Goodbye Kindergarten!

Jessilyn & Mrs. Terebessy
Cheeseball!

So proud!

Jessilyn & one of her besties, Abigail

My big girl is a kindergarten graduate! I cannot believe it...she is growing up so quickly. She has had a great year at Emerson! Her teacher was awesome! Mrs. Terebessy is one of the veteran teachers, and she was absolutely wonderful! For graduation, she made each of the students an individualized diploma with personal pictures from the entire year. She spent about 1 1/2 hr. per diploma-her Memorial Day weekend wasn't so exciting...but that's why we love her...all the special things she does for the kids. Jessilyn really loved school this year. She is Little Miss Social. It seems like she know absolutely everyone in her school-not just the kindergarteners. When I pick her up, go eat lunch with her, or walk through the halls with her, she says HI to everyone she walks by. I love that about her. Her teachers have complemented how well she gets along with the other kids. They have complemented her on being friends with everyone, not just a select group. She excelled academically also. She made it into Project Think and QUEST-the top tier of her grade, in her school and in the entire district, respectively. Her brain moves faster than her hand, perhaps her mouth...so things like handwriting aren't really all that important to her. She writes as fast as possible, to get it onto paper as quickly as she can. That really bothers the perfectionist/control freak in her momma, but we're both working on it. She loves to read, and is quite the little artist! She has enjoyed all the class pets, from frogs, to caterpillars, turtle, rainbow colored chicks, butterflies, preying mantises...the class named the large frog "Taco," because his breath smelled like he'd just eaten a taco! hehehe They also had eggs that hatched...they dyed the eggs while they were in the incubator, and the chicks hatched with dyed feathers! I didn't know you could do that...what you learn in kindergarten, right? Anyway, Jess has had a great year, and we're trusting that her next few years in Leander will be just as great. I love that we have a Father who cares about all those details...I trust she'll be just where she needs to be!

Memorial Day Weekend

Pretty girls (Maddie, Skyler, Jess)

Silly girls!!

Mommas

Kiddos

The guys

Fun in the shower

Reese and Caleb watching a movie

Sky and Les

Some friends of ours have a family cabin in Ruidoso, so our life group families all headed to New Mexico for the weekend. We had such a fun weekend! After a scary drive to Ruidoso, we got to the cabin...it was fan.tas.tic.!!! There was plenty of room for all five families, very secluded so the kids could run around, deer in the back yard, 70 degrees...just perfect.

Friday night, the boys shamefully lost a game of Guesstures, so they got to cook breakfast on Saturday morning...yummy breakfast burritos. We went into town and ate out for lunch on the patio, then walked around downtown for a while. We fed the kids hot dogs for dinner and put them to bed early, then cooked out steaks for the grown-up dinner. We had some great convo, lots of laughs, and made fun memories. We made the guys play Taboo Saturday night.
The boys lost.

Again.

They cooked breakfast.

Again.

Pancakes, sausage, and bacon. Yum.

Sunday, the guys and kids rode four wheelers while the moms and babies went into town. We met up at the horse races. Reese had a little accident on Sunday evening. She and a tree had a smack down. The tree won.

Ouch!

The weekend was so fun. What a blessing to be able to spend one last weekend with our besties.

God has blessed us tremendously with the friendships we've made here in Midland. Great women, great men, great couples, awesome kids to be friends for our girls...

man, are we gonna miss you guys! We love you!

Thanks for a great weekend Branden and Sherry!

Bulldog Baseball

The cutest fans ever!
They love their Daddy!

HeAvY trophy!

Way to go, Dawgs!

Tired little fan!!

We had a great season this year! Randon moved up to be the varsity assistant this year (rather than JV coach), so he got to be with a lot of the same boys again instead of getting a new group. Randon's been really tight with most of these boys, and he really loves them! He's been with many of them for four years now. Baseball is different than football in that you become so much closer with the boys and their families just because of the smaller numbers. The parents of this team have watched my girls grow up (I was pregnant with Reese when we started here!) We lost a heartbreaker series to Burleson. The boys played so well, and it was so fun to watch them!! We sure will miss MHS Baseball!

The baseball picnic was hard this year, saying goodbye. Randon got some great gifts...a scrapbook made by one of the moms, a MHS flag signed by all the boys, and a framed pic of the team. There were lots of tears and hugs...we will miss MHS for sure!!!

