6 and 2 year well check-ups.

Friday was a crazy busy day!  David and I took Summer to school that morning for registration, and she got to meet her teacher for the year, Mrs. M.  Summer is so excited about starting Kindergarten next week.  After a quick lunch at home, I loaded up Carter and Story for their well check ups with Dr. B. No shots for today, and I don't know who was more relieved, Carter or me!   Story doesn't really know to fear the doctor yet.  She just knows she'll get a sucker and a sticker!

Here are Carter's stats:  height, 4'1"; weight, 49 lbs 9 oz; blood pressure 84/55; pulse, 95.  Carter is in the 68% for weight and 96% for height.  All of his vitals checked out great, so we are truly thankful!  

I think Dr. B is quite smitten with Story, and why wouldn't he be?  I mean, we sure are!  

Here are Story's stats: height, 3'1"; weight, 28 lbs 6 oz; blood pressure, 91/61; pulse, 107.  Story is in the 62% for weight and off the chart for height.  She, too, checked out just beautifully, and we are grateful!  

School starts for Carter and Summer Tuesday, so we have been busy getting all paperwork and school supplies ready for the new year.  Tilly does not start until August 21, just after her birthday!  She will have her well check up later this month, and after that we will be good for another year.  Next, we need to tackle the dentist.  That should be a lot of fun, ha!

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William Carey University graduation.

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of going to watch one of "our" girls walk.  Brittany.  We have really gotten to know her better this past semester, as she began teaching children's choir at our church.  She has watched the children on a number of occasions for us as well.  Tilly calls her "my best girl!"  We love Miss Brittany, love her.  So you can imagine that I was going to do everything in my power to watch her walk.  She is the first person in her immediate family to graduate from college, what a cool accomplishment!  Definitely worth celebrating.  

 Here you can see most of the staff at William Carey.  The graduates are about to begin filing into their seats.  

 Brittany is the blond blur in the bottom right corner of this picture.  Love her!  She is charming, witty, beautiful, and loves Jesus.  I mean she really loves Him.  I love that about her.  

 I realize most of these pictures look the same.  I got there early, but the place was packed, so I'm way up at the top, and my zoom lens would only reach so far, ha!  I like this picture because Brittany is smiling and talking to her friend on her right.  She is just below the second banner on the right.  

 Here is the president of the university, Dr. King,  giving his welcome and introductions.  Funny thing about Dr. King.  When our family was interviewing for the job at Hardy Street, we came to Hattiesburg a couple of times.  On one of our visits, we had a tour of the university on a golf cart given by Dr. King!  What a treat!  

Again, not a perfect shot, but here's Brittany receiving her diploma!  So proud of this girl, I am.  She got her degree in vocal performance, and in a few weeks she is going to begin her first big girl job as a choral teacher at a high school in Franklin County, MS.  We will surely miss her, but I so look forward to hearing how God is going to use her to impact the lives of the young people in her classroom.  We love you, Brittany!  

Wordless Wednesday.

Fun with friends.

One of the things we have loved most about our move to Hattiesburg besides our precious church family, of course, is the sweet friendships we have made over the last few months.  The Berteaus are among them!  This sweet family has been gracious to host our party of six on a number of occasions this summer.  Ben, the daddy, said it best, "It's just the Berteaus plus one!"  They don't seem too overwhelmed by us yet, ha!

 This past week when we were there, the girls opted to get out of the pool early, so they could have a princess party!  They are certainly the fairest of them all, wouldn't you say?  The boys stayed in the pool right up until suppertime and jumped right back in after we ate.  

 Story jumped right in on the princess fun!  She loves to push carts and strollers, so it didn't surprise me one bit that this was the toy she went for right away.  Story has really grown in her love of water this summer.  This particular night last week, Story jumped off the diving board!  Twice!  I'm so sad that I didn't capture it on film, but somebody had to be in the water to catch her ;) She seems to be fearless in the water.  Most of the time she wears floaties or a life jacket, so she knows that she's not going to stay under the water.  She jumps in, goes under, and comes right back up with a big ole smile on her face!  

