Mother's Day (part 2)

We went to my parent's house later in the day and ate more yummy food. My dad grilled some steaks. My dad bought some flowers for the grandkids to pot for the mommies while they were visiting. The kids loved planting the flowers and did an excellent job. Thanks dad for thinking of me! I love having beautiful flowers out my back window to gaze upon.
Getting the soil in the pot

Filling the pot with more soil all around the flowers

Watering the flowers with a little help from grandpa

Even Josiah was there for the action.

Greg took this picture from on the floor (gotta love the angle... haha.... NOT). I'm modeling my new clothes he purchased for me for Mother's Day. I love having cute new clothes for the Summer. It makes me feel like a special mommy! I adore my family God has blessed me with.

I love being a mom and getting to celebrate this special day! Being a mother has humbled me and taught me so much about myself. I don't know how my mother did it, but am blessed by her dependence on the Lord and her worshipful spirit. She taught me so much and even though she did not do it perfectly, she did it with love and taught me the most important thing....JESUS!! I count it a joy to raise my children and I am so thankful I have my Great and Awesome God to help me along the way. Lord knows, I would not be able to do this on my own. I so depend on the Holy Spirits strength and guidance to help me through this journey.

Mother's Day

We spent Mother's Day with both our families. First we had a yummy lunch with Greg parents after church at Floyd's (it's a seafood grill).

Then we went to their house to exchange cards. Carlee is holding a flower from her Grammy.

We all cried from the cards we got as seen in the picture below. I feel so blessed to have a wonderful mother-in-love that I truly enjoy.

It was a special time together!

Ballet Exams

Carlee had her ballet exam this past Friday and did outstanding. Her dancing has gone from a bounce three year old to a graceful five year old. When she gets into character, she becomes so serious and beautiful when she dances; however, there are times (when we are looking) that she gets goofy and hilarious. Here Carlee is already to go. Ms. Rebecca helped her get her laces wrapped around her ankles just right. Now I know exactly how to do it when it comes time for preformance. I'm still learning this whole dancing thing, but I love it.
The girls who were going to have an examine

They all had white skirts and white ribbons for the bun. Carlee had a new leotard, tights and shoes. The ballet studio is very particular about their dress.

She got to pick out some flowers before we headed home. She was completely exhausted from the week and fell asleep in the car.

She picked out a beautiful light pink rose. Simply perfect for our little ballerina

I'm pretty sure Carlee will be moving up to the next class. I think they just have the beginner class do exams just for the experience. I'm glad it is over for now.... the production is on it's way.

Mother/Daughter Night with Sweet and Sassy

Last Thursday, we went to our new Chick-fil-a (as well as the rest of the Woodlands) and had fun. Carlee got her nails and hair done like a princess. I missed the chair massages b/c it was so crowded, but did get to share a milkshake with my girl.
We ran into some friends there from ballet. Carlee had the best time playing with these girls. I am so glad I had a friend to fellowship with as well. It made the whole experience so much more enjoyable. It had already been a long day.

These girls cracked me up riding in this limo. They look like they are riding a roller coasters. haha.... The lady driving the limo was a friend on mine and I told her she could take her time since we were the last to ride in the limo, but apparently she did not understand me b/c she zoomed around the parking lot a few times and are ride was done in lick-ity split. We were all laughing pretty hysterically at the whole experience.

The best part of the evening was relaxing with our milkshake. They accidentally gave us a large instead of a small. It was free anyway, since we had a coupon. Gotta love the icing on the cake! Thanks God!

I love my girl and love these times we have. Carlee is one of the most precious girls. She knows exactly how to cheer me up by saying, "Mommy, I love you. God loves you." (and then saying) "This is the day the Lord has made, let's rejoice and be glad in it." I love it! She's already putting God's word into application and letting His word come alive.

A Day to Celebrate

Last Wednesday we spent the whole day celebrating Carlee's achievement- her completion of Kindergarten. It's hard to believe we have spent the last 26 weeks dedicating our time to school work. We had a few breaks in between, but still managed to finish early. Carlee has proved to be a very fast learner and made this school year easy for me. She loves to learn and I could not have asked for a better student. We went lots of places to celebrate....
We celebrated at Chick-fil-a with the Cat and the Hat
Playing in the jungle gym area. I love that Zachary tried to do the things Carlee does with his tongue out and all.

My little monkey girl climber

We celebrated at the mall, taking a ride on the carousel

We celebrated on the Waterway on the boat (our neighbor drives the boats so we got a free ride). Zachary is tooting the horn. We were the only ones on the boat, so Carlee and Zachary did a whole lot of horn blowing.