This is a poem the head coach, Barry Russell wrote. He reads it to the boys each year, and this year, he had Randon read it. He was really choked up, but he made it...

The Game of Life

I hate to lose you son, you'll be leaving me today.

And chances are we may never meet again along the way.

But before you go, I'd like to leave you with just a thought or two,

About the things I've tried to teach you in this short year or two.

I was there when you got that base hit, and acknowledged all the cheers.

I was there when you struck out and tried to hide your tears.

As I watched you climb your little mountains, with your troubles and your strife,

I thought of how much baseball is like the good old game of life.

You'll strike out many times my son, but a winner never quits.

If you'll just keep a level swing, you'll get your share of hits.

You can build your batting average with a winning attitude,

With respect for all your fellow men and never being rude.

Play life by the rules God has laid down, and He'll reward you well.

And someday you'll have a story of success to tell.

Well, we've played our game together, and I do believe we've won.

This world has gained a fine young man, but I hate to lose you, son.

Our Pretty Little Dancer

This year was Jessilyn's first year in dance. She took tap/ballet at an awesome Christian fine arts studio. Three little church friends were in class with her, so as you can imagine, they had some fun! Her recital was May 1. Pops, MiMi, Marlie, and Gran all came down to watch her performance. We had a great weekend.

I never took dance, so the whole recital thing was very new to me. Luckily I have a good friend who is a pro at this kind of thing, so she prepped me. She told me I had to curl Jessilyn's hair, buy her makeup, glitter, and flowers for the recital. Good thing for friends like Les!

For me, the day was VERY stressful! We had to be at dress rehearsal at 9:00 in the morning, left there, slammed down some lunch with the fam, went to the hotel to get ready (b/c our house was being shown all afternoon), then ran back for the performance. Let's just say I was definitely ready for a glass of wine at dinner that night!

The day was a completely different story for Little Miss Spotlight!

She loved every. single. minute.

She loved the makeup.

She loved the hair.

She loved the costumes.

She loved the stage, and she especially loved the curtain!

She loved having an audience.

She loved the pictures.

SHE. LOVED. IT. ALL!!!!!

That night as I was tucking her into bed, I asked her what she thought about her first recital. Her response:

" It was perfect! I wanna dance foREveR!!"

...That's what I was afraid of...

In curlers the night before

My little fairy princess at rehearsal (pre-make-up)

Coloring in the dressing room

Tap pictures

Maddie, Skyler, Jessilyn, and Ella Kate

Jess, Maddie, and Ella

During the ballet performance

Tap performance

With her flowers after the recital..all smiles!

Thanksgiving 2009

So I'm a little late, but what's new, right?!? We had a great Thanksgiving this year! We started the festivities with Reese's school feast. She was quite the cutie pie, if I say so myself. Jessilyn had been sick, so she got to skip school and come celebrate with her little sis. Fun sick day, huh! Then we headed up to Amarillo for Thanksgiving. We had lunch at Mom and Dad's and Dad's family came over. This was the first official holiday in the new house, and man was it nice! So much room to cook! The day after Thanksgiving, we went down the the camp to celebrate with Mom's side of the fam. Randon's parents, niece, and nephews came with us. Stacy and Misti were working on their house, so they missed out on a lot of fun. We ate, played games, and hung out in the dining hall. Next to the dining hall, they have a big empty room with hardwood floors, so Uncle Mark brought his DJ stuff, and we had our own dance! It was so much fun. The kids learned the bunny hop, the chicken dance, and the hokey pokey! Too cute. The kids also got to ride on one of the camp horses. It was a beautiful day to spend in the canyon! That weekend there was a big snow in Amarillo. So we stayed until the last possible minute and let the girls play in the snow. They built their first snowmen with Daddy. I was impressed with their skills! Jessilyn made her own snowman in the backyard, too. We had a great week full of family fun and memories!!!

Crazy girls!

MiMi and Reese

My two cutie pies!
Reese and Zachary
Jessilyn and Marlie
Fun cousin times!
What an angel!
Love this one!
Honery!!!
Typical.
Family pic attempt...
Daddy and Jess
Mimi teaching Reese some moves
Shea
Jessilyn's Snowman
Pretty impressive!
Great job, Jessilyn!
Working hard