Misc

B and his soccer ball spend a lot of time together. They are like BFFFF's. I just had to post this little blooper video :)

Lest he be eternally mortified, here's a little better video. 32 is the most I've ever captured on video for him :)

Because the chillens, they begged. They begged and begged for years on end. We sure don't have room for it in our tiny pathetic excuse for a yard....but, we aim to please :)

This awesome pic of the R Man was taken with my hubby's iPhone. And his phone is ok!
 Cool, huh??!!

B is back to soccer 3 nights a week. I don't understand how he doesn't get tired and be in need of longer breaks. As soon as a training session is over, and he is literally dripping sweat, all he can say is how he can't wait until the season starts! He says he's investing in his college fund:) Gotta admire that determination!

Here he is at goal keeper training.

I texted this to my husband today and got a big grin out of him :)

Summertime rocks. Except for the heat and lack of rain, that is. But the part about having a more laid schedule with time for fun... That part ROCKS!

Kindergarten Grad!

Our baby girl graduated from Kindergarten! Wow! This year has flown by! She has enjoyed school so much and can’t wait for next school year already!

The graduation celebration was so wonderful. Gracie did a great job. She LOVES to be on stage, and it was fun to watch her up there getting in to it and doing her thing.

We are so, so proud of her!

I made a little movie of some of the performance highlights. It’s pretty long—but I know the grandparents and aunts and uncles will get a kick out of it :)

(If the full screen mode isn’t available, just click the youtube button at the bottom of the video and you can watch it on  a bigger screen.)

 

 

 

Here’s Gracie with her sweet teacher and principal looking on.

We just had to snap this picture. Her Daddy and I were laughing and laughing. We even reminded her to watch her manners and that she was wearing a dress up on stage :) She did really good until the very end! :)

Back at school and in the classroom, her teacher gave out the Math and Reading awards.

Congratulations Gracie! We are SOOO proud of you! Great job in Kindergarten!! Can’t believe you are already going to FIRST GRADE!!

He makes a pretty girl

Braden had a part in the end of the year Spanish assembly. The 5th grade spanish students performed a short "play" entitled "Los pantelones de Panteleon". Braden played the part of Panteleon's hermana (sister).

His BFF was Panteleon.

No worries, of course I got a video!

My fav part was when his BFF gave him a little smack upside the head.

Those 2 are adorable together. Like 2 peas in a pod :)

We have TALENT!

Braden and Gracie both participated in the school talent show this year.

Gracie decided a couple months ago that she wanted to sing a solo. We went through several  Broadway songs and finally decided on “Tommorrow” from Annie.

She practiced and practiced and practiced! She was constantly singing her song! I never had to ask her to practice. I was really impressed by her desire to work so hard on it and to do a good job.

She was really nervous a the tryouts. She had a little rash show up on her neck and she was fidgeting and she forgot some of the words to her song.

I snapped this picture outside after school that day so I could have a picture of her in her pretty dress :)

Along with several other people, we were praying and praying for her for the big day. Praise the Lord! She wasn’t nervous AT ALL! And she was on stage in front of the ENTIRE school and all of the visitors too. Wow! I was SO proud!

She has been saying for a couple years now that she wants to be an actress when she grows up. She’d really like to be in plays so that she can sing and dance and act too. She’s getting started on stage early. I believe she can do it! :) I still just can’t believe she got up there and sang a solo at 5 years old. I would’ve NEVER done that as a kid! Although, I couldn’t sing as good as her though. :)

Braden and 3 of his friends, once again, did a song and dance routine. This group of sweet boys has performed together each of the last 3 years.

They all worked so hard getting ready for the talent show. This was their last year, and they wanted to make it really special. The moms worked hard too—coordinating practices with busy families with lots of kids involved isn’t easy! :)

They looked SO handsome! Aww! :)

This was so much fun! The crowd really got into it with them too. It was awesome. I teared up a little bit when they were done because I remembered this was their last elementary talent show performance. What fun memories they’ve made together over the past few years!

Graduate

Our big boy graduated from Elementary School! I can hardly believe it. I can so vividly remember his first day of preschool. His first day of Kindergarten literally seems like it was about 2 years ago.

I cried for several days leading up to his graduation. I can’t really explain why I was so emotional, but I think I was just really nostalgic. And realizing just how fast it really did seem to go by as I looked back on the last several years. I felt some guilt that I didn’t stop to enjoy that time as much as I should have. And there was also just a lot of gratitude. I’m just so thankful for the time I’ve had with him and for the wonderful young man that he has become. I really am so excited for him as he embarks on Middle School and on to the rest of his life. He has such a bright future ahead of him and I can’t wait to see how God uses him.

