He is Risen!

Easter is a very special holiday in our family.  Because Jesus fulfilled the prophesy by dying on the cross and rising on the 3rd day, we can trust God's word and his promises of eternity with him.  Easter Sunday is a day of celebration and rejoicing.  

We went to church on Saturday night with the kids instead of Sunday morning.  There were 695 kids in NewGen!  It was packed!  By so many families going on Sat night, it freed up a lot of space for new families to have a seat on Sunday at all of the 4 services.  

My parents sent the kids cards with money for their trip to DC next month as well as something special for each of them.  Mom made a skirt for Sis made from material that she colored when we visited last month.  She made Ra some toffee cookies which he LOVED!  He's just like his daddy and mom knows the way to his heart!

After I tucked Sissy in bed on Saturday, I found this note outside her door to the "Ester bunny."  It was so sweet!  She even included a picture of her and the bunny and asked him to put love in the house!

The kids were thrilled with their baskets.  We don't really do candy for Easter like some families do - we don't need the sugar and Ra can't have much of it anyway.  I did make sure they each got one Reese's egg which they devoured immediately!  Both kids got Steamboat Mickey/Minnie stuffed animals they wanted from Disney.  They each got a new book.  Ra got some new socks, sneaker deodorizers, and a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt.  Sis got new chapstick, sidewalk chalk and a bike seat for her American Girl dolls.  

On Easter, we had 2 of our friends over for dinner.  Ra's best friend and his family came over and another friend (who is a girl and we think is his crush) came over with her family.  V & Ra have been in the same class for the past 3 years and her mom and I have become great friends.  V has a younger sister who is a year older than K and those two have become thick as thieves.  It was wonderful to have other families to celebrate with us.  Kev's family use to adopt us and we are now paying it forward to friends who don't have family to celebrate with at holidays.  We had a fantastic time!

This was the dessert I made for the kids!  They loved it!

The best part of making dinner at our house was the leftovers!  I made enough ham to send some home with both families as well as having plenty leftover for us!

We are so thankful for the friends that God has brought into our lives.  We feel so blessed to have other families where the kids and the adults get along just as well!

Celebrating!

We don't reward our kids for their grades like some of our friends do.  We want them to know that they need to work hard for their grades and put in the effort necessary to be successful because that is the expectation.  We want them to use the gifts God has given them to the best of their ability without doing it for a reward, such as money.  

One thing we started doing since we moved to Jax is to take them out for breakfast to celebrate their hard work each marking period.  Both kids once again pulled straight A's so we took them to the Beach Diner for breakfast on Saturday.  The nicest part is that we walked there and back and enjoyed some family time first thing in the morning.  These are precious family memories we are creating.  The kids really look forward to our breakfast celebrations because we don't typically go out for breakfast as a family unless we are celebrating grades (Andy's not a breakfast guy).  

I just love these two so much.  I am so thankful for the smarty pants that God has given us!  

Sweet Friends

Sis had a birthday party on Good Friday.  I just love the girls in her grade at school.  She has some super sweet girlfriends and I just love the families they come from.  I am so thankful for the kids God has put in her life and pray that she continues to develop strong friendships with these girls.  

Toothless!

My poor baby girl has lost 6 teeth so far and ALL of them have been pulled out by the dentist.  She had shark teeth on the bottom and her teeth didn't loosen on the front, only the back.  They pulled the two next to them because there wasn't enough room for her permanent teeth.

Her top teeth became loose in early December.  We went for our scheduled cleaning in January and our dentist thought for sure they'd be out in less than a month.  Well, 4 months later, they were still attached.  She bit down on a carrot last week and it shoved her tooth up into her gums and caused inflammation and pain.  She finally asked me to call the dentist to make an appt to have them pulled.  

She was super brave because she didn't like the numbing cream and the novocain caused her some discomfort too.  The dentist had to work really hard to get the first tooth out.  It was really loose, but wasn't letting go and kept slipping out of her tools.  The pressure and popping/cracking noises bothered her and brought some tears.  Blanca (our dentist) and I almost started crying along with her. Poor baby.  

Here she is with her new look after we got home.  You can see her lip was still swollen.  She stayed home from practice just incase she was in pain or the bleeding started back up again.

After dinner we walked down to the corner for some froyo as a reward for being so brave and making the difficult choice to have them removed.  

