the zoo

We have lived at the zoo this summer. We have more than paid for our zoo membership.

This time at the zoo, I noticed a real change in Lila. She was starting to notice the animals. She was cracking up at the monkeys and watching the big elephants walk. But, her favorite part of the zoo was no doubt the farm animals. We took her out of her stroller and gave her an up close and personal look at the animals.

Look at those sweet chubby legs!

Lila loved the chickens!

Emma striking her pose...


Could it be? A decent picture of all 3 of my girls?

a trip to nashville

At the last minute, we decided to head out of town on a quick trip to Nashville. We were tired and stressed and thought we needed a vacation from everyday life.

We did nothing "special". We just got a great hotel room that had a HUGE bathtub that the girls called a swimming pool, and we ate,shopped and played.

Emma on the carousel at the mall.

Before we left home, we visited a great farmer's market and had a snow cone in a cup in the park.



Just simple fun with my favorite people!

a halloween craft

I have so much to blog about, but true to my nature I'm just going to skip ahead and get to the present. Because posting a Halloween craft after Halloween would be a little silly.

I was trying to decide what I wanted the girls to use this year to collect all their candy loot in. When I went to Jo-Ann's I saw these cute black caldrons. I decided that these were the perfect size and price to do something with.

I just used my handy dandy cricut to cut some orange vinyl out with their name, a jack-o-lantern and polka dots. Then, I just added some festive Halloween ribbon to the handles. Easy peasy!

I filled one with candy and personalized one for Emma's teacher to put on her desk.

a ceremony

How is it possible that so much time can pass since my last post?

We have been BUSY with a capital "B"!

I've been busy doing the room mom bit, we took a spontaneous trip to Nashville, the baby is now going to preschool one day a week and we got hit with the stomach virus. Oh, and I can't forget the whole church planting thing.

Before we embarked on our spontaneous weekend get-away to Nashville, we had a ceremony to attend. It was the "Terrific Kid" program awards ceremony at Richland. We are so proud of Emma for being the person picked out of her class as the terrific kid for the first 6 weeks of school.

Going to get her certificate...

All the kids put on their t-shirts when they sat down. Emma was so sweet during the ceremony. She clapped for all of her classmates when their name was called.


All the terrific kids from all grades...

Lila was bored. She decided that chewing on her shoes was way more entertaining!


Mommy with her terrific kid


My other special, sweet girl, Ava


Emma and her principal, Mrs. McNary. We love her! She is so down-to-earth and is constantly out of her office in the halls talking with all the parents. We are so blessed to be at Richland Elementary!

a terrific kid

I am so proud of Emma!

In the last post, Jason was bragging about Emma (we are shameless, I know). So then what do we find in her folder today?

Emma has been selected as the Terrific KId from her class. Every 6 weeks, one child is selected from each class that has shown positive character traits. Emma is the first one of the year from her class!

The school is going to have a celebration program for those kids this Friday. We are so proud of our big girl!

Emma Moments...

this is jason (kelly's hubs) writing on the blog today


there is an old saying "sometimes you miss the forest for the trees".

i think parenting is like this sometimes.

because you are near to them everyday,

because you see all the "little" things they do that frankly, drive you crazy,

and because they are "your kids" you want and expect the best for them and are disappointed for them when they fall short.

yesterday, i saw "the forest" in my emma grace.

at richland, parents can eat lunch with their kids, so i decided i would take a few minutes and surprise her and eat PB&J and chocolate pudding with my sweet girl. richland is a VERY diverse school, so emma is getting the opportunity to make friends with lots of kids that don't look like her, they don't go to the same kind of church that emma does, they don't even eat the same kid of food she eats at lunch, and most of then know 2 languages.

at her table yesterday there was, victor, jamal, nora, bavla, emily, cornelius and ammal.

you get the picture.

here is what amazed me, here is what my emma grace taught me, here is what i didn't know about her...

emma grace is colorblind

no, she can see red, yellow, purple, and blue, but when it comes to her classmates, she is perfectly colorblind.

she didn't care that one of her classmates was eating some curried eggs for lunch, she didn't care that another one looked as though they had not bathed in 2 days and wore the same clothes everyday to school, she didn't even notice that there was a new muslim girl in her class that can't speak a word of english, she just saw a new friend who wore a pretty headdress.

amazing

and at the same time, super convicting.

emma, in 45 minutes, reminded me how we should all see and treat each other. she reminded me how Christ see us, and how it will be in eternity, and how Jesus must long for us to embrace each other, and each other's "differences" here on earth.

i am pleading for emma to stay this way as she grows up, i pleading for myself to model this for my family.

don't miss the forest for the trees in your kids...

"They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.”
--Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)

her boys

Getting Ava dressed has become a big issue.

But, not in the way that I thought. You see, everyone told me that the older that my children got, the less they would want to dress in all the smocked clothing and sweet dresses that I put them in.

Wrong. Not Ava.

See this outfit? She pitched a fit to wear this one morning as we were getting dressed for school.

She kept saying that she didn't feel pretty in it and that the other kids would laugh at her.

Then, yesterday morning as I was getting her ready for school, I got the full explanation from Ava on why she did not want to wear an outfit I picked out for her. It went like this...

"I don't want to wear those clothes. Those clothes are not pretty. My boys will not like this. My boys only like it when I wear sundresses. Please let me wear a dress!"

Well, of course! I was only thinking that I did not want your nice clothes ruined at preschool. I completely forgot about your "boys".

Are we really starting this now?

her new thing

Lila has found something new to drive us crazy with. Oops, did I say crazy? I meant to say it was adorable.

Heading into the entertainment center...


Very proud of herself...


Notice how I have nothing on my shelves. Who could keep anything with this little one?


And after the fall...

She's got to work on her exit!

daddy dates

I love when Jason gets a roll of film back, and I get the surprise of seeing what the family is up to when I am not around.

The girls love to go visit Howard's Donuts on the weekends. They love their sprinkled donuts with their chocolate milk. My teeth hurt just thinking about it.

8 months

September has already proved to be quite a month. It has come and kicked us right in the tail.

First off, we had our identity stolen. Remember that whole Jason's Deli scandal with stolen credit card information? Well, we were one of the lucky ones. And, they took us to the cleaners. But, alas, all is resolved! I'm just left with major paranoia, and I really want to take all of our money and dig a hole for it in the backyard.

School has welcomed our girls back. In fact, they gave Emma a wonderful gift. One month into the school year, and we already have our first stomach virus. There goes perfect attendance (like we even had a chance).

But, the stomach bug didn't stop with her. Oh, no. It took as all down within a week and a half.

Good times.

On a bright note, we launched The Orchard Fellowship today. We had over 400 in attendance! Such a wonderful morning!

8 months ago today, our precious Lila was born which means it was picture time tonight. I thought I would put her in her cute University of Memphis dress. Got to support the home team... well, at least in basketball!

Lila has been a very busy girl since 7 months. She is now pulling up on things and standing.

She is Speedy Gonzalez with her crawling, and she will not be fenced in! She is going to keep me on my toes!

Hello, Blue Eyes! I could just eat up my cutie pie!