What a very, very exciting day this was!!!!! We drove to Indiana, and on our way there we got the official notification that Travis' and Erin's twin boys were born around 10:00a.m. I had to pull off the road to read the text from my dad with their names and birth stats, and pray and thank God for bringing the boys and Erin safely through! Their names are Bryce David and Grayson Lee, and they totaled 14 pounds together. We can't wait to see them!!
We took our time getting to my parents', as we knew they would be at the hospital and we wouldn't be allowed to see the babies today. We arrived in the afternoon, and had some play time with Tessa when she woke up from her nap.
She made friends with a moth/butterfly in Mamaw's petunia pots.
Over the weekend, I had the girls go through their room and find things they thought Tessa would like to have. They brought all their princess dress-up gowns. I was a little sad that they decidedthey were too big for them, but they said they would still dress up with Tessa. She was pretty excited about the dresses! She put one on in the bedroom, walked carefully through the hall and kitchen to the sunroom, and smiled sweetly while she was told how pretty and beautiful she was, and then went back to the bedroom to change into another dress and repeated the process with every dress. SO adorable!
Sylvia also gave Tessa a backpack for dollies and her Tinkerbell beauty kit with play makeup and nail polish, a hairdryer full of glitter, mirror, comb, etc. She likes painting Sylvie's nails.
The kids love playing with Tessa, and she is at that age where everything she does is just too cute and funny. She will sleep in the room with the girls tonight, and Annah is on paci duty if she wakes up in the night trying to find it. :)
Today was the kids' last full day of school, and the 4th and 5th grade Honors Assembly was held first thing this morning.
Annah earned High Honors for the semester.
She was one of 15 in her grade to receive high honors--a pretty big group! (To attain high honors, students must receive at least 5 A's and nothing lower than a B.)
Annah received all A's all the way through elementary school!
5th grade band students were also recognized, and each came forward to receive a certificate of music and a handshake from Mr. Marchese.
Almost the entire 5th grade was in the band this year! Yay for music!!
(The 5th graders all wore their D.A.R.E. shirts today, and were responsible for helping run Field Day events for the younger grades. Annah loved this opportunity, and said she had lots of fun!)
After leaving the school this morning, I took the car back to the shop. (It had been in last week to have brakes and calipers and rotors replaced for $570-something, but was acting weird when braking and turning--like the ABS was activating.) The rest of my morning was spent waiting while it was discovered that a sensor was broken, and a bearing/sensor had to be replaced for another $350. Ouch.
I did get to have lunch with my sweetheart though! Yay! We met at Panda Express and had a very nice time chatting and spending time together. That was an unexpected blessing today! :)
I ran to the store quickly, and came home and decorated our dilapidated sidewalk to cheer the kids when they came home from school.
It is overcast and cool today (after last night's thunderstorms), but another gorgeous peony is blooming. This one with no editing...
Happy kids got off the bus this afternoon! We are excited for summer!!!!
After Daddy got home from his meeting for church, we celebrated the end-of-the-school year and beginning-of-summer with banana splits!! Annah had mentioned last week that she'd never had one, and we discussed what was in a banana split...and enjoyed them tonight. While finishing hers up, Annah asked, "How many do we get?" ;)
Jeremy received several nice cards, and two DVD's which represent his varied taste in cinema. ;)
...I went with a less serious card for him this time...
We had peach cobbler and ice cream FOR BREAKFAST to celebrate!!!!!!
And, for lunch, we had our first watermelon of the year, mmm! It was so pretty when I cut it open that Sylvia wanted a picture of the lines and curly-q's inside.
We vegged at home most of the day. Jeremy and I tried to beat the Wii in team Tetris. Caeden and Daddy did some kitchen "fighting..."
(The noise you hear part way through the video is our neighbor's jackhammer removing his front stairs. ;)
We ran into our friend Doug, who was there with students from the school where he is principal. He got to throw out the first pitch!
The reason we went to the game was because we got group tickets through Annah's D.A.R.E. program at school. Officer Sarah Bay (at left) took this group of students (Only the ones wearing the black D.A.R.E. shirts are from our school.) out to the field for special recognition before the game started.
