Cheesy cobwebs

Over the past while, I've begun to notice cobwebs on my light fixtures and my floral arrangements. About the only thing I did about it was make sure the bug man was coming soon. But I had no desire to get rid of them or anything.
But I got really tickled when my 3 1/2 year old daughter asked me "who put the cheese on my light?" She was looking up and the dining chandelier while she was eating. She later pointed out more "cheese" in the corner of her room. Maybe I should move dusting from the bottom of my list, then again, I probably won't.

Play Date

We got to spend yesterday at our friend's house. My friend had her kids almost as close together as mine are. So her daughter was in Andie's class and her son was in Evan's. They have the most amazing backyard! I could go on and on. It feels like a resort location & both for kids and adults.
It ended up being a mini reunion of the 4's class. Their sweet hands are showing how old they are.
Andie was in paradise! There were kittens everywhere! She loved and held all of them. Which turned into chasing all of them, because they wanted far away from her. Sweet girl....poor kitties.
The boys had tons of fun on the water slide and driving the jeep. My kids played so hard - I just knew they would take a great nap - but no such luck. This was my first big outing with the kids since my hand surgeries. Six weeks of being mostly indoors during the summer is no way to spend a summer. So it was much needed for myself and the kids. Thanks friends!

Latest Happenings

Saturday was a very special day. A special friend, who I hold in the highest regard, was married. Esther and I were labor & delivery nurses together. I always knew it would be a good night when we worked together. She is an extremely pleasant and uplifting person to be around. And a huge bonus was that Esther was a midwife in Grenada before she became an RN. So to all of us new nurses - boy did she cover our tail! I learned so much from her - not just as a nurse, but as a person. Elegance and class just ooze from her. Esther's wedding was beautiful. She got married at the same church where Trey and I married, so that was fun memories for us as well.
Also, before the wedding Trey and I ate lunch with my good friends April and Denise and their husbands. My husband took a picture of us, but those two made me look fat, and it's my blog, so I'm not posting it.

**Oh! and while we were in Lubbock I took my wedding rings to get cleaned at J.Keith's - he and Trey designed my engagement ring. I had gotten used to it's "dirty" look & forgot how beautiful the ring and the diamond could look. Now I don't want to wear it, I just want it to stay in it's gorgeous state.

Evan and Andie finished up their summer gymnastics class last week. Good times were had by all.
And last but not least, my mom left us yesterday. She stayed with us for 6 weeks! 6 weeks she took care of my kids, gave every bath, feed them every meal - what am I going to do?!? I seriously feel like I don't know what to do. 6 weeks off the job, and I am clueless. Even though I didn't really feel like a had a huge break at the time, since I was recovering from two surgeries, it was a nice break. My mother is extremely selfless, flexible, and loving. She had to share a room with Dean the whole time. For whatever reason, Dean threw all my mom's shoes out of the room almost everyday. Don't know why, but he did.

A nana's work is never done - after she left my house, she went to my sister's to stay for another two weeks to help her out. I know it's been tough on my parents to be apart this long. I have the best parents ever. I still need them huge even though I'm 31 years old.

July 4th

We had beautiful weather on the 4th. The most enjoyable in years. We went out to Trey's parents, and ended up doing most of the celebrating - which always means food - at his grandparents house.
Trey's dad just bought a new 4-wheeler, so he took all the kids for a test drive.
Evan and cousin Joel's reaction to the start of the firework show. But, boy did they loosen up. They were even lighting some of the crazy things. I kinda closed my eyes to that. I trusted that the men in charge knew what they were doing. Giving fire control to 5 yr olds???
Papa and Mimi and 4 of the grandkids.
Sweet Dean was quietly scared of the fireworks. He would snuggle in close to my mom, or his Papa. He would only look at the fireworks through a metal chair. We got so tickled at this. Cause his body would be fully exposed, but he would keep his eyes piered through the holes in the rusty old chair. I guess it created an armor-like protection for him.

Burgers were great - homemade ice cream even better. It took me 3 bowls to decide how good it was. I would have liked to have gone for a fourth, but decided that wasn't ladylike.

Recommendation

Over the last few years I have heard about this book, but I had no need for it yet. About 3 or 4 months ago, Evan kept telling me how he wanted to read. I was reminded of this book when a lady that I really respect started talking about this book. She used it to teach all her kids to read. I went straight to the bookstore to grab one. Evan has done so well. I love how his eyes light up with each discovery he makes. He is now on lesson 23 and has been reading short sentences for the last three days. My mom has done the last several lessons with him. She is a high school special education teacher, and uses this same curriculum on her students. This book is, what I'll call scripted. It tells the parent/teacher exactly what to say. We're not 1/4 of the way through and see great results already. Definitely recommended by me.

Evan's Five !!

Evan and his daddy share a love of planes. Trey has a small collection of his favorites. He allows Evan to play with them from time to time, then they have to go back to the hanger - aka - the laundry room cabinet. So for Evan's birthday, Trey bought him his very own airplane. The blue plane is a WWII plane, the Corsair. Evan is big time now. And he would love to talk airplanes with anyone whose interested.
Evan has be extremely, super very excited to turn 5. So choosing five as the theme seemed a no brainer. We celebrated at the gymnastics sports center. My friend Shana made him an awesome cake - notice 5 five's on the cake. Evan turned five back flips with the spotter belt. And I'm sure he had at least five times the amount of his daily sugar allotment. We had a great day! Lots of family and friends came. He is loving all his presents, although gift opening time was overwhelming for him. He wants to throughly check out each toy, and we had like 10 minutes to open gifts before the next party started. So I'm over his shoulder encouraging him to say thank you and open the next one. I could feel his mind spinning in circles. The couple days after the party he played with each toy like he opened them - playing with each for a few seconds before moving onto the next. Now he is enjoying reliving the memory of the person who gave him each gift - thanks to all. And Happy 5th Evan!
This shot is in no way related to Evan's birthday. But very cool anyway. This is the second set of baby birds hatched in this nest this year. This momma made her nest in one of our backyard red tip fetinia's. I love watching my kids reaction to seeing the baby birds, and listening to all the conversation it strikes up. Thank you God for the birds.