Softball party

Amelia had her end of season softball party tonight at a local pizza place... always a wild scene when you get a large group of little girls together! They had a great time and were so excited to receive trophies from their very sweet coach! Amelia has loved playing softball and had a great group of girls to play with this season. She can't wait to play more!

Awards!

We got to attend 2 awards days at OCES for Amelia and Mitchell this week. They both have had excellent years which was reflected by the awards that they received. They received 3 or 4 awards each and we could not have been prouder of them!

A special Clemson weekend!

Amelia and I just had a wonderful weekend together at the 10th annual "Take Your Daughter To Clemson" weekend. We got to stay in the nice Stadium Suites dorm and had some really nice suite mates... Amelia loved staying in the dorm room! We got to do a lot of fun activities on Saturday like take a tour of the athletic facilities, learn about monarch butterflies (which was very fun for the girls!), learn some new math created at Clemson, climb a rock wall, go cosmic bowling, eat ice cream... whew! It did not take us long to fall asleep that night! On Sunday we had a nice breakfast in one of the stadium suites, then we all headed over to the famous "hill" (have you ever heard of the "most exciting 25 seconds in football?). After touching the famous "Howard's Rock" the parents got to run down the hill first. Then it was the daughter's turn! They had the best time running down that hill! It was about as exciting for the parents to watch our daughters of all ages running down the hill as it is to watch the football team... and definitely more special! Then we got to run all over the field (Amelia and I ran a 100 yard touchdown) and have our picture made with the Tiger. Needless to say it was a very special weekend to share with Amelia at our "Dear Old Clemson". We plan to attend again next year!

Strawberry time!!

Every Spring we go to Washington Farms to pick strawberries. We finally found and afternoon that was free to go! Amelia has been with me to pick every year since we moved to Athens, but this was Mitchell's first time. We all three got a bucket and went to work! Amelia eats about as many strawberries as she puts in her bucket (these strawberries are great right off of the vine!). With such great helpers it didn't take us very long to gather our three buckets! I have now made a batch of strawberry jam, put several bags of cut up strawberries in the freezer, and of course put a bunch in the fridge to eat! YUM!!

Trophy time!

Mitchell's regular baseball season has come to an end! He has had lots of fun playing for the Yankees... his first major league experience. Playoffs will start on Monday. The team got together at Cici's Pizza after tonight's game for dinner and to celebrate the season. And Mitchell got another cool trophy to add to his collection!

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day for me was lots of fun! Amelia woke me up early and sent me on a scavenger hunt with clues leading me to the next place... all the way to some gifts! She had made me a beautiful blue trinket box, a flower with "coupons" that I can redeem and a card. After a pancake breakfast together we went to church. Dave and the kids took me to Carrabas for lunch, then off to my surprise. We got a laptop computer! They surprised me by taking me to the store to help pick it out (Amelia wanted the pink one, but as you can see we got the normal black one!). It was a very cool surprise! Later that night we went to a friends' house for dinner... we definitely ate well today!

I am so happy and thankful every day to be a mother to two wonderful children. It is truly one of the best jobs in the world!! I feel like I had some great role models to help prepare me for this job... my mother and my grandmothers. What better teachers could there be?

OYSP Spring Showcase

Amelia had two performances in the Oconee Youth School of Performance Spring Showcase this weekend... the ending to our crazy week! The show was great and of course Amelia was the star of the show! She really enjoys her classes at OYSP and is already planning what she wants to do there next year. Amelia's musical theatre class did a number to some songs from "Grease" which was really cute! Her tap class did a dance that had both tap and jumproping in it! It was great and Amelia got to show off her jumproping skills. After the show we all had a wonderful dinner at Last Resort Grill in downtown Athens, topped off with some of their famous yummy desserts!

3rd Grade Musical!