Reggy, the "Purple Party Dude" kept us laughing all evening. After the school choir sang the national anthem, he had the director bow 3 times, then he got down on all fours and brushed the path for her to walk on. He had some crazy dances and antics to keep the crowd entertained all night!
It was an absolutely perfect night for a baseball game. Gorgeous, still, sunny but mild weather.
Officer Bay gave Annah 5 raffle tickets--one for each of us. I filled them out, and took them to the jam-packed raffle box. During the 7th inning stretch, 3 winners were announced and Caeden was one of them. His name was on the big screen. I took him to the Team Store, where he was told he could choose any $5 item, or have $5 off any item. He was so excited, and picked a little souvenir Cornbelters bat!
We even got to meet Corny the "corn-a-saurus!" He gave us all hugs and posed for a picture.
In our family, the kids' teachers are people we greatly appreciate, look up to, and respect. They are the "celebrities" of our lives. I wish I could give each of them an enormous gift (like a huge hike in salary) to show them how much I appreciate their impact in our lives!! However, we choose to recognize all of them, and it has to be in a low-cost but sincere way.
I wish I could say I'm creative enough to come up with a great way to do this each year, but I usually rely on the internet for ideas. Last year, we did these, and the year before these. Several months ago I pinned this year's idea on Pinterest. I didn't even visit the website for the pin until just now; I just went with my idea from the one picture I pinned. It turned out pretty similar, I guess.
I used the idea of altering the spelling of several words and using the "MINT" sound. Since I was giving these to teachers, I was very conscious of the fact the words were now mis-spelled, so I typed out the real, correctly spelled words and made the list into a watermark background going the opposite direction of the letter to the teacher.
We gave these to 17 teachers and influential people this year: homeroom teachers; art, music, P.E., library, science, social studies teachers, bus driver, principal, office administrator, nurse, counselor.
I honestly don't remember how much I spent on teacher gifts in previous years, but this year I spent about $50 total to put together these gifts for 17 teachers. I bought everything at the dollar store. The bowls were 4 for $1.00, and I used two rolls of cellophane to wrap the mints. (I had green ribbon, eyelets, and white card stock on hand.)
We included million-dollar butter mints, starlight mints...
peppermint patties, and soft peppermint puffs,
Icy Breeze breath mints,
Andes mints (of course!)
and a pack of mint gum.
I think they turned out pretty cute, and I hope the teachers will know how very much we appreciate each of them. The kids each took 3 bowls to deliver to teachers today, and will take the last 2 or 3 each on Monday for their very last day of school.
"As soon as he hears, he will answer you.Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way;walk in it.”
I spend more time doing it than I would like. That's probably because I don't like doing it at all. And, because it's at least 15 minutes or more to get anywhere I need to go since we live in a rural area.
Today I drove "to town" (25 miles) to go to the dentist. Just a cleaning. In and out in under an hour...plus the 50 minutes [total] it took me to get there and back home.
Yesterday I drove to the doctor. I had to figure out what in the world is this creepin' crud I've had for nearly a month now. (Seems like it's a combination of sinus infection, allergies, and asthma set off by the other two things. 3 kinds of drugs, and I should be feeling better in a few days!)
I've never really liked to drive, and I have a pretty bad anxiety of driving places I've never driven--even if I've been there before and just haven't' driven it myself. It's not pretty.
A couple months ago, I had to drive to the building where our new church will be. I had been there a few times, but Jeremy had always driven. (That means, I didn't really pay attention to how we got there.) It's in a part of town with which I'm unfamiliar. I had the kids with me, and we were rushing to get there on time too. I called Jeremy a few times on the way there, and had him tell me twice exactly how to get there--including every stop light, turn, landmark, distance, etcetera. Then I repeated it back to him and he verified that I understood how to get there. I prayed before we left, and the whole time on the way there.Still, when driving it, I was incredibly uptight, sitting up straighter than any normal human normally would when driving; I was very snippy with the kids and made them sit in complete silence all the way there. I freaked out part way there, because there was construction along the way. Then I freaked out once I got through the construction and didn't know where the road I was supposed to turn down was. I tried calling Jeremy and he didn't answer, so I freaked out some more. I only exhaled 35 minutes later when I got us there safely. I apologized to the kids and went inside to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and my entire neck and chest was broken out in hives.
