road trip

>>>>>>>>>>warning: photo overload<<<<<<<<<<

Over Labor Day weekend, we decided that we needed to just get away for awhile and we took a random road trip to Jackson, Mississippi.

We visited the Children's Museum and had a lot of fun!!!

milking cows

working on cars

building houses

logging

it took serious concentration to work this heavy machinery

sailing river boats

fishing for catfish

being sassy

creating mosaics

sliding into a potty

jumping

building

and, playing giant scrabble

After all that fun, we ate dinner at Sal & Mookie's!

We ate yummy pizza.

Then, we had ice cream sundaes for dessert.  The boys split a s'mores sundae!

The girls shared a turtle sundae...mmm!!!

The next day, we just swam a lot!!!

We had the pool all to ourselves, most of the day!

Carter fell asleep on the way to dinner.  I just held him.  I never get to do that anymore.

After dinner, we went to Krispy Kreme for dessert.  We watched them make donuts for a long time.  We ate some too!!!

Before we checked out of the hotel the next morning, we swam a little more.

Road trippin' has become our specialty this summer. 

block party

the kiddos' school had a back to school block party after church one sunday.  they had lots of free food, drinks, bouncy houses, and an awesome water slide!  the kids loaded up on sugar (carter even had a coke...ca-razee!) and played, played, played!!!

august.

august was its typical busy self.

school began way earlier for me than the rest of my family.  at least, i get to teach with these amazing ladies!

i was a bit worried that waking up early might actually kill me.  i'm still a little worried that it will...it's just a long drawn out death.

i didn't even need sunglasses to drive to school.  i did need mountain dew.

carter man was super proud of his new school uniforms!

my ticket to yet another frozen concert.

i'm pretty sure that i've been surviving on mountain dew and this super awesome cheese dip alone.

we held on to summer as long as we could!

i've been using my yearly meal planner and it's been a life saver.

these three.

and this.

um...not your typical first day of school pic.

i found this falling out of one of my kindergarteners shorts.  hilarious!

this girl began gymnastics.  she loves it.  a lot.

he has homework now.  he doesn't love it.  "coloring is not my life."

we are all back at school

we are in the full swing of school around here.  last wednesday, the kiddos had their first day of school.  i was super duper nervous about carter going to school.  he was too.  and so was grace.  and so was john.  

the night before the first day, we read the obligatory first day of school story...the kissing hand.  we had our clothes laid out and backpacks packed.

apparently, grace wasn't satisfied with the kissing hand.  pocahontas gets you ready for school too.

we had our teacher gifts ready too...an apple and some caramels.  mmm!

the next morning, we had our annual "back to school breakfast."

grace was sooo excited to be a first grader!

carter was excited and nervous.  he was up very early...i think he was worried.

after breakfast, they put on their uniforms and brand new school shoes!

the whole family was able to take grace to her class.

she met her amazing teacher, mrs. bock!

first grader, at last!

carter and i said goodbye to grace and daddy and drove over to carter man's school.

he was brave.  he walked right in to his class, hung up his backpack, and found his seat.

he had a pretty good first day with his great teacher, mrs. boone.  he did cry on the playground because he missed his mommy.  so sad, but he's really doing way better than i expected.

we are praying that these kiddos will have a great school year and be kind friends and always do their very best.