't think she'll be able

to reach the hooks in the top:))

 The moms went in together and got the girls a limo to pick them up from school after graduation.  First they went to Pelicans and had a snow cone and then it took them to Kaze to have lunch.

They thought it was so fun, the only drawback is what will they be expecting when prom rolls

around.  Maybe a helicopter ride?

 

 Emmy is so lucky to have such a large group of good girls to hang out with.  I hope they will

continue to stay close, especially through middle school.

 Her best cousin Elise even got to go along for the ride and that is Emmy's

sweet friend Haven sitting beside her.  Such pretty girls.

 Here they are at Pelicans.  Can I just say it was over 100 degrees that day.  It was

so stinking hot. Gotta love NC.

 Even Charlesy and his best friend Hartley, who happens to be Haven's little

brother got to join in on the fun. 

Finally, we arrived at Kaze, a Japanese steak house, and had lunch.  It was fun

especially with the cool tricks the cooks did.  That little boy is Connel.  He has a slight

crush on Emmy and told her a few days before school got out that he considered her his

best friend.  He also said, "you're always nice to me and make me feel good about

myself."  How sweet is that??  That boys got great taste if I do say so myself.



Grand Slam Home Run...almost!

Emmy had a softball game this week and she did so well.  She hit a grand slam home run, well almost...there wasn't anyone on second.  But she and everyone else on base made runs and we ended up winning 6-5.  Whoop, whoop!  Way to go Meme.  We love you.

It was pretty funny because when she got to second she clearly wanted to stop and rest and her coach kept waving her on....by third base she was about to die and wasn't even thinking of going further, but with everyone yelling she had to go on.  And finally they almost threw her out, but the catcher dropped the ball.  It was a plum miracle and so much fun to watch.

Service: For Love or... For Goodness Sakes You're Making Me Look Bad

Recently I have been pondering on how to make my kids more loving towards each other and it occurred to me that service was a good road to take.  I'm a big fan of service.  Not that I do it nearly as much as I should, but I can dream, and it makes me feel so good when I do.  I know that my kids see me taking food to people and their dad helping members of our church move, but I don't think you can truly get how much service matters until you receive it. And even though they reap the benefits of service from me and their dad, that's just our job, or so they think.  Soooo I decided to let service be our theme for every Family Home Evenings (FHE)  in February.   If nothing else they should get it from sheer repetition, right?  One would think.  One night we did a lesson on service and made the old timey pocket Valentines card holders.  The next week we made cards and wrote a service that we would do for that person and the next week we read the cards and have since been doing the services that we promised. I can't believe the impact it has had on MOST of our kids.  For example, one day last week I was folding clothes while Emmy and Charlesy sat on my bed doing their homework.  I had already asked Emmy to do several things and every time Charles-Allen would say, "No Mama, I'll do it", or "I'll do it for Emmy."  BINGO! Totally precious, right!  My little man is getting it.  Now that is service for love. I am sooo smart. I should write parenting books. Unfortunately, after about the fourth time Charlesy goes out of the room to do Emmy's job and she looks at me and says, "Mama, can you please tell him to do something so I can do it for him, he's making me look bad?...But don't let it be unloading the dishwasher. I'm not unloading the dishwasher for him."  Uh oh!  What just happened?  Now, even though I think Emmy is the sweetest little girl that has ever lived or probably ever will live I realize that she's only doing service for him because he's making her look bad. Man...looks like we'll have to continue on with our theme through March and stop writing my parenting book.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Food Network will Not Be Calling...Yet

One of my kids favorite thing to do is play with the old food in my fridge. I know it sounds really gross and really messy, which it totally is, but it gives them at least an hour of unguided entertainment. I got this idea from my wonderful SIL. The only rules I have is that it has to be old food that we're not going to eat, they have to use dishes that are already dirty, and they have to clean up after themselves. They love it and think it's a big treat. I honestly like it because it forces me to clean out the fridge and pantry and it's so funny to hear the things they say to each other.

 This is Elise discovering how great the grater works on "lettuce".  It's actually cabbage, but she kept calling it lettuce. 

