A Day of Firsts

Last Tuesday was a day of firsts in our house. It was the first day in a very long time that I set my alarm to rise before the children in the morning for the only reason of getting things started early; it was the first day of JP's orientation week; it was the first day that our first child was going to first grade (tear); and it was the first day that both children would start tennis lessons.

Shelby is so excited to be in first grade!!! It is so cute to see her get up every morning and put on her little uniform and get ready. She has usually favored the hair down look but now that she is in first grade she has changed that up a bit. Now she goes for the pony tail look with a headband to match whatever she is wearing. It is so fun to see how her likes/dislikes change, but sometimes it catches me off guard at how all the sudden without warning something changes and then I try to remember exactly when did that happen. Like the whole hair thing....

Our annual fisrt day of school pictures....




It was just the first day of practice school for JP and he actually has this week off. I think that we are all ready for him to be in school. He misses his little buddies so much and we all are looking forward to a little more rythmn and routine to our days. On his first official day he will be going for a whole day with lunch box and all. He can't wait!

Shelby, is that a yawn I see??? She was so excited about her first day that she really had a very hard time sleeping the night before. I just love her enthusiasm for school. She has been known to exclaim to her friends, "Isn't first grade so fun!! We get to do home work and have spelling tests!!!" Oh, now I know she truly is my child:)



There is this tennis program called Quick Start and they have recently started it in our area. It is a great little program that starts with the basics of hand-eye coordination and foot work. This will be Shelby's 3rd session and JP's first. After much discussion and trying to figure out what activity the children would want to participate in we settled on this and it is the perfect fit for us. Both Shelby and JP had so much fun!! You know when you are sitting there watching your children do something and you can just tell that they are truly, 100% enjoying every aspect of what they are doing? Well, that is what watching them last Tuesday was like. You could just tell that they were 100% enjoying everything that they were doing.

JP and Coach Jackie working on bouncing the ball once and catching it while moving down the court



Shelby and Coach Jackie working on hitting the ball after one bounce

Final Trip

Summer is finally winding down and right now I would say we, in our house, are in the dog days of summer; but before I got into that here is what we have been up to since the middle of July....

On July 10th Pratt left with some men from our church to go do missions work in Ringold, GA. This sweet little town was nearly wiped off the map when the Tornado Outbreak of April 2011 occurred. They had a wonderful trip and accomplished a ton on the little house they were helping rebuild.

Pratt got home on the 13th and then had his inaugural guys golf weekend tournament. While the guys were busy playing golf and watching golf (there was some big tournament on that weekend) myself and some of the other moms loaded up our children and went to the lake house. It was a blast!!! The children had so much fun and the moms enjoyed some qt in the evenings when the children went down.

We had a whole week at home together as a family and then on the 27th I hit the road for my annual girls trip. This year was a lot more subdued than in the past, but it was just perfect. We all got tons of rest and relaxation and came back rejuvenated and ready to get school prep started.

And now on to our final trip....I got home Monday from my girls weekend and then on Friday we packed up the car and made our way down to Boca to visit some dear family friends. Shelby and JP had so much fun visiting with their friends and we all are looking forward to going down again.

The four little ones enjoying an afternoon swimming in the pool. I have to admit, it was soooo nice to have a pool right there in the yard. Cheri and I hung out in the nice cool air conditioning while the kids swam. We had a perfect view of them from the dinning room table.



An afternoon of swimming will definitely wear you out so a little rest time was in order on the most comfortable lazy boy couch in the world.



And now to what brought us to Florida in the first place...Pratt had a sales training conference to go to in Orlando so we turned it into a mini vacay that started with our trip to Boca and ended with Orlando. We had such a great time, but missed Daddy like crazy.

Since Pratt was going to be in a conference all day I decided to be a brave mommy and take the children to Sea World by myself. Yes, there was a little bit of insanity in that decision, but my children are now to the age that once you mention something you have to follow through because they will hold you to it. So, Tuesday morning we got up and made our way to Sea World. Of course, we are talking about Florida in the summer; as soon as I bought our tickets the skies grew dark and the rain started falling:( We looked like a family of cookie monsters walking around in our blue ponchos all day; every time I looked at JP or Shelby I just laughed to myself.



Sea World was great!! We were fortunate enough to catch all the shows before they officially closed the park due to weather. Shelby especially loved watching the shows. She couldn't even stay in her seat she was so enthralled with it all. I just loved it!

The next day we had to check out of the hotel, but Pratt still had a full day of conferences ahead. I had hoped to take the children swimming at least in the morning, but the weather had other plans and it rained again:( So, being as resourceful as I could I decided to take the children to this fabulous mall called Mall of the Millenia. It is a super cool mall and if Pratt and I lived in Orlando we would definitely have to become a credit card free family as I know that we would not be able to control ourselves.



After a quick picture in front of the fountains we continued straight to the escalator. This by far excited Shelby and JP the most so we spent the morning walking from one end of the mall to the other and going up and down the escalators until it was lunch time.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, packed up the car and made our way to Downtown Disney. It was so much fun to go back there and just walk around. It made me super excited for our next family trip to Disney. There is no telling when that will be, but I know that we will have tons of fun.



We finally got home Wednesday night around 9 and I was so glad to know that we are going to be here for a while. I love, love, love traveling with my family. The children always do so well and it is great to have that family time.