Amelia's 3rd grade musical was tonight at the Oconee Civic Center. The performance was very cute... "A Froggy Day In Lindentown". It's always amazing how their music teacher can organize over 200 students into a production like this! Amelia was thrilled to have a small singing solo in the musical, and she did an awesome job! The end of school is getting closer!!

Crazy week!

This is a week full of activities with all of us going in different directions and enlisting some greatly appreciated help from Granddad and Grandmama! Amelia's recital is this weekend so she has had dress rehearsal 3 afternoons this week, our last Wednesday night church activities were last night, Mitchell has 2 baseball games, Amelia has a softball game, and Amelia also has her 3rd grade musical at the Civic Center tonight... whew!! Both kids also have field day tomorrow all day where I am helping out. Thank goodness the year is winding down... it always gets a little crazy during the last few weeks of school. It is all fun, though! These pictures are from Amelia's dress rehearsal days. She now insists on putting on her own makeup and wants no help from me... they grow up so fast!

Children's Worship Sunday!

Today was a special day at church... the children (ages 5-11) took over the service and did everything! They have been working so hard preparing for this day and it showed! Amelia read some scripture, sang and took up offering. Mitchell did part of the sermon time, sang and took up offering also. The theme of the service was "My family, my church". The four children (including Mitchell) who did parts of the sermon time were supposed to speak on what family was to them and why the church was special to them. Out of the same theme came very different speeches, all very touching. One of the common things said, though, was how much their church friends meant to them... it's good knowing that Mitchell and Amelia will be with a wonderful group of children all the way through youth! Another very special thing that happened today was that Mama and Daddy joined our church! They moved to Watkinsville about 2 1/2 months ago and had been visiting our church for a while. We are all so happy that they decided to become members! How especially wonderful for Mitchell and Amelia to share their church experience with their Grandparents!

Relay For Life Night!

Most of you have heard of Relay For Life... an all night event (and months of work before!) that raises money for cancer research. This was our second year to go to our county's Relay event... what an amazing night! It's like a big carnival with good food, fun games and lots of friends. This year was even more special to us because Sam Haygood was the honorary chairman. Sam's family goes to our church so we have known them for a few years now. When Sam was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago I had the pleasure of taking care of him in the hospital when he was in for treatments. This way I got to know this amazing family even better, and what a wonderful experience it has been. Sam is doing great now and will be getting married in September! Several of Sam's friends and family were at the Relay to support him. The night started out with the survivor lap around the track. It's amazing how many people we know who are cancer survivors, including our good friend and neighbor Jacy Rojewski. The survivor lap is followed by the caregivers' lap, then the team lap. Then someone from each team walks on the track for the entire night until 8am Saturday. Mitchell and Amelia had a great time this year. We gave them walkie talkies and money and sent them on their way (it's nice knowing that there are still a few safe places in this world!). Right before we headed home the luminary service took place. They light all of the luminaries (including the ones in the stands that read the word "HOPE") and a bagpipe player walked the track playing "Amazing Grace" while the whole stadium fell silent. It is a time for reflection and a truly touching moment. After this we took some tired children home for the night!

Softball Time!

Time to play catch up again! Amelia has had a great softball season this Spring and so much fun! She knew a few of the girls on her team and also made some new friends. The games are very relaxed at this age and they just let the girls have fun while learning the basics of the game. Amelia has done very well batting this year and had not had to use the tee yet! I think that this is a sport that Amelia will want to continue through the years... but we'll see!

Baseball time!

Mitchell's baseball season is well under way and I am just getting around to posting some pictures! He is playing in the majors this year (he was thrilled to make that league after trying out) and plays for the Yankees... boy, we never thought that we would be sitting in the stands cheering for the Yankees! As you can see, Amelia passes the time calling her friends with our cell phones as well as playing with other bored sisters at the ball field. Mitchell is having a great time playing even though his team doesn't have a winning record. One thing about Mitchell is that he has fun doing just about anything, win or lose... we should all play with that attitude! One parent recently asked Dave at a game "Does Mitchell smile in his sleep, too?". It's great to watch Mitchell smile his way through life!

