Memorial Day

Remember why you have this day off and live in a free country. It's because of those men and women who died while fighting for our country. Take the time out to honor them AND to thank those who have served and serve now. My Paw-Paw and brother Chad. Both 101st Airborne, Screaming Eagles.

My Mommy

I don't even know what to say. I miss my mommy!
I feel weird knowing that I'm older now than she was when she passed away. I'm 36. She was 34! A mom passing away at age 34?! She never saw her little boys grow into the men they are now and meet their wives. She never got to meet her son in law. She never got to play with her grandkids! Grandkids...I can just picture her with them!
Today marks 18 years without her! I've been without my mommy for as many years as I had her! Wow!
Yes, I know there is no better place to be than in the arms of our Father! She is healthy now, no longer in pain, laughing and dancing around Heaven...we all know that woman loved to laugh and dance! I know she can see us and that she is with us. I totally feel her with me. There are always reminders of her. I DO KNOW that one day we'll all be with her! Selfishly though, I wish she was still here, physically!
Today will be a little different than years previous. I didn't plan on this day being the weekend we go to Bryan, it just happened that way. I will be at Mimi's (my grandmother) house most of the time. She's older now and dates tend to slip her memory, so I'm sure this date may be one of them. I will not remind her. I will put on a brave face. I will let her enjoy her great granchildren today and think of nothing else.

Tyler's choir concert

In our town, when the kids get to 6th grade (which is middle school here-5th & 6th grade) they have to pick an elective. Tyler picked choir. This makes his daddy pretty proud, being he was in choral in high school and loves to sing as well.Tyler even goes early to school once a week to choir club. Tyler's school won first place at their first choir competition! Last night, he had a concert.Tyler and Mr. S (choir teacher)

Tyler and friends. The two boys on either side of Tyler are on the same step as him...yep, when my Tyler tells you that he's one of the shortest boys in school, he's not exaggerating. :) But he's so darn cute!
They sang good! One of the songs was Green Day's, "Wake me up when September ends". Green Day is Austin's fave! One of the boys played the electrical guitar during that song, pretty impressive!
Then, before the last song, his teacher told us that a couple of weeks ago, he had been hearing some of the guys in the hall way singing, Don't stop believing" by Journey. He thought that was odd...12 year old boys...the year 2010...singing a song that Steve Perry sang?! So finally he asked them about it and well, one thing led to another and so they started learning it in class and sang it last night. I did record almost the whole song, but it's taking blogger forever to upload it! I will try later today to upload it.
Last year was Mr.S's first year, so this is his first graduating class. Everyone loves him. Not only did Tyler learn in choir, he had lots of fun!

Austin's picnic

Tuesday, Austin had his end of the year picnic. All of the middle and junior high schools' special education classes meet up every year at a park in the town next to us. The teachers grill burgers and hotdogs and a game of kickball is a must! It's a big hit! Austin has the best best best teachers in the world! We love Mr. M and Coach C!
Special Education teachers and aides go above and beyond! They've got some big hearts and major patience! They are amazing! Not sure how things would be without them!They are exactly what Austin needs. They are truly God send! Right after this picture was taken, Coach C broke a water balloon over Austin's head! Mr. M quickly gave one to Austin and you can see below that Austin nailed 'em!

Happy Birthday Tia Cuca!

We interupt my home tour (see post below) to give a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY shout out to Tia Cuca! We love you and hope you have a spectacular day! (Cuca and Tyler!)
I have one of you with Austin as a baby and it's so cute, but I can't find it! But I love this one too!
This just shows a snapshot of Cuca and how she's always lending a hand!

Ta-da!

Okay, okay, you've waited long enough! Here are some pictures of our new home! Since I took so many, I'll show you a few each day. We're all moved in, but there's so much more to be done. For the front of the house, we cut down alot of the landscaping. Next, we're changing out the light fixtures. I forgot to take a close up of the front porch. But if you must see it, there are a few pics of the kids in previous posts on the front porch.

The house looks completely different from when we bought it. We had the whole interior painted, walls,trim, etc.

When you first walk in, to the right is our dining room. In here the plan is to change out this chandelier and change out the flooring. To the left of the front door and across from the dining room is the study, or in this case, Anthony's room to watch TV or play games-man cave. There is nothing I'm doing in there because it's not my room. If you ask Ant, I'm sure he'll say it's perfect and he's not changing a thing.The view front the front door.The hallway behind the couch, to the left of the windows, takes you to the master bedroom/master bath and Carli's bedroom and bathroom.The shelves by the fireplace are not complete. I'm not sure how to decorate that area. The things that are on it are things I already had. I believe we'll be adding another shelf and a cabinet in that empty space at the bottom.

That hallway by the shelves takes you to the boys' bedrooms and their bathroom.Over by the fridge, there's a hallway that leads to the dining room. It has the laundry room on one side and the pantry on the other.We changed out the chandelier. This is our new one. So that's part of the tour. Stay tuned for more tomorrow...

