another milestone...

It's the first lost tooth!

Choir Party

This is John not Michelle posting this. I wanted to post a couple of photos from our Choir party and wanted to take the space here to Wish Justin and Erin the best in there new adventure. and to thank Justin for all that he has taught me. Justin not only taught me a song he taught me music. ( not to mention how to sing with my tongue sticking out!!!) Thank you Justin and be sure to keep in touch.

Amanda Christmas party

I cannot believe that Amanda's first year of kindergarden is half over I have attached some pictures from her christmas party. Enjoy!!!

Valle Crucis, NC

This past weekend, some of the gals from my Sunday School class went on a retreat to the mountains. We stayed at our teacher's parents' house in Valle Crucis. It was absolutely breathtaking! It was the perfect place to worship and praise our Lord and to fellowship with one another. Here are some pictures:

This is the house from the front.

This is the river behind the house.

This is a picture of the valley from the Mast Store which, by the way, was very cool!

Brownies...Yummmm!

We had a hankerin' for some brownies a couple of weeks ago. We decided to make some from scratch!

Can you tell if they were a success???

Well, I guess it's about time I post something. It's only been a month and a half!! Sadly, there's just nothing exciting to report. Manda has had 2 field trips since my last post: one to the Hillsborough fire station, and the other to a farm. We walked to the fire station, but the farm trip was her first bus ride. Unfortunately, I couldn't go with her, but she had a blast. She came home with a pumpkin in her backpack! Zach is loving preschool. He brought home his first craft yesterday. They usually don't do many crafts in that class, so that was a special treat for both of us! Work at Cato is going well. I've enjoyed it much more than I expected. Sadly, I don't get to tuck the kids into bed most nights, because I work until 9:30. That a bit rough for me and Manda; Zach pretty much just goes with the flow! Well, hopefully it won't be another month before my next post. Until then...

Manda's trip to the library

outside the library

out on the playground

still here...

I know it's been quite awhile since my last post. Told you we're not that exciting! Manda's first 9 weeks of Kindergarten are already coming to a close. Can you believe it?? We had our first parent/teacher conference this week. We are so proud of her. She is doing GREAT!! Yesterday she went on her first field trip. We walked to the Orange County public library. It was fun. We had a picnic lunch on the playground afterward. It was very hot, though. I had to carry Zach the entire way back to school. That was definitely not fun. Oh, yeah...the school was uphill from the library. That figures! But, all in all, it was a lot of fun.

I start working this week. I already have a store meeting tomorrow and my schedule for the rest of the week. In case you didn't know, I've started working for Cato Fashions. To y'all up north, it's basically like Fashion Bug. Anyway, there is a brand new store opening in our Wal-Mart shopping center in Hillsborough. I think it will be pretty neat. Sure beats Giant Eagle!!! (For y'all down here, that's a grocery store I worked at in PA.) So, life's going to get really busy, now. Here we go...

Birthday Cake...Take 2

John's birthday was on Monday, so I had another chance at a cake. This one turned out a bit better.

In case you didn't know, John graduated from Penn State. This was my first attempt at the logo. It should look like this...

I think he liked it. Oh, and don't bother to count the candles...the kids and I just stuck a bunch on there so he had some to blow out. (He's 32!)

The Cake

O.K. I had to post a pic of Zach's cake. John keeps saying it's a Thomas cake. I guess if you really use your imagination... Yikes!!!! Oh, well. At least Zachy liked it and it tasted good!

Happy Birthday Zach!

Well, our baby boy is 3 years-old today! I can hardly believe it! Here are some pictures of our little guy hope you enjoy!

Kindergarten Update

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything. Kindergarten is going great so far. Manda is learning so much! She has Spanish, PE, and Music twice a week. She also has Art and Library once a week. This picture is of her first homework assignment. She had to decorate the first letter of her name. This past week, her teacher thought she might have had pink eye. So, of course, I had to pick her up at, like, 9:30. She was so upset she had to leave. She was sobbing so hard she could hardly catch her breath! I took her to the doctor, and, of course, it was nothing. You know, I think you should get your money back if you go to the doctor and find nothing wrong! Yeesh! Anyway, she had her first tie-dying experience on Friday. Wish I could have been there. I love to tie-dye! They do this so all the kids of one class have the same color shirts on when they go on a field trip. Pretty cool idea. So, things are going really well.