Here is Emmy showing me her delicious dish.  Elise had said she didn't have anything to thicken it with so she added dish soap.  Yeah, The Food Network is not ready for these girls yet.

 They were saying things to each other like, "Ohh, you have plated your dish so beautifully!"  Clearly we watch way too much of  The Food Network around here.

 Now this is an example of our floors about 5 minutes into their cooking segment.  I wish I had gotten an after shot.  I think there was more food on the floor than the counter.  But the girls cleaned it up nicely and now my fridge is nice and clean and ready for new left overs.  Yeah me!

Game Time

UNC vs. ECU

So we're all revved up for another season of Carolina Football.  With all the mayhem going on we thought it would be a pretty bad season, but things are looking up.  We've won the last three games and we even got to attend a game where our team won.  I can't remember the last time that happened.  So here are some 
a lot of pics of the big day.

 Just me and the boys...had to get the truck ready too.

 Cory and Kristen got to sit with our sweet girls.  They were too cute with their blue and white boas.  Kristen said that a least a dozen people stopped to tell them how cute they were.  As if they didn't already know.

It was the most beautiful day ever.  During the game we sat on the shaded side so it was a bit cool, but I'm not complaining...just explaining the difference in the boys attire.

The boys are excited and the Heels did not disappoint.  It wasn't long before we heard....

TOUCHDOWN CAROLINA.

 After the game we let the boys run up and down the stands and just enjoy being at the stadium.

 I wonder what they're thinking?

And I know what they're thinking:)

The Goose Is Dieing....

Okay, so Emmy, my uber talented first born, is taking violin lessons and loving every minute of it. She so rocks, only it's a bit rough going right now. She loves her teacher and she loves to practice, but it truly sounds like a goose is somewhere in our house dieing. That, combined with 4 noisy kids and a husband that loves to watch anything sports related on TV and doesn't care how loud he has to turn the volume up to hear it over all the chaos that is our home, is about to drive me off the deep end.

However, we have a partial solution to the previously mentioned problems. Emmy practices outside on our deck. Wow, that was a close one.

Can't you just see the concentration on her sweet little face.

Now let's just hope the goose is dead by the time it gets too cold to practice outside.

Performance Time

Emmy had her first performance of the season at Clayton's Harves and Music Festival. So after ball pratice we changed and rushed to clayton.

We got to take Elise with us and the girls snacked on some flavored honey before the dance.

They performed last years dance and Emmy said she forgot it midway, but I couldn't tell. Maybe because all I can see is perfection when I look at her:)

Here the girls are hanging out before the performance. Afterwards, Elise said, "That was sooo awesome!" I totally agree.

Fall Ball

It's that time of year again, well actually this is the first time our kids have played fall ball. We usually just play ball in the spring. But I'm so glad we did, because Emmy has aged up to the 10-U league and it is on a totally different level. We are so overwhelmed, plus we have missed all the pratices because they put us on a team that pratices on Sunday and we don't do Sunday pratice. Fortunately for us we have friends that coach the 12-U girls and they have started letting Emmy and Elise pratice with them during their Saturday pratice. We had to get a lot of new gear and here is Lovey trying it all on.

I suspect this is as close as she'll ever get to being a ballplayer.

But I bet she would make a good cheerleader.

Daddy/Daughter Night

Last week at Church our FIG (faith in God) girls had Daddy/Daughter Night. For the activity the Dads and Daughters had to think of a famous duo, dress up like them and prepare either a skit to perform or six clues to give the audience. Then we had to guess who we thought they were. Since I'm the teacher over the FIGs I thought this would be a great idea for the dads to do (not the moms) and I was totally right. It was the cutest thing ever. Can you guess who Emmy and Neal were?

If you're thinking Tom and Jerry you would be correct.

Here they are acting out their skit. It was hillarious. At one point Emmy put her foot in her daddy's butt and pushed him down. He was trying to steal her cheese.

Here is my cutie patootie. She loved it. There were so many more great acts and a lot of great dads that were willing to be embarrassed for the love of their little girls. Here is another cute duo. They were mighty scary. Can you guess what duo Cory and Elise were?