Wordless Wednesday.

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Grandparent's Day for Summer and Tilly.

Today was grandparent's day at Summer and Tilly's school.  The girls have been so excited for the last few weeks as they have been working very hard to get ready for this special day.  Our "real" grandparents could not attend, but we had two very special friends to stand in the gap, and we are so thankful they did!  

Tilly's class went first!  She was very nervous at first, and just stood there kind of wide eyed.  But when the music started, she was on!  

One of my favorite things Tilly did was in the middle of the program, you know the time when it's really quiet in between songs?  She shouted, "I see Story!"  So cute!  

She sang several of our favorite songs:  Jesus loves me, I'm a little teapot, You are my sunshine, God our Father, ABCs, and the Itsy bitsy spider.  They also answered the first 10 questions of the catechism, so sweet!  

Then, it was Summer's turn.  She was right smack in the middle of the back row.  And she knew every word to every song.  We were so proud.  It was so much fun to watch her sing her little heart out.  

Summer's class sang several songs that I had never heard before that were to the tune of some very popular songs.  My favorite was to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," and it was all about spending time at your grandparent's house.  

There's our pretty brown-eyed girl.  Notice she's the only one without a big ole bow!  I mean, they are serious about their bows here in Mississippi, we need to get with the program, ha!  

At the beginning of the program, Summer's class sang the National Anthem.  It was so sweet and moving.  I had her sing it to me in the car on the way to pick up Carter from school.  Yes, we are going to have to work on her rendition, ha!  Some of the words she totally made up!  

Summer's class sang 5-7 songs and recited the 1-2 Buckle My Shoe rhyme, that's one of her very favorites.  She's been teaching it to Tilly over the last couple of weeks.  

Summer and Tilly, we are so very proud of you!  Mommy and Daddy loved hearing you sing today during the program.  I know your grandparents would have loved it had they been there.  We love you so much!

Miss Susan was one of our special guests from church who stood in the gap as a grandparent, and she was so very precious and excited to be there!  I have to be honest, I was sad about grandparent's day because I knew that ours would not be able to come, but it was such a blessing to be able to ask two sweet ladies from our church to be our special guests for the day.  Miss Susan and Miss Tina were so appreciative of being asked, and it just made the girls' day to have someone from our church family in the audience.  

Thank you, Miss Tina and Miss Susan for being our special guests today!  We love you!  

Wordless Wednesday.

Happy Mardi Gras from the Krewe of Six.

Sunday after church our party of six loaded up and headed down to the Big Easy for Mardi Gras.  Going in we had a plan, a good one - written itinerary and everything.  But you know how plans go, right?  Especially with four little people.  After checking in at the seminary hotel, we rode down to St. Charles Avenue with the hopes of seeing the Krewe of Bacchus, but once we finally got parked and down there, we realized we were in way over our head!  It was crazy!  Much too crazy for our four little ones, so we picked up some beads on the street and walked back to our car.  We ended up in Metairie and realized the Krewe of Napolean had not made it all the way to the end of its route, so we parked and set up camp and waited and waited and waited.  

 The children were such troopers, too.  They had not had a nap or supper, and it was pretty chilly outside by New Orleans standards, anyway.  

 David and I were especially proud of this little one.  She was a rock star!  My favorite thing I want to remember about her this night was when the marching bands came through, she started rocking it out in her stroller!  It was so much fun to watch!  

 Look at that sweet smile!  She was all about some beads!

 And this handsome fella was catching beads and toys like a pro!  Carter and Story definitely have the same genes because he was dancing in the streets when the music was playing, so cute!  

 David was so excited because the grand marshall for this parade was the people from Swamp People.  

 He loves this show!  We sure didn't think so long about 4:00 that afternoon, but it turned out to be a really fun night.  

 The next morning the children slept til 9:00 AM, can I get a what! what!  Some of our friends from Hattiesburg, Miss Tina and Meredith, were in town visiting some friends they wanted us to meet, so we gathered at this place.  You can't really go to New Orleans without having some beignets, can you?  We weren't brave enough to head down to the quarter with our large krewe, so we went to the one in Metairie.  Yummy!

 Story was super excited about the powdered sugary goodness.  

