Carter's Kindergarten Graduation.

Monday night, Carter graduated from Kindergarten at Presbyterian Christian School, where he has been attending since our move to Hattiesburg in October.  Carter has truly had a wonderful school year.  He began his year in Kindergarten at Powder Springs First Baptist Church with Miss Sandy, and then finished at PCS with Mrs. Gibson.  I am forever in debt to both teachers for the love and encouragement they have shown Carter this school year.  Even more, they renewed a love of learning in his little heart all the while sharing with him the love of Jesus.  

These first few pictures I took with my iPhone because my other camera was in the gym with David and Summer.  

Carter was part of the hand bells group, and he did so great!  I loved watching him play never taking his eyes off the music teacher the entire time.  

Carter outside the cafeteria just before joining his classmates.  

Carter with E, one of his sweet classmates.  I was talking to her mother while we were waiting, and she shared with me that Carter had given E his phone number, all written out on a sheet of construction paper because he wanted to have a play date with her this summer.  Apparently, E was not the only young lady who received our son's phone number because two other mommas shared that their daughters had as well!  Too funny!  Even funnier, the phone number he gave them was his daddy's cell phone, ha!  

Carter and Summer before the program.  Okay, now the next few pictures are of stellar quality.  What? They are.  I have to share the story behind it.  I have been trying to learn more and get better at taking pictures.  One of my sweet friend's husband, who is a professional, let me borrow his phat camera with a phat lens for Carter's graduation.  It was my first ever experience with taking the camera off auto, and I'm a little proud of how they turned out!  Thank you, Chad and Sherry, for sharing your skills and your equipment!  

Dr. Smithers, the headmaster at PCS.  Small world.  Dr. Smithers has a son, Chas.  Well, Chas and Amanda were members of the same church as us for a time in Atlanta and have since moved back to MS.  We had no idea of this connection when we registered the children for school!  

Here is Carter's class walking into the gymnasium.  

Their program was awesome, so sweet, and not very long either!  I was really impressed.  Carter graduated with 93 other students!  That's a whole lot of 5 and 6 year olds!  

Here are some of the songs they sang:  The Continents, God Bless America, Love One Another, Pray (my favorite, I got teary at this point!), Tumbleweed (from Saddle Ridge Ranch VBS a few summers ago), Whacky Do Re Mi, May the Lord, and the Alma Mater.  

The children also recited Bible verses for each letter of the alphabet.  Carter has been so cute these last weeks leading up to graduation.  He has diligently studied his red book with all of his verses to make sure that he was ready.  One night, we also caught Carter and Summer up way past their bedtime.  He was teaching her some his songs, so cute!

This is from the song, Tumbleweed.  I remember these motions from VBS.  I love the look on his cute face!  

And this is just pure Carter mode.  I can hear him now, "Girls, we have to go!  The line is moving!" 

Carter is waiting in line to get his diploma from Mr. Griffith, the principal of the elementary school.  At the beginning of the school year, Carter called him the President!

Shaking Mr. President's hand and getting his diploma.  

Taking a minute to smile at us as he walked back to his seat.  Tilly and Story stayed home with two of our college interns during graduation.  We felt like it would have just been too crazy to keep them all still and quiet, and we were just going to be outnumbered, ha!

Carter and the hand bell group playing the Alma Mater.  So sweet!  

Carter's teacher, Mrs. Gibson.  He adores her!  I asked him this week what he thought about being done with Kindergarten.  He replied in all seriousness, "Mom, I'm kind of sad."  Sweet thing!

None of our grandparents were able to attend the special event, so we let Carter open their presents in the car afterwards.  He was so excited!  

Carter and Summer in the parking lot after graduation.  

This was taken with my iPhone during the ceremony.  What you see here are only 1/2 of the kindergartners!  There are this many more on the other side of the podium.  It's the largest Kindergartner class ever at PCS.

Daddy treated us to Outback after the ceremony.  It was really dark inside, so the pictures didn't turn out so well, but I wanted to at least document our evening.  

Carter, we are so very proud of you.  We are so proud of how hard you have worked this year at school.  We are proud of how you are a sweet helper to your teacher and a kind friend to your classmates.  We are thankful that you have begun to hide God's Word in your heart and to think about heavenly things.  We are excited that you have learned to read this year and that your handwriting is getting better and better every day.  We are most excited that God gave us you.  We love you to the moon and back a whole bunch of times!