First Day of School

The first day of the 2014-2015 school year. Wow! those dates used to sound so futuristic!

We will be working on school for two weeks, then, God willing we will be moving to our new house!

 Then school will be about life lessons for a few weeks. 

St. Thomas Aquinas and St Joseph, pray for us!

In which we take a ride on Thomas the Train

Scott and I were able to take Danny to Chattanooga at the beginning of the month for "A Day out with Thomas". It was an amazingly fun day. The day is a fund raiser for the Tennessee Valley Railroad Authority, and very well done. It included a Thomas "village" with a bouncy house, putt-putt, petting zoo, meet Sir Topham Hat, Thomas videos and storytime, tent with mechanical and wooden Thomas tables, entertainment tent, stickers and coloring pages galore. The cream was actually getting to ride on a train pulled by Thomas. As you can imagine, Danny had a fabulous time. We arrives at noon and didn't leave until 5pm.

Some highlights...

Choosing a seat

Here we go...

Waving good-bye to Daddy

"This is awesome!"

When he woke up the next morning he said, "Remember when we got to ride on Thomas? That was the BEST day EVER!"

We had him all to ourselves for the day. What a great memory!

70th Birthday Bash:: One of my favorite things

My mom turned 70 last month in in February. (see how long it takes me to blog..sheesh) 

We had a "My Favorite Things" themed party for her. A few pictures from the day ...

Raindrops on Roses

Whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

(well, the kettles are on another part of the tree)

Silver white winters that melt into springs. These are a few of my favorite things....

Here are some others...

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

brown paper packages tied up with strings

crisp apple strudel 

(okay, maybe it was extra-crisp)

A few of her favorite things

schnitzel with noodles:)

The grandkids all sang the infamous song, then added a verse that Scott wrote specifically for Mom.

We composed a book for her, "These are a few of our Favorite Things about You."

She cried.

I'm not really that creative. I got most of the ideas from the wonderful Miss Jessica @ Shower of Roses. The tree was my dear friend, Rachel's idea.

It was a fantastic day, and my sisses and I had a great time putting the whole thing together.

Happy Birthday, Mama!

***so many of these ideas came from the wonderful Miss Jessica, of Shower of Roses blogging fame:) Check out her blog for many, many party ideas. You'll thank me later;)

Betcha thought I was done...

I'm still here. It's just that I have been out roundin' up the cattle haven't been able to find a good grove lately. Time, what to blog about, etc. I really want to keep blogging so I guess I'll just have to make more of an effort and be intentional about it.

Here's a few pictures of what we've been doing...

 

 

We took Rachel and her dear friend, Amandarae ("Amanda-Ray") horseback riding in the Smoky Mountains last Sunday. It was a birthday present that we had been waiting until warmer weather to take advantage of. Boy-howdy did the weather cooperate. It was seventy degrees and beautiful. It was a fantastic day with two darling teenagers. Seriously, we had so much fun with these girls! I'm talkin' country music all day long, lookin' for cowboy boots at all the great stores (not buyin', jest lookin':). But really, my favorite part of the day was when our trail guide asked Rachel to ride her horse over next to her sister, and she was referring to me! You better believe she got a good tip!

 

Then we went to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. Yum!

 

Super fun day.

Super great memory!

 

(However, I will tell you that my hiney was quite sore on Monday.)

16 - Hobbit style

Rachel wanted to have a Hobbit themed party to celebrate her 16th.

We loved every minute of it!

The decorations and pictures with family and friends:

So happy about the cake.

The food turned our great, as well.

A few more decorations

A hobbit-ish time was had by all.

Happy Birthday to my sweet 16!

**I really need to figure out how to be more creative with my pictures. I'm getting tired of the same old thing. I'll work on it:)