A visit from the tooth fairy didn't hurt either!  Our tooth fairy is very generous so she ended up with and extra $10!  (Yes, $5 a tooth is a lot, but our children don't get chore money unless they do extra chores outside of their assigned ones so this gives them a way to learn to manage money) 

I love listening to her talk now.  Her BFF is also missing her two front teeth so now they are really like twins!  Extra bonus!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I love gardening.  I fell in love with gardening when I lived in Albany and had summers filled with grad school. Gardening was such a relaxing and rewarding hobby.  I still love gardening - not as much here in the Sunshine state because of the heat and bugs, but I'm getting the hang of it.  Last year I had NO luck with my tomatoes.  Between the heat (not cool enough in the evenings) and the bugs eating my plants, I gave them up for this year.  Last year our peppers were awesome so I have 7+ hot peppers of numerous varieties.  I have cucumbers and zucchinis as well as some herbs and 44, yes FOURTY FOUR strawberry plants.  My kids love strawberries and blueberries.  I've added 2 more blueberry bushes so our total is now up to 17 blueberry bushes!  Sadly, that won't be enough to satisfy my kiddos.  Our cocktail tree is blooming and I'm looking to put another one in the front yard because it was such a hit with the kids last summer.  They loved freshly squeezed lemonade, limeade, and OJ as well as the grapefruits.

First time growing strawberries vertically.  Hoping for success because this saves us a lot of space on our tiny lot!  There are 4 big plants in the raised bed too.

Our blueberry bushes have TONS of berries!  Just have to keep the cardinals away from them!  I haven't put up the bird netting yet, but I need to do that so they don't eat the berries before the kids can!

We ripped out the ugly plants our landscaper put in by the pool - they left debris in the pool every week and were a pain.  I transplanted some plants from the front yard and planted some citronella to keep the skeeters away while in the pool at night.  I also had Andy hang the planters for me and planted the boxes.  I wanted them since we built our house and I'm so happy with how they turned out!  Our irrigation guys are coming over this week to set up drip lines for the strawberries and planters.  I also painted, distressed and waxed the sea horse this week.  I knew when I saw this sea horse in MOS Garden Shop over a year ago, it had to go here by our pool.  We love how it turned out!

Wish us luck with our gardening endeavors.  The weather and bugs in Florida can spoil the best of efforts!

Hair Do...Or Don't

She found this wig at our friends' house when we were over there last weekend for dinner. She always makes me laugh. 

Grades are In!

Brag Alert - If you don't want to hear how awesome my kids are, just skip this post!

We are so proud of our kiddos!  Once again, they both have managed to pull straight A's.  This isn't an easy task at a prep school, but we are blessed with smart kids.

Ra has learned how to manage his homework and studies without much if any help from me.  I help with projects and will quiz him if he asks me to help but otherwise, it's all on his shoulders.  It's a great way to see how prepared he is for middle school.  I don't check his work, just his grades and he's doing very well for an ADHD kid without meds!  I've been able to help him learn the tips and tricks necessary for his success in the classroom.  He knows what work needs to be completed first and I let him decided when he's going to start it - usually after about 30-45 min of downtime.  If we wait too long in the evening, his attention is spent.  It will be interesting to see how he does next year with football after school!  Hoping he isn't too tired to focus on his work.  Thankfully he's good about using his time wisely at school to get as much work done as possible so he has more free time at home.

Sissy has managed high marks while spending most of her free time at the gym.  We do a lot of homework on the weekends to get a jump start on spelling words and worksheets.  We keep a book in the car so she can get her reading done while we are driving to school or practices if necessary.  She's now in the gym 11 1/2 hours instead of 7 1/2 at the old gym.  Somehow she's finding a way to make it work.  She loves gymnastics but knows her grades come first.

We don't give them money for their grades because we expect them to do their best without any expectation of something in return.  Instead we take them out for breakfast as a celebration of a quarter of hard work.  They really look forward to going out to breakfast as a family because it doesn't happen as much as they'd like!  The biggest decision is will it be the Beach Diner or Metro Diner!  Lol!

Best Birthday!

After you hit 40, it's all down hill...or is it?  Sadly, I drown my iPad about a month ago but Andy surprised me with a new one for my birthday on top of buying me tickets to Eric Church.  The concert was Friday night and my Daddy surprised me while we were at Disney with a text message that was forwarded to me.  It was from Ken Church (Eric's dad) to Dad's friend, Jamie to my Dad to me stating that my Meet & Greet tickets would be at Will Call and that I should get there by 7 pm!