High School Musical

This weekend Oconee Youth Playhouse (where Amelia takes dance and musical theatre) put on the stage version of "High School Musical". When audition information came out weeks ago, there were many dissappointed children because only 8th grade and up could audition! So OYP came up with a way to include those many younger kids in the production. Amelia got to go to a workshop yesterday morning with the lead actors from the play and learn the routine to "We're All In This Together". They then performed their number in a pre-show... they were thrilled to be a part of the production! Amelia did super and had a blast the whole time. Who knows... we may see her on Broadway someday!

Spring Break!

Spring Break, 2008 was lots of fun for all of us! We stayed in town for the first few days and relaxed, played two rounds of golf with Mitchell and my Daddy (and yes, Mitchell did beat me on the first round!), and got ready for our trip. On Tuesday we left for Gatlinburg, TN with our good friends Michael, Lydia, Madeline and Candler. We stayed in a really fun three bedroom condo that had a cool indoor water park! This was perfect especially since the weather didn't always cooperate with us! We had a blast doing several activities in Gatlinburg... go carts, water slides, chair lifts to amazing views, the Upside Down House (lots of fun things to do in there!), laser tag, the Comedy Barn... and of course some shopping for me and Lydia! And who can forget all of the great food (great restaurants at night and great junk food during the day such as foot long corn dogs and funnel cakes!)... and thanks to Michael we had Starbucks every morning!! We were also lucky that Dave was able to join us on Wednesday for the rest of the vacation (he doesn't usually get to spend much of Spring break with us)! We were all able to have some great quality family time... and great friend time, also! Only seven more weeks until summer vacation!

Mitchell's Spring Formal

Every Tuesday after school for most of this year Mitchell has been attending "Perfectly Polished", which is a class that teaches good etiquette and social skills (including several different dances). Tonight was the big Spring Formal that ends the class year. It was held at Stegeman Coliseum on UGA's campus, and the floor was filled with students from all over Athens with ages ranging from 5th grade to 12th grade. The dances were interesting to watch and we loved looking at all of the beautiful dresses that the girls wore! Mitchell had to escort one girl in to the dance, then he danced each dance with a different girl (with the exception of the line dances where everyone danced in lines). He did a Waltz, Fox Trot and Shag and three different line dances... he did really well!! The highlight of my evening was getting to dance with Mitchell during the Mother/Son dance at the end... what fun! The highlight of Mitchell's evening was going to get ice cream with everyone after the dance was over... he is a boy after all!

Easter Day... Christ Has Risen!!

We woke up to another beautiful day on Easter! Mitchell and Amelia couldn't wait to see what the Easter bunny had brought them so they checked out their baskets first thing! Then we treated them to cinnamon rolls shaped like bunnies and crosses for breakfast... they loved that! Then we all got our Easter clothes on and went to church. The service was beautiful, and afterwards we got to place flowers on the cross outside in front of our church... it looked really pretty! We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and working on Mitchell's school project (yea!... he finished it!). Then we had a wonderful dinner at Mama and Daddy's house to end the great day. Only 4 more days of school before spring break!!

Spring is here!

Everything is starting to bloom!
Amelia and her wonderful appetizers
Jake wants some!
Dave... master of the grill

With the fun Easter weekend keeping us busy (and relaxing a lot) I am now catching up on our blog again. The weekend was so beautiful!! We had a nice relaxing Saturday going to Amelia's softball game, working in the yard, and having our first grill-out of the Spring season. We pretty much spent the whole day outside! Dave was the grill master and Amelia made the family some wonderful appetizers to go with the meal. We were all excited to be able to have dinner outside on the deck for the first time this season... and are looking forward to many more!

Amelia's solo!

I was able to catch a little of Amelia's solo with my camera in between taking pictures... I thought that you would like to hear her beautiful voice, too!