 The Berteau's son, C, showed Story the finer art of eating watermelon.  Yellow watermelon, that is.  Another first for our family this night.  I didn't catch it on film, but Story starting spitting out the seeds, too!  

 I love how she is looking over at him!  So sweet! 

My favorite picture of all.  No more spectating for Story, she got right down to business!  We definitely had to put on new pajamas when we got home, ha!  Thanks, Berteaus, for a super fun evening with yummy food and sweet fellowship!

Tilly's new friend.

My mom won some major cool points this week, as if she needed to win any, but at any rate she did.  Majorly.  About once a month, our party of six gets a package in the mail from T.  Gifts is definitely her love language.  We pulled into the driveway after coming home from the gym and spotted a big brown box on our front porch.  Yay!  Carter said, "T sent us another box!"  Inside the box was a little treat for each other children and big white box that I immediately recognized for Tilly saying "open now." Her birthday is in a few weeks, so I was just going to wait until then to give it to her.  T insisted, and I obeyed.  Even after all these years, ha!  

 I don't think Tilly recognized the box as being from Build a Bear.  At any rate, we got T on the phone, so that Tilly could talk to her as she was opening the box.  

 How cool is this gift!  T and Hart made Tilly a teddy bear complete with glasses and her very own eye patch!  T even sent extra eye patches, so we can change them out each day like we do Tilly's.  

 What a super cool gift for a super cool little girly!  There's a story behind the bear though.  I wish I had a picture to show.  When I was little, I had a brown bunny rabbit, only about 12" high that I carried with me everywhere.  I loved the eyes right off that bunny, but that didn't stop me from taking him with me whereverI went, even to the hospital.  In fact, when I was little I had as many as 6 sets of tubes.  During one of my operations, the doctor not only fixed my ears, but he also fixed my bunny's eyes.  When I woke up from the surgery, there on my bed was my bunny with his eyes bandaged up!  

Now, Tilly has her very own special bear with special eyes just like her.  I think she's a little proud, don't you?  She hasn't put the bear down since he came in the mail.  

Thank you, T and Hart, for such a super special gift for our super special little girl!  We love you!

Something new.

It's never too late to do something new.  You can read all about it here.  It's for a great cause, so we'd love it if you'd partner with us.  Leave a comment on the blog or email me for more information.  

Summer's 5 year check up.

Yesterday, I took Summer to her 5 year check up!  I still cannot believe she is already 5, whew!  Time is going by so fast.  This was Summer's first time to meet our new pediatrician, Dr. B.  The whole way over she was asking me all about him in comparison to our much loved Dr. G.  

Because Summer is going into Kindergarten, she had to go through all the steps.  She had to have her finger pricked, give a urine sample, get her shots, and go through the normal regular check up.  I remember thinking while he was listening to her heartbeat how thankful I am that we have four super healthy children.  I never want to take that for granted.  Summer is in fact, healthy as can be!  

Here are her stats:  weight, 54.6 pounds.  Height, 48 inches - 4 feet tall!  Summer is in the 96% for weight and off the chart for height!  Blood pressure, 96/58.  Pulse, 116.  All of her blood work came back normal, and because the immunization schedule is different in Georgia, Summer only had to have one shot instead of 3!  And she didn't even cry.  Summer will start Kindergarten in just a couple of weeks, and I think she is going to love it!

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Miss Kathryn.

Last week, one of my dear friends from Atlanta came to spend the week with us.  Kathryn.  What a treat it was to see her!  Do you know how it is when you move away from what has been so familiar and how refreshing it is to see a familiar face?  I loved it!  Kathryn and I taught together at the Heiskell School for almost 5 years.  She came into town on Tuesday and stayed until Friday afternoon.  We had so much fun, too much fun to pause and document our every outing with photographs, it seems!  Tuesday night, my sweet husband, kept all four children after working all day so that Kathryn and I could go out to supper.  I took her to one of our favorite places to eat in Hattiesburg, Brownstone's.  It did not disappoint!  After supper, I drove her around to give her a mini tour, mini because we had to get to Bible study not long after.  Kathryn was such a trooper, she joined me for college Bible study, where we are studying the book of James.  I have loved Tuesday night Bible studies with some of the college girls from our church.  Wednesday, we took the children to the splash pad at the zoo!  Kathryn took some really sweet pictures of the children that I just had to share.  