We got to Will Call and the lady started questioning me about the tickets.  She asked me who arranged them for me.  I replied "Ken Church."  She said "Who?" with a confused look on her face.  I said, "Ken Church, you know, Eric's dad?"  LOL!  Once she realized who it was that arranged it, she found mine right on top of the pile with my name and Ken Church's name on them!  Classic!

Eric was running very late that night so we didn't get a chance to chat or even get a legit autograph - we got pre autographed photos but that's okay.  We did get THIS:

When I met Eric, I told him Jamie Parsons said hi and his response was "Oh, okay."  Then after the pic, he tapped me on the back (like the light bulb went off in his head because, really, why would he expect someone in Jax to know Jamie) and said "Tell Jamie I said hi when you see him!"

Jamie is a friend of my dad's.  My parents went to Israel with Jamie and his wife Wilma.  I got to meet them at Christmas, a year ago.  As we were talking, he asked me what type of music I listen to and of course I answered, Christian and country.  He then asked who I like in the country genre.  On the top of my list were Jason Aldean, Eric Church, ZBB, Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, etc.  Come to find out that Jamie's son and Eric grew up together.  His son asked that Eric sing at his first wife's funeral and had Eric sing again at his second marriage to Wilma years later.  When I met Jamie and Wilma they had just had dinner at the Church's (with Eric's parents) the night before!  

When I was with my dad over spring break, I strongly hinted that I'd love Meet & Greet tickets for my birthday.  Well, my daddy delivered!  I was hoping for the M&G last June when Eric was in town for Country Superfest but Jamie was in Israel at the time and there wasn't a way to communicate with him.  I'm so thankful to the effort my dad and his buddy made to make this happen for me!  

We had awesome seats!  When I saw him with my friend Amy, we were in the pit dancing up close, but this was a bit better.  No one was bumping into me!

These Boots...Fabulous song.  All three times I've seen him, he takes a boot or two on stage for the song and then autographs it before sending it back through the crowd.

Devil, Devil - a great song about the evils of the music industry

A great guitar player on top of awesome vocals!

Sissy use to walk around our kitchen in Utah singing this song.  Not one of my prouder mothering moments, but secretly I loved it!

This song holds great memories of a very dear friend who I miss terribly.  She's someone I love and wish I could see more than once a year.

Of course he had to end with Springsteen.

We had so much fun.  I love going to concerts and seeing the artist play their music live - the way it was intended.  I'm so lucky that I've been able to attend a lot of different concerts in my life.  I've seen A LOT of country and Christian concerts, as well as some rock, pop artists.  Andy and I both love music and it feeds our souls.  Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a July, Saturday night...

Thanks Daddy for the best present ever!

World Showcase

Today at school was the first grade country presentations on individual countries.  They call the event "It's Our World" Extravaganza.  The kids learn about a country, find answers to questions from their teacher, decorate a doll to look like someone from that country, present their country info the the class and the parents, then share food from that country.

The night before I started baking a traditional Norwegian wedding cake called a Kransekake.  Andy's friend from work is Norwegian and he gave us the molds for making the cake.  The cake tastes a bit like an almond flavored cookie.  These were my test rings to make sure it turned out alright before I started on the project.

Here they are baking.  I had to make numerous rings for the cake so it took me a while to get them all baked.  I had to make the middle sized rings separately from the inner and outer sized rings on the mold.  It wasn't difficult, but it did take most of my evening.

The next morning I had to ice, stack and decorate the cake.  The pictures I saw had mini flags all over the cake so I printed some on cardstock and used toothpicks.

There were foods from all over the world.  This cake was almost completely gone by the time everyone was finished eating.  Sis took some to school today in her lunch because she liked it so much!  You can see the chocolate bar that Aage gave Sis for her project.  There wasn't ANY of that leftover!  It was really good so I can see why it was gone quickly!

Here she is giving her presentation.  She was a bit nervous but did a great job.  Some of the kids were so quiet you couldn't hear them or stumbling over their words.  My advice to Sis was not to worry about the Norwegian words because no one else would know if she pronounced the correctly or not!  She had a lot of fun doing this project.  All the decorated dolls from the different countries were posted around a globe outside in the hallway.  They were all very creative.

