Cousin fort time

While watching classic Looney Tunes.

We're jammin'

It's pajama day at the kids' schools. Audrey has her Christmas party and will watch Polar Express. Miles has a party today too, and will watch Polar Express tomorrow. It's almost Christmas break!!

Little artist

Audrey drew the cover art for her school Christmas program. It's baby Jesus in the hay with the star above. More about the show later!

Happy Halloweenies!

Harry Potter and the ballerina ready for action!

Cousin!

Miles and Audrey got to visit with cousin Sam for his baptism. They're excited to have a baby cousin!

Miles was chosen to read at his class Mass today. He read from Corinthians 13 and did such a nice job!

Soccer time!

Audrey's ready to cheer for Miles's first U8 game. Bigger fields bigger goal and more players. Fun!

A Happy Harry Birthday

While Miles still loves Star Wars (see his shirt), he has grow to love the Harry Potter stories this summer. He has read the first two with some assistance and asked for an HP birthday party with family this year. We went to Nashville to celebrate with cousins and grandparents, but unfortunately poor Kate ended up with strep so the big event was cancelled. We still had fun eating at Noshville and spending some gift cards at Barnes & Noble. He got more Legos, both Hogwarts Castle and Hagrid's hut. He found Hedwig the owl at BN, and also picked out some favorite books. So we missed seeing the rest of the family, but he still had a great time turning 7!

20 questions with: MILES age 7

1. What is your favorite color? Green

2. What is your favorite toy? Legos

3. What is your favorite fruit? Granny Smith Apple

4. What is your favorite tv show?  Curious George

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? dessert

6. What is your favorite outfit? Soccer shorts

7. What is your favorite game? Temple Run

8. What is your favorite snack? Oreos

9. What is your favorite animal? dog

10. What is your favorite song? Eye of the Tiger by Survivor

11. What is your favorite book? Harry Potter

12. Who is your best friend? Patrick

13. What is your favorite cereal? don't really like cereal

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play soccer

15. What is your favorite drink? water

16. What is your favorite holiday? my birthday!

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  brown bears

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? pancakes

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Blue Coast Burrito

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Archaeologist

BONUS question created by Miles:
What's your favorite thing to do?
"Read. Because really if I'm bored I just pick up a book and start reading words out of it."

1st day!

It was a dark and stormy morning, when Miles started 1st grade, Audrey started Pre-K and I started teaching. So we had to take an inside photo. Maybe we'll have a do-over day tomorrow.

Miles met his teacher Monday at the open house and was very excited about who he has, and who is in his class. One of his best buddies is in another class, but they know they'll see each other at recess and after school. 

Audrey is excited to be in Mr. Chris & Ms. Jennifer's class. Miles had them for Pre-K too and had an awesome time. Their preschool expanding into some vacated office space, so when it's complete in a couple of week, Audrey will have a brand new classroom. Like her headband? It's some elastic lace that came around a wedding invite we got last week. She is a stylish girl!

And I officially started school too! Teachers were back last week getting ready, then Monday was open house for us as well. Lots of kids came by to meet me and check out the changes I've made. I won't actually teach a class until Thursday, so I have to keep the butterflies in check for another day. I teach computer and library to K-8, and also have a Pre-K class that visits for story time. I'm very excited and blessed to be in such a wonderful place. While it's not in the same place as the kids, I will have the exact same holiday schedule and summers off with them.

Happy new school year to all the kids and teachers out there!

Just a boy and a girl in a little canoe

Actually girl and mom in one, boy and dad in the other. Elise and Stacy had the third. Fun day at Ijams quarry!

Video games!

Who needs an iPad when you have the classic Radio Shack game, Caveman! YaYa found Wayne's old games in her attic and now Miles is addicted. He claimed to love it more than Temple Run. Just wish it had some volume control.

who need an iPad when you have the classic Radio Shack game, Caveman!

FWD:

who needs an iPad when you have the Radio Shack classic Caveman!

who needs an iPad when you have the Radio Shack classic Caveman!

Miles is learning some soccer skills from the Brits this week. Hot but fun!

biker girl!

backstroke at swim team practice. he went off the blocks today too!

building fairy houses while enjoying the 20 degree drop in temperature from the weekend.

New family members

The weekend before Father's Day we traveled across the state to meet our newest family member, Sam! Sam was born on Memorial Day, so he was almost 2 weeks old when we met him. Audrey and Miles are so excited to have a new cousin to play with, although they were a little bored with him this time around. 

Luckily, we met another new cousin this weekend, cousin Chase! Chase and Ellie came to visit with Mike & Tiffany and Connie & Dave. Miles loved having an older boy to play with and all the kids got along great. Here's GG-mama with 5 of her 6 great grandchildren. Our new-newest cousin was born in Mississippi a few days before this photo was taken. Hopefully we'll be able to get a photo with ALL of her great grandkids together at some point

On the way to Memphis we stopped in Jackson to visit my other grandmother Alice. She was so surprised by our stop and we loved seeing her and catching up.

While in Memphis, we attempted to extract Miles's tooth that was dangling by a thread - it seemed. We even bribed him with cash and books (his preferred payment). After this picture he wouldn't let anyone near his mouth, and the tooth lasted for another week before finally popping out.

The weekend was perfect because we were able to time our visit to see not only the TX family, but PopPop and BeeBe  who were in from NC.

Yay for fun fast family visits!

And in other news, I've been hired as the librarian and technology instructor at St. Joseph School.  It's a smaller school, PreK-8 with just one class per grade. I'll see all the kids in library once a week and also in the tech lab once a week. I wish the two spaces were integrated, but that's something we can work toward. I went in last week and rearranged the space. It may be hard to see in this picture, but I made a space for storytime and the "E" (Everyone) books under the window. All those stacks of books on the table are being pulled out due to age or low use. Miles went in for a while last week and helped me stamp them all. I'm really excited about this opportunity but will go ahead and proclaim that this blog will be even less updated than it is now! I hope to at least keep some mobile postings going even if I can't write a lot about what is going on with our lives.