 Tilly making a silly face for daddy.  She was not feeling 100% on this trip, as she was getting over a cold.  

 Summer cheesing for the camera.  We ate lunch that day at David's favorite, New Orleans Food & Spirits, and then we headed back to St. Charles with hopes of doing better than the night before.  The Krewe of Tucks parade was scheduled to start at 3:00 pm.  We had much better luck finding parking this time, but the parade route was slammed.  However, this sweet couple from Metairie not only let us park on their tarp to watch the parade, but they let us use their parade ladders for the children.  How generous is that!  They were so very sweet.  I cannot explain why I was so touched by their kindness, but it really touched my heart.  Kind of renews your faith in the goodness people or something.  

 Tilly is in front of me on the purple ladder.  Story was having no part of it, so Tilly and I watched the parade from here.  We got so much good stuff.  This one sweet man handed Tilly and super nice stuffed dalmatian, not like a cheap carnival toy either, a really nice one.  It made her day!  

 Carter is down there in the red shirt with Meredith and Summer hollering for some beads!  

 We tried to get a picture of the four of them after the parade.  

Happy Mardi Gras!  

We headed back home this morning with all of our parade loot.  I'm loving these memories we are making with our party of six.  I'm so loving that we now live so close to this city we love so much!  I see many more Mardi Gras parades in our future.  

It's planting time!

Well, it's that time again in the O'Dell home. Planting season! First on the docket red and white potatoes.

A few weeks ago, we bought them from the feed store, quartered them and put them in our window sill to sprout.  And sprout, they did!  

Tradition for us is to plant them on Valentine's Day, so here we are in the yard getting the soil ready for the potatoes.  

Carter and Tilly spreading the peat moss over the soil.  

Summer and Hundley decided to join in on the fun!

This year, we are trying something new with our potatoes.  Instead of mounds of dirt and hay, we are planting them in tires.  The garden is David's baby, so I trust him fully.  We shall see.  Luckily for us, one of our church members owns several tire stores in town, so he gave us some old tires.  

Look how close in height Summer and Carter are these days.  I feel confident at some point she will pass him up, but maybe not for long, as he won't like that one single bit, ha!  

There they are inside the tires, ready to be covered by dirt.  

There are the row of tires with the potatoes already inside.  Notice my love styling with his boots and gym shorts!  

The big 3 helping Daddy to cover the potatoes with dirt.  I wonder when working will no longer be fun for them?  I hope no time soon!

Stay tuned for more updates on our spring garden.  It won't be long til we are adding to the crop!

Boosterton fun run.

This morning, David, Story, and I headed over to Carter's school to watch him and his classmates participate in a fun run at school.  It was so much fun!  Carter smiled all. day. long.  So precious!  

Here he is with two of his favorite girls in his class just before the race started.  

This was my little buddy during the race.  How cute is she in her UGA toboggan?  

And here they come!!!

See that cute face?  We got to see it 35+ times as he ran past us on each lap.  

Carter's school participated in a Boosterthon Fun Run to raise money for their school.  PCS is in the process of building a brand new school, and they need a new playground to go with that new school, right?  Of course!  Carter asked his grandparents (along with Mommy and Daddy) to give him pledges for his laps.  Look out, grandparents because this handsome fella ran his heart out!  It was so fun to watch!  

And he smiled the whole time.  The maximum laps that the children could run was 35, and Carter completed each and everyone of them.  We were so proud of him!  

He stopped for a quick drink of water along the way.  Check out that form!  

Story had a fun time cheering him on.  I think she had more fun straightening up the cones that the children knocked over as they ran by.  I think she may have some of mine and Carter's OCD tendencies!  Look out, Daddy!  We are growing in numbers.  

I'm including so many pictures because I can't get enough of that sweet smile!  

I mean just look at him!

Each time the children completed a lap their "Coaches" checked them off.  Here is Carter getting his last lap marked off!  

We called him over for a quick picture.  Summer and Tilly were already at school.  Now, I'm wishing I would have just kept them out of school.  I think they would have loved cheering on their big brother.  Carter, we are so unbelievably proud of you!  

Here's a picture of his class after the big race!  Way to go, Miss G's class!