Secret Prayer Pal

On our last day of work, we gathered for lunch and received our last secret prayer pal gifts.
Look at my Luau in a tub! Such fun stuff inside, complete with a real pineapple! I can't wait to throw a little par-tay. I mean luau!Getting our last gifts, also meant that we would get to find out WHO our secret prayer pal was!
I had NOOO idea that mine was TRACY! She's the kindergarten teacher and her son and Carli are in the same class together. She treated me so well this year with all my thoughtful goodies! I will surely miss her. She's not going to be at our school next year. :(
Thank you Tracy! I feel so blessed to have had you be my secret prayer pal!
Oh, and thank you Paula for our mini photo session! Ha!

Off to Pre-K!

Carli and I had our last day of Mother's Day Out on Wednesday. Mixed emotions as it is with the end of every year. Glad to have time off and to see my class grow, but sad to see my kiddos go upstairs to the pre-k world. I feel like this year went by so fast! I had a great lil' class, really great! Carli did too! She blossomed so much this year, especially in just the last couple of weeks. We both had a lot of fun! I say this a lot, and it's true, I feel very blessed to have the job that I do. I get to teach children in an awesome enviroment, where my daughter also attends school. I get to see her interact with her friensds and teachers. Alright, I can't go on, I'm starting to feel a lump in my throat!
I can not believe that Carli will be off to PRE-K in the fall!!!!

Childhood besties!

A couple of weeks ago, I got to hang out with my best friend of, dare I say...33 years! She lives out of state, but her parents still live around here, so she visits them often. We meet about half way at a mall and hang out. This day I had just Carli (the boys were in school) and she had her two babies. Harrison, 3 and Kaitlyn, almost 3months. I was so excited to see them! Gotta love taking the picture of ourselves! These two were great together! We laughed so much over them and kind of were in awe that they belong to us! We took a gazillion pictures for their future wedding rehearsal dinner slide show! Ha! Let's look at the height of these two...Carli is 5 months OLDER than Harrison! So, Carli's got short parents and he's got tall parents!! So funny!Claire, Harrison, and Kaitlyn!!Despite the terror in her face, Carli really did like the carousel! She even rode it TWICE!! Uh, this boy, you could call him, "Don Juan"! He was constantly giving us sugars!!
Aw, I love this baby girl! Oh, look at Carli in the background! Her and Harrison were running around like maniacs! SO FUNNY! You can see we totally cared! Ha!
Claire, I had so much fun that day! I wish you lived here so we could hang out at the mall with our little ones all of the time!
I love y'all and will see you soon!

Teacher appreciation lunch

Last Friday, our PTA at our school brought back the fabulous pasta guy. We had subs come to our rooms, so that we could go down for 30 minutes to eat our lunch with no kids and visit with our friends! We walked in to Italian music playing, flowers candles, and the pasta guy to make our lunch! We told him what all we wanted in our pasta and then he cooked it right there for us! It really was so nice! We each got to take the candle voltives home as a gift and the gigantic flowers were a drawing. No, I didn't win it, sure wish I had! Salad, pasta, and cake balls!
All that was missing from this excellent lunch was wine and then a nap!Ha!

Preschool Birthday

Last Friday, Carli had her birthday celebration at school. She had been eyeing all the items in that birthday box for some quite time and had been talking about what she was gonna get when it was her turn. You'd think she would've picked from the many girlie, princess, jewelry stuff, but nooo...
A LITTLE YELLOW RUBBERY FROG!!!!She was SUPER HAPPY!!!! She brought cupcakes and picked out her napkins... Yep, Sponge Bob Square Pants!
and a matching yellow cupcake to go with it!
She wore her birthday crown all the way till bedtime.
Such a fun day for her.

A SWEET 4th BIRTHDAY PARTY!

On May 15th, Carli had her Minnie Mouse Donut party! It was suppose to be outside on her new swing set that she had gotten the day before, for an early birthday present, BUT there was an insane amount of rain that day! Insane I tell ya!
So, we moved in inside! These pictures are of 1) Anthony and I with the boys six years ago at Disney World. 2) Anthony and a coworker, with Tyler, eight years ago. It was Halloween and there bank dressed up as Disney characters.The girls got hair bows (they match the one Carli is wearing) and the boys got baseball caps.Drinks.The spread.Wanting to wait outside for her guests, but it was sprinkling!Once her guests arrived, they had so much fun playing together outside of school. They were all so cute together!I took a couple of pictures, but I'm still missing some of the kiddos. Oh, and her "favorite friend", "BRAAAADY" was even there too!Carli had an absolute blast!!!! She keeps saying, "I had a great party!" and "I can't believe all my school friends were at my new house!" When we ask her what her favorite thing about her party was, she says, "EVERYTHAAANG!!!!"
It really was a fun time for her. Rain or shine!

AAANNND, Thank you ROSE for letting me use your Criket and for sitting with me as we made hair bows! Love you!