Week One

We made it through the first week. Praise God!! There's really nothing to report, right now. They're just going over rules in the classroom, manners, and such. Manda's having a good time and looks forward to going back. I'm very thankful for that!

Amanda's 1st Day of School

Before

The day has finally come...and almost gone. What a day it was! I was concerned about Manda getting up at 6:30. To our surprise, she was up at 6:00 and could hardly wait to get going. Her battlecry for the day was "Big school...here I come!!" I kept thinking "Big school...here comes Manda!" She was so excited she could hardly contain herself. I had my moment last night as I laid down to sleep. That's when I usually have "moments". But this morning went well. I think the hardest part was getting Zach out of her classroom without her lunchbox! For some reason, he became very attached to it. But it really wasn't that bad. Although, I really think he missed her today. At one point this afternoon, during his "I'm tired but I refuse to take a nap" period, he kept saying he wanted Manda. He seemed so sad. I'm kinda glad she has the next couple of days off. For those of you who don't know, they stagger the beginning of kindergarten so the teacher only has 6 kids in class each of three days. Then on Thursday, all 18 kids will be in class together. I've realized tonight that I'm a lot less ready for this than I thought. It's going to be really, really strange not to have her here during the day. It's enough to make me think of homeschooling! I can't believe how fast my baby girl is growing up. I'm already starting to regret all those times when I took advantage of her ability to entertain herself. I know it's not the end of the world, but it is the end of a chapter, and I'm going to be doing a lot of praying! Speaking of which...I was really bummed yesterday at church, because I wanted to take her to the front of the church during the Invitation time and pray for/with her and maybe have JT pray for her, too. When the time finally came, she threw a fit, and John and I figured it wasn't worth a fight. But, nevertheless, I was very dissapointed. We asked her this morning when it was time to go if we could pray for her. She said yes, and she bowed her head and closed her eyes. I could hear, as John prayed, little noises she was making like she was happy. It's hard to describe, but I knew she was beaming. I prayed a special prayer with her tonight at bedtime as I held her. I was so encouraged when she joined me and prayed in her own words. Today has been a good day...bittersweet...but a good day.

After

One More Step

Well, we took one more step toward Kindergarten today. Amanda had her "Meet and Greet" with her teacher, Ms. Richardson. By the way, that's kind of a hard name for a five year-old to say. Anyway, she's very young and very nice. We've met her once before when we went to visit back in May. I think Amanda was impressed that Ms. Richardson remembered her. I can't believe she starts on Monday! I think she's starting to get "butterflies". She looked like such a little student today walking into that classroom. I know she's going to have fun. I'll try to get some pictures of her room if I can get the chance. Boy, now life REALLY gets interesting. Everyone pray for me! Pray especially that I can make it to school on time!! I think that's was concerns me the most. Hopefully this will make me regain my sense of punctuality!

Back In The Saddle Again

Zach finally got in the pool yesterday! For those of you that don't know, Zachy had a dunking incident in Grandma Dodson's pool back in May. He's been scared ever since. I've been trying to inch him back in since we got our little pool. Yesterday finally worked! He had a blast!!

Some Recent Pics

The above two were taken at the Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC. We rode in a passenger coach called "The Pocahontas". Amanda especially found that amusing!

Ah, if life was always this peaceful!

Welcome To Our Blog!

Hello everyone!
Everyone here in North Carolina is doing well. We're trying a blog for the first time, so bear with us! We thought this would be a great way to share what's going on in our lives, not that it's all that exciting! But, we are looking ahead to Kindergarten, Preschool, and who knows what else, so you never know...things could get interesting! Stay tuned...