We celebrated at Pottery Barn Kids and played with the toys in the store (only for a little bit).

Finally, we celebrated with some Marble Slab (raspberry ice cream and gummy bears). Yummy!!

It was definitely a day to celebrate. I probably went a little over board, but all in all it was an eventful day all for Carlee. A job well done!

We are going to continue to home school next year as well. We'll be doing some review during the Summer to get Carlee ready for the upcoming year. I am ready for a relaxing Summer.

Carlee Cut Her Own Hair

On Monday morning during breakfast, Carlee asked me if she could go in her room after we finished school to play dress-up. I told her, "Yes," and we then proceeded to get some school work done. After school was over, Carlee went in her room and shut the door. She knows that when she changes clothes that she needs to shut the door since she has a brother and needs to have some privacy. I thought nothing of it and assumed she was playing dress-up like we discussed. Well, a few minutes went by and when Carlee came out of her room, I noticed she was still in her clothes she was wearing earlier. I asked her if she was going to dress-up and she didn't answer me. But something was weird because she was holding her hair in her ponytail. I asked her what she was doing and she didn't answer. So then when she put her hand down, I saw that her ponytail was extremely jagged. Then I walked back to her room and noticed all the hair on her table, with her school scissors. I was surprised she would do this because she loves her long hair and she knows what scissors do. But I guess it was bound to happen one day.
These are the after pictures. Now Carlee has hair as short as me with layers (just like she wanted). Fortunately, it still goes back into a ponytail. We have ballet exams this week. Praise God it was in a ponytail!
Looking more grown up now....

Below is a picture of Carlee's hair after she cut it. You can only tell a little on the left side of her hair that it is shorter. I should have taken a picture of it when it was still in the ponytail. You could definitely see where she had cut it. I was a little anxious to see what it was going to look like down.

Apparently, Carlee put hair in her tea cups that were sitting on the table in her room. (kind of creepy, I know) Funny thing is I totally missed this. I literally cleaned up the whole table of hair and the floor of hair, but missed these hair filled tea cups totally. Now you know how out of it I was and how quick I got her to the beauty salon to fix the damage. Everything was solved in an hour.

When I told Greg about what happened, he just laughed. I on the other hand wasn't sure how to respond to this dilemma. I was trying to be a responsible parent and wasn't sure if this was a discipline issue we needed to address. Greg said it was a childish issue so Carlee would just have to learn from her mistake and not let it happen again. So now Carlee knows that when she wants to get a haircut she needs to come and tell me rather than taking matters into her own hands. She told me after all was said and done, "she just wanted to have hair like me."

Cousins

We had the opportunity to babysit my little nephew, Josiah while my sister and brother-in-law went on a date night last night. This was the first time I got to take care of him. He is such an easy baby. He's at the greatest stage right now, 6 months, sitting up and not crawling. Our kids absolutely adore him. I love that they will get to grow up together and spend lots of time together. I'm thinking they will be more like siblings rather than cousins.

Carlee told Greg and I when we were taking care of Josiah that we needed to get married two more times, so we could have two more kids.... haha. I'm not sure her reasoning, but apparently she thinks she needs two sisters. I told her that Aunt Rachel will be having the rest of the babies and we will get to enjoy her kids..... Carlee probably doesn't realize the more kids we have the less time I will get to spend with her and she definitely needs quality time with her mommy and daddy. I am so thankful for our family of four. It feels complete and I am content with what God has given us!

An Eventful Saturday

Last Saturday was so busy I wish we had pictures of all the events. Greg and I had about a million things planned and accomplished all of them. Greg woke up at 7 am and went to help move our friends from Boston into their new house (about 10 minutes from us). At 10am we had family pictures with 20 or so relatives at Creekside Park. Then we went to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch with my family to celebrate my sisters birthday. Next we came home, left the kids with Greg's parents and went to a wedding in Conroe at 2pm. (the pictures above) We actually got lost in downtown Conroe and missed the wedding ceremony, but made it there for the reception. The wedding was extremely short. Then we came home changed clothes for the third time and I took the kids to a birthday party at Gymboree at 4:30pm, while Greg went back to help our friends unload the truck. After the party we all joined Steve at his new house and ate some burgers for dinner. The kids were in bed by 8:30pm believe it or not. It was an eventful day, I needed a break this past week just to recover.... hence the late blog post. I'm amazed we did all this, but all of these things were important to us, so we made it work. I'm so thankful for all our wonderful friends and family that we can share life with. God is so good!