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is always a great day at our church! The children sing at the service... it is always such a treat to hear their sweet voices singing together! And Amelia sang her first solo! It was so great... she has a beautiful voice! Another wonderful sight is to see all of the children entering the church waving their palm branches... it really reminds me of my own childhood at church on Palm Sunday. And after the service all of the children and their families gather together to go on a Easter Egg hunt... the kids really look forward to this! It's kind of like Halloween again with the amount of candy that they bring home! The hunt is followed by a delicious covered dish lunch (you know that you are guaranteed a great meal at any church covered dish lunch!!). All in all it was a beautiful day that we all enjoyed very much... and the start to a very beautiful and meaningful week for all!!

A Tiger Reunion!

As you can see we are playing catch-up with our posts... we had a wonderful stomach bug hit Mitchell and Amelia on Monday and are finally fully recovered!

This past weekend our good friend Martha, from the good old college days, organized a reunion of several of our friends and their families. With all of our busy schedules, we were pretty amazed to have gotten 9 friends together to share some time! We started out the weekend on Friday night at Neil's house (thanks, Burtons, for hosting all of us for the evening... especially you Denise!) with a sort of appetizer/pizza party. We had such a great time catching up with each other after all of these years... and our kids had a blast playing together! The kids entertained themselves outside for most of the night, so the adults really got a chance to visit. We ended up staying there until about 11pm! Then on Saturday we went to the Clemson baseball game... how fun! We were lucky and it didn't start to rain until near the end of the game. From there we headed to Neil's church gym to play and eat (sort of an indoor tailgate party!). It was neat hearing about what was going on in each of our lives, and to see our children play together. We had so much fun that we are already planning our next reunion for football season!

Go Tigers!!!

Greenville, SC trip!

And our busy Saturday continued... after we were done with our mission projects our family loaded a charter bus along with several other children and chaperones and headed to Greenville, SC for the night. About three years ago our children's choir director started a sort of exchange program with First Baptist Greenville's childrens' choir where we take turns visiting each other's church and sing together in the worship service. This year it was our turn to visit them! This program is only for the kids in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, so this was Mitchell's second trip to Greenville to sing. It is an exciting time for the kids... they get to make new friends, remember old friends from the year before, and stay in a hotel (which for some reason is extremely exciting for all children)! After rehearsing together, we all had a pizza dinner together and played some games. Then after a final rehearsal of the night we got to go ice skating! Since there is not an ice skating rink in Athens, our kids especially enjoyed this wonderful treat! After cold hands and many falls and bruises later, we headed back to the hotel for the night... I think that we finally got all of the kids in bed at around 11:30pm! The next morning the kids sang at both of the church services, with a delicious doughnut breakfast in between! After saying a lot of goodbyes, exchanging email addresses and webkinz names, we loaded the bus once again and headed back to Athens. What a great weekend!

Just a little update on the current weekend (since I am only a week late posting all of this)... this weekend was a LOT more relaxing! With all of the cold temperatures, snow flurries, and lots of wind, all baseball and softball practices were cancelled, so we truly got to just RELAX!!

Operation INASMUCH

Well, as you can see we have been a pretty busy family lately! I will try to catch you up a little at a time with what has been going on with us... starting with this past weekend. Saturday morning our whole family was involved in a project called "Operation INASMUCH" at our church. Basically it is several different mission projects going on locally at the same time. Although I don't have pictures of the project that Amelia and I did, we had a very fun and rewarding morning! We and the rest of our group went around to several different laundromats in Athens and passed out quarters and food (biscuits and doughnuts) to the people doing their laundry there. Boy were they surprised... and VERY appreciative!! Hopefully we brightened their day a little. My Daddy, Dave and Mitchell did a Habitat for Humanity project in Athens. Mitchell was thrilled to get to help with this project (even thought officially he is too young). They worked very hard on the house and got a lot done! Some family will be very blessed to receive that home... it was built with a lot of love! This was the second year of this church- wide project, and we hope that we can continue it for a long time!