 Carter

 Summer wearing Miss Kathryn's sunglasses. 

 Tilly

 Summer 

 Oh, how I love those little legs!

 Summer and Tilly having fun in the water. 

 Carter always has the biggest smile while at the splash pad.  

 My not so little one splashing in the puddles. 

 Summer looks so grown!  She had her check up this week, so I'll post more about her soon.  

 Story perched eating her ice cream.  

Love her face!  Another of our friends joined us at the splash pad, Teresa.  She taught with me at Heiskell, and Kathryn was actually hired to take her place when Teresa's husband's job transferred him.  Never did I dream that we would be living so close to each other again, so fun!

Wednesday night, we had family night at church.  David smoked some awesome meat, and we watched a great little movie, No Greater Love.  I had not seen it before, but it was a really sweet story.  I loved introducing Kathryn to our church family.  

 Thursday, Kathryn and I, along with one of our college interns, Katie, rode to New Orleans on a ministry visit.  We met with a minister at First Baptist New Orleans to talk about some ministries they have going that we believe we can implement here, too.  Kathryn had never been to NOLA, so I loved showing her around.  

 I took the girls inside St. Louis Cathedral.  It's just so beautiful!  

 We ate lunch at this little restaurant, which was quite good, though I don't know that I would choose to go there again.  It looked like it was going to rain, so we didn't want to wander too far into the quarter.  Next time, we will just brave the rain and eat somewhere a little better, ha!  

You can't go to New Orleans without having some beignets, so we managed to make some room in our already full bellies, ha!  Kathryn, thanks so much for coming to visit us.  We loved every minute of our time with you!  Please come back soon!

Saturday fun!

Our Saturday was so busy and so much fun!  We began our day at the gym for a 20/20/20 class.  David joined me, and it was such a treat to exercise with my love.  From the gym, David took Carter to a birthday party for a school friend while the girls and I headed home.  We got a phone call earlier in the week from one of our favorite families ever, saying that they would be passing through our town on their way to the beach for a week. The Longs from Marmaduke, Arkansas, where David served as a youth minister, and we lived for two years after we got married.  We met them for lunch at one of our favorite local eats, Baker's Burger.  Apparently, it's lots of beach-goer's favorites because the place was full of people from out of state on their way to the beach.  

What a treat it was to see this sweet family!  

The children loved having so much attention from Bethany and Hannah.  

I love this picture of Tilly with Hannah.  She has a look of just pure delight on her sweet face!

As if our day wasn't fun enough already, we got to end our day playing in the pool!  I can think of no better way to end an already awesome day!  
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Hair cuts for the girlies!

On the afternoon of Summer's birthday, the girls got much needed hair cuts.  Our sweet friend, Miss Bridget, doesn't work at her salon any more, but never fear.  Hardy Street Baptist has it's very own barber chair.   I know, awesome!  A sweet, little man, Mr. Jerry, comes to our church every Tuesday and Thursday and cuts the hair of the men in our church.  Precious!  

 So, once we figured out a time a place, we met Miss Bridget for the big event.  Summer did not want her hair cut.  She wants really long hair, and bless her heart, it's just not happening!  

 She was a good sport and didn't give us any fuss.  Miss Bridget cut off all the dead ends, so maybe Summer's locks will grow! 

 Tilly was next, and was oh so serious during her hair cut.  I think she was counting down the minutes until the patch could come off.  She got to take it off after her hair cut!  What a trooper!

 Tilly just got a little trim, too.  

 This was Story's first hair cut, ever!  Sweet thing, she looked so big sitting up in the chair.  She did great, too.  

 I love how she is glancing over to look at herself in the mirror!  

 Story has way more hair than Summer or Tilly had at this age.  In fact, she already has about as much hair as Tilly has now, ha!  

 I had to distract her a few times.  My phone seems to do the trick more often than not!  

Thank you, Miss Bridget, for cutting our girls' hair!  We are so thankful for you!  

Meanwhile, look what this big fella is learning how to do all thanks to Daddy!
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