Serioulsy ridiculous.
I'm fine going there now, by the way. Once I do it successfully by myself one time, it's okay. It's like a major issue I have to conquer each time I go somewhere I haven't driven myself.
I'm not really sure why I have this anxiety, except that maybe it somehow stems from the terrible fact that two of my high school friends were killed in car accidents during the years I was learning to drive. One was killed by a drunk driver, and the other was a passenger in a car full of students passing a school bus on their way to school one morning. Both were friends who were part of my daily life at school and in choir, and losing them clearly impacted me emotionally. Perhaps these accidents have something to do with my driving anxiety.
After I graduated from college, I worked as an admission counselor for the university for two years. Part of my job was traveling to the territory I was responsible for in northeast Ohio...all places I'd never been, by myself, in a rental car, without the modern frills of Google Maps, GPS, and smartphones. Looking back, I really don't know how I did it, other than now knowing God had angels literally surrounding me every moment I was driving! I even enjoyed the traveling! It was very stressful for me getting to the schools and college fairs, but I loved the time at the events so much, I was able to overlook the amount of stress getting there put on me.
I will never forget the time I was on my way to visit Bishop Hoban High School in Akron, Ohio. I was to be there and set up my Capital table during the lunch time, and I visited some other school in the morning. I always tried to verify with someone at the previous school what the best way to get to my next school was. I'd been advised to ask the Athletic Directors at schools, because they have to provide sports teams with directions to schools they compete against and usually know the best way to get to area schools. Made sense to me. So, I asked the A.D. at whatever school I was leaving if my directions to Bishop Hoban were the best way to get there. Oh, no, no, no...that wasn't exactly how I should go. So, he gave me "better" instructions. I remember him telling me to take a particular exit off the Interstate, and that I would see "HOBAN" in big letters on a hill off to the left before I'd get to my exit.
Welllllllllll...somehow I never saw Hoban on the hill, and the exit numbers were higher than they should have been. So, I decided I needed to get off the Interstate and into Akron somewhere to get directions. I saw the Main Street exit, and figured there would be a gas station or some kind of patronized establishment on Main Street where I could ask someone how to get to Bishop Hoban High School. I turn onto Main Street in Akron, Ohio, in the middle of lunchtime on a weekday, and it was literally like a ghost town. Not a soul to be seen!!! That freaked me out pretty well.
I did see a police car at the side of the road and noticed there were two policemen sitting in it. I pulled up behind them, and approached the passenger side from the sidewalk. The very nice policemen quickly asked me what in the world I was doing alone in that area?!?! When I explained to them that I was lost and where I needed to go, they told me to get back in my car quickly and follow them "wherever" they went, no matter what! They (and, consequently, I) seriously drove over sidewalks to get to Bishop Hoban High School, which was, of course, fairly nearby. They showed me exactly where to park and told me to only leave by a particular route. Yeah. Driving over sidewalks in Akron, Ohio...another of my "great" driving memories.
So.
Since switching from an Android phone to an iPhone, the thing I miss the most is the robotic voice GPS lady on my Droid. The iPhone doesn't have sound with its Google Maps navigation. I think I need to find a voice app to go with it so I can drive places I've never been without breaking out into hives.
I'm always convicted about needing to spend more time outside. I don't know why I'm not naturally more of an outdoorsy person...I do love the outdoors. But, I have to be very intentional about thinking, "Hm, have I even gone out the door today?!" and actually going outside. I'm such a hermit!
I practically shocked the children when I was at their bus stop today when they got off the bus! It was so perfectly gorgeous outside today that we sat on the porch stairs and talked about their day while they ate their after-school snack.
(Caeden is in this picture too...his finger!)
Oh it's time for sidewalk chalk days!!
Caed's entire 1st grade went on a field trip to the Peoria Zoo today. It was the first field trip one of the kids have taken that neither Jeremy nor I was able to go. Only 10 chaperones were allowed, and my name wasn't drawn.
Caeden said it was an awesome field trip, but the bus ride was kind of long. They had activity packs for the long bus ride (about an hour and a half) though. He told me about the class where they learned about animal inversions, how they had a tour of the zoo, who was in his group, and that he saw rhinos and lions and a boa constrictor and baboons and a peacock and giraffes and tortoises and ostriches and hogs and a 3-banded armadillo and a tarantula!
"Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name."
I'm so excited! Our two peony bushes have a bunch of buds on them, and one has actually bloomed! It's been years since we've had even one bloom, and it's so pretty! I had forgotten that they are a lovely light pink! (It seems like most peonies I see are either white or the dark pink.) Yay! So pretty!
We enjoyed one of our very favorite end-of-the school year activities this evening--the school Art Show!
Our art teacher, Mrs. Hoffert, is so wonderful and amazing! Our kids have learned so much about art and artists and techniques, and she has a kind and caring heart as well. We love her!!!
The Ridgeview Art Show is always impressive, and we love to go each Spring!
This picture brought me to tears this morning. We have three beautiful, healthy, wonderful children. I am blessed beyond measure.
Mother's Day always makes me reflect on the fact that before I became a mother I never wanted to be one. I did not like other people's kids, or babies, and I did not want my own. I'm ashamed of that fact now. I love kids--mine and other people's. Babies too. They are all wonderful--especially mine. ;) I am SO thankful God changed my heart by way of these three!!!
They got up at 6:30 yesterday morning, and started going up and down the stairs as sneakily as they could to set up the table. Such precious gifts they made for me!
Okay, I admit, this one makes me snicker...they had such good intentions... They made an envelope with scripture reference cards in it. They even put a string on it so I could hang it if I want. The funny part is that the scriptures are totally random. I guess they just opened the Bible and pointed and wrote down the reference for whatever verse they saw first. Jeremy grabbed his Bible and read a few, as we pulled the cards out...
The first one he read was Joel 2:4 -
"They have the appearance of horses;they gallop along like cavalry."
Then Isaiah 3:1 -
"See now, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is about to take from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: all supplies of food and all supplies of water."
Then 1 Samuel 14:6 -
"Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.”
Lastly, 1 Corinthians 13:1. Jeremy read the whole chapter to us, noting that it was one of the scriptures read at our wedding (and many others).
"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Annah had made a lovely card for me at school. She loves (and has a talent for, I think) writing poetry, and wrote this haiku on the front:
Sylvia made this adorable bouquet of felt flowers at school.
And, she made this artwork from some of my scrapbook supplies I'd given her. Also, she made a sweet card. She's really good at repurposing scraps and leftover items others would throw away and making them into something meaningful.
Caeden made some Lego creations I just loved...
This one is his name. I was supposed to put a string or ribbon on it and wear it as a necklace, but we decided it wouldn't stay together if we tried that. So, we are just admiring it on display for a while.
Caeden also made a neat craft project for me at school. It's a coffee can with this poem on it. Inside are things that represent each line--wildflower seeds, a packet of tissues and a bandaid, an eraser, a paper ruler, and a wooden heart is glued to the top. I love it.
Yesterday was also Jeremy's and my 12th wedding anniversary. He asked me if I could go back in time, knowing everything I know now, would I still marry him? I said, "Of course!!" And, I told him that the truth is, I had married him in my heart years before we actually got to have a wedding day. No matter how many days and years we get to spend together, it never feels like it's long enough. I love him so much, and am so grateful for all the time we have together!
I did dig out our wedding album yesterday morning, and we all 5 piled on our bed and looked through it.
We didn't really feel like getting all dressed up to go wait for hours in a crowded restaurant for breakfast or lunch. Jeremy and Sylvia decided to drive to Casey's and get some donuts. We were all satisfied with that! For lunch, Jeremy grilled some yummy burgers. He also brought in some of our lovely lilacs for me to put in a vase. They are so fragrant; they're smelling up the entire first floor of the house!
Caeden's instructional summer baseball league started yesterday too! I took him to his first practice/game while Jeremy and the girls went to church. Caeden is finally one of the "big kids," since this is his last year in instructional league. He is doing much better with throwing and batting. I heard him encouraging other kids several times. We struggled a lot this week with the decision whether or not to let him play, since it will conflict with church for the next few weeks. But, we really want to be involved with things in our school community, and baseball is very good for Caeden.
What a blessed day! Thank you, Lord, for this life we get to live!