Here he is walking in to the celebration.

(Side note: the boy HATES to dress up. He always wears tall black socks and was so glad when he realized he could still wear his socks with his khakis. He said that was the last ounce of dignity he had left :) Ha! He is so funny! But, I thought he looked SO handsome. The un-tucked shirt was a compromise :)

Being called out as a member of the Principal’s Leadership Team

Getting the Presidential Award. He got a pin and a letter and certificate signed by President Obama.

Getting his diploma from his teacher. We love her so much!

After the celebration, we went to check out he and his friend’s award winning Science Fair project.

Then we went back to his classroom for the Author’s Tea. There was cake and drinks and the kids each got a chance to read from some of their writings from the year.

I love the poems he chose to read. I will post them here sometime. They are great!

He has the most wonderful friends and they all have so much fun together. Here he is with one- they were chillin’, listening to the other kids’ readings. So thankful God brought  us here to this school!

After the author’s tea, we were treated to a hamburger cook-out. Here’s he and I posing for the camera. He  gets a serious kick out of rarely taking a normal picture for his mom ;)

After we ate, all of the graduates divided into teams and had a fun field day. We hung around for most of the day just enjoying watching him and his buddies play around.

Here’s a couple pics from the games.

Here he is wearing the big clown pants as his teammates threw wet sponges into them.

Another one of the games was Polo. Here he is using his sister’s pink unicorn stick horse and a plastic baseball bat to play beach ball polo. It was so funny. I got such a kick out of those big kids running around with their stick horses! Especially Big B with his pink unicorn. He was mighty proud of it too :)

What a wonderful, memorable day!!

A hot date!

My husband and I had a hot date this week!

We each worked all morning, then met up at the doctor's office around lunchtime.



Then we did all sorts of fun bonding activities, such as sitting next to each other in the waiting room and getting poked with a couple needles a piece.






It was so romantical!

Then, the date ended when we each jumped in our own cars and sped out of the parking lot, heading off to the rest of our busy days.

Oh well. At least we can scratch another adoption update item off our to do list.

If we have to do another medical update for our adoption, I will be angry person! This was #3 and STILL no referral!

Deep breath. Innnnn and outttt.
:)

My Mothers Day

My husband and kids made Mothers Day so special for me!

I got to sleep in, then when I woke up, they started bringing me gifts. And, Jas had my coffee ready for me while he was preparing my breakfast in bed.

Rhett made this for me at school. When you open the jar, there are several strips of paper that he wrote sweet words of affirmation on. He said that when I'm feeling sad or having a bad day, to just pull one out and it'll make me feel better :)
Each of the kids decided what they would write on their slips.

Here is the first one I pulled out :) (having trouble with not being able to rotate my pictures.)

"You is kind. You is smart and you is important."

Not gonna lie. Made me cry :)

They brought me magazines to read while I was lounging in bed.

One by one, they each brought me a card. And flowers too!

And a real plant! I'm going to try real hard to keep it alive!! I also got a fun DVD.

Gracie also made me this all by herself :)

When I opened up her homemade envelope, I found several sticky notes that were stapled together. She wrote sweet things on each one. Here are a few of my favorites.

"I love snuggling with you."

"You are awesome"

"I love you so much"

After a few hours of lounging, we headed to the Naturals game with Jason's parents and Uncle Roger.

After coming home from the game early for the kids to work on reading, projects and talent show practice, the kids wanted to make and serve us dinner.
Of course, being Kennett kids, they had to go all out and get in costume.
Sissy did most of the actual work with me while the boys were giggling and getting in costume.

I got all the food going, with her help, then they finished it off and served us.

Stirring gravy is serious business :)

Crazy kids! We were laughing so hard!!

This kid had a crazy Australian/Scottish accent going on.

We sat outside with relaxing music playing and the kids served us our dinner and also dessert! It was actually quite relaxing and nice to have a few moments alone to enjoy dinner and conversation. And those kids.... They kept coming out to check on us. And entertain us :) I so wish I would've had a camera rolling the entire time. There were 3 or 4 different times that we were laughing so hard we had tears rolling and we couldn't catch our breath! So, so fun! Oh my! Those kids are just awesome!  And Rhett kept apologizing for the shenanigans and giving us suggestions on how we could make our evening have more romance ;)Like bringing us out a cup of sprite with 2 straws in it to share!!Hilarious!!!

What a fun and memorable Mothers Day. I'm so very blessed that those 3 sweet kids call me Mom. Thankful.