First Day of Middle School

Jamie surprised me by curling her hair. She looked so pretty this morning. All grown up! She had a great day! But she thinks it will be even better Wednesday.

Super Saturday

Jamie was very excited about Super Saturday. We saw a lot of friends there. She is on the Apollo Team. We found her locker and the portables where over 1/2 her classes will be held. We got a lot of info about after school clubs. Middle School here she comes!

Cousins play UNO

Lucas spent the night with us Friday. We went swimming but I didn't take any pictures. I fell asleep on the couch before the kids did. It's been a long week of cleaning at work. James kept checking on them and they were asleep by 11 maybe. But they were up early!

Then Saturday Timmy and Zach came over for a visit. We had 2 decks of UNO cards so I played with Timmy and Jamie played with Lucas. We had a lot of fun. Zachary is now walking!

Sisters

The kids/sisters came to work with me this afternoon and were my toy testers. They did a great job; we worked late and got a lot done. One more day to get ready!

Playdate

Aunt Teresa took Anne to Chuck E Cheese with the cousins today. Jamie and I picked her up there at lunchtime. Jamie was happy she got to ride a horse and play air hockey. Thanks to the cousins for saving her a token. It was a busy day.

Mother/Daughter Event - Virtue En Vogue

We went to the Mother/Daughter event at Grace tonight - Virtue En Vogue - fashion show. We won Vicki Courtney's Between devotional book and another book this summer. I bought Vicki Courtney's book, "5 conversations you must have with your daughter" tonight. www.vickicourtney.com (blog for moms who want to raise modest daughters)

The Worship group is called the Reliques - their names are Sarah and Sarah. They picked Jamie as one of the volunteers to come up on stage and sign/sing with them - Waves of Mercy song from a past VBS. She was so excited. Afterwards, I bought one of their CDs and got to take a picture with them. We loved all the desserts too.

First day back to work

We had training all day Monday. Good stuff but I had a headache by noon. The rooms have been painted blue! Today we have to put all the stuff back and rearrange the rooms.

Benjamin's Baby Dedication

It was great to see David and Natasha with Herb Ingram dedicating Benjamin today.

It seems like just yesterday we were up there. Time goes by so fast. Praying that we develop a better spiritual walk this "year" as we encourage others.

Baby Pool

We had a storm this week which turned off the outside power again. So the pool pump shut off and the pool got really dirty. James went to Walmart and bought shock treatments to clean up the pool. In the meantime, we filled up the baby pool for the first time and let Anne play/swim. Jamie even took a turn in it with her sister. We enjoyed the mister as well.

Gattiland and Salon

Saturday night we went to Round Rock - Gattiland. One of Jamie's many prizes. We met James' friend Jim and his family there. The kids played and I got to talk to Jim's mother, Mrs. St. Jacques. She told me all about her visit to Cambodia in 2005 - where Jim's wife, Champa, is from. Then we went to see the salon. There was a picture/painting of Angor . . . that she had told me about. WOW! Champa offered to cut Jamie's hair for back to school and Jamie loved it. Thank you!

Drive

We went for a drive this morning to find my college campus before school starts. Then we stopped by the children's museum for about an hour and got our passport stamped this time. We only need one more stamp for our free pizza. Dropped the kids off and then ran errands.

Den Brother

Tonight is the Disney Show - Den Brother - 7pm Central Time.

Girl Scouts

The girl scout bridging ceremony and sleepover has been postponed until September.
Most of the Cadette stuff is on order so we have to go back to the girl scout store later.

Swimming!

They wore their new cool sunglasses in the pool! Julie has a little sister too who was born the same week as Anne. She is very good with kids. We met her a year ago this month. Now that the kids are both going to the same school, we hope to see her more.

Terra Toys

Our neighbor Julie really wanted to go to Terra Toys. (I had missed the fairy party this year but they have lots of fun activities all the time.) We got the directions and she helped guide me. They looked at all the erasers and other fun things. We almost made it to the checkout counter when they spotted the sunglasses. They had so much fun trying them on. I felt like a teenager again just watching them. I loved the butterfly glasses.

They also asked for a ton of white bags to color. Julie told us if you color and return 10 bags, you get a $1 item. Jamie picked the reading rocks bag to bring home. And guess what they did tonight: Julie asked if she could spend the night and she colored about 5 bags to Jamie's one - my little perfectionist. We also watched Home Alone (found the original on TV) and ate pizza and popcorn. I love summer! But James made them go to bed by midnight (nice try anyway). It takes us awhile to recover from these non-sleeping sleepovers.

Shopping part 2

Anne and I loved this store. She played with lots of shiny bouncy balls. She loved the big huge elephant. We looked at and named all the animals. She read books. We checked out the rubber duck collection. I had a blast taking her picture.

Summer Reading Programs

Jamie read over 50 books this summer and was rewarded with over $50 in prizes and free books. We had a great time reading. I enjoyed storytime with Anne on Fridays. Jamie and I hope to attend the Mother Daughter Book Club tonight to discuss Confetti Girl.