Gymnastics Update

Well, last night Andy went to pick up Sis from a FOUR hour practice.  She only did 2 1/2 hour practices at her old gym.  She handled the 3 hour practice on Tuesday like a champ, but last night resulted in some tears midway through practice.  Sissy told Olivia that she was sad because she missed mom.  Olivia is so sweet.  She took her out for a snack and a chat, then let Sis play for a bit and then she rejoined the girls for practice.  Olivia was super sweet and called me right after Andy picked her up.  She wanted to make sure I knew what happened and how she handled it.   The girls on the team brought Olivia over to talk to Sis instead of teasing her because she was sad.  Some of the girls on her old team teased her because she was the youngest instead of building her up and including her.  How awesome is that?  The head coach actually took the time to make sure that my kid was happy to be at practice instead of acting like a drill sergeant!  She stopped coaching to spend some one on one time with my kid.  THAT alone validates this switch to the new gym.

Olivia told me that last night they spent some time at the end of practice letting the kids try new skills on different pieces of equipment.  The kids got to choose where they wanted to go and then taught them skills from the advanced levels.  Sis was doing more level 4 skills on the bars last night - she hasn't even competed as a level 3 yet!  They really keep it fun for the kids as well as helping them get use to advanced skills in a safe environment so that when they do need to perform the skills, they aren't scared of them.

If my kid is going to spend so much time away from me, I want her around these coaches and kids.  I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart to hear how much the kids and coaches cared about my baby.  She came home happy and bouncing around.  Olivia told me that Sis kept giving her hugs all night and said that Sis is her new favorite kid on team!  This move caused me some stress and anxiety but God has shown me once again to trust his plans.  Sis loves her new gym and her new coaches.  I'm so excited to see how God uses her in this new situation.

Pray For Sis This Week!

She is starting her new gym tonight.  She's so nervous about it, especially because her friend there is still out of town and won't be back till Thursday's practice.  Tonight is a 3 hour practice.  Tomorrow is a 4 hour practice and Thursday is a 2 1/2 hour practice.  She also has practice for 2 hours on Mondays.  It's 11 1/2 hours of practice a week - and I thought 8 hrs/week was a lot!  She did move up to level 3 at this new gym which is why she's there so much.

Her friend is someone from school and church.  They met in Pre-K 4 and they are in the same class at church.  I know how much her presence calms Sis being in a new place.  She's on her own tonight and tomorrow.  I think she's excited but last night there were some tears because she was scared.  Every new experience is scary but thankfully when I dropped her off, she was smiles.  There is an older girl from her former gym who also use to go to her school before she quit to homeschool and spend more time in the gym.  Knowing her has helped calm her nerves too.

It's going to take time to get use to this new schedule and extra hours in the gym.  Please pray that she can handle the amount of time in the gym, get enough sleep, have enough time to get her homework completed so her grades don't slip, and that she forms new friendships with the girls on team.  I know there are a large number of girls on team who go to our church which means those kids come from families with the same values.  I'm hoping she forms some life long friendships.  The head coach at the new gym is incredible and I really like her coaching philosophy - probably because she reminds me of myself as a coach.  This gym is well organized and communicates well.  The coach and I were texting while I was in Disney last week.  She was super excited for Sis to join their team.  That fact alone helped Sis to feel more at ease.

Praying things go smoothly tonight...I'll keep you updated as the week continues.

First Grade Fun

I totally forgot to post this fun field trip that the first grade took in February!  Marineland opened back up and the kids got a chance to go see the dolphins and sea turtles!  What a great trip!  Our kids are so lucky that they take such awesome field trips.  I guess that's a benefit of sending them to a private school.  They took some fun ones in Utah too!

Sissy and I had a great time checking out all the sea life.  The turtles were so big!

But our favorite was seeing the dolphins!

We got to see them do some tricks.

Sissy is so lucky to have such sweet little girlfriends at school.  

These three are the musketeers.  Always planning something!

I also forgot to post pics from their USA Centers for President's Day.  Sis is all prepped for our trip to DC this spring.  She can recognize all the buildings and can't wait to see the museums.  

Her teacher is so sweet.  She loves history too and has instilled this love in my child.

I am so thankful for my kids' school.  No school is perfect and there are things I wish they did differently (the pains of being a teacher and a parent) but it really is a good place for our kids and I can't think of a different school here in Jax that I would rather send them to every day.  They have the sweetest teachers who really do model Christ-like behavior to our babies and in the end, to have adults who pray for my kids and help teach them about Jesus every day, that's what is the most important thing.