Erin and Beau Visit

 Erin and Beau came to visit for a night when Ryan was out of town.  It was so fun!  It worked out that Evan was at camp and Blake went to his Nana's house.  So we got to just hang out and everyone was happy!  We asked Kelli to babysit so we could go to dinner.  We picked Jose's.  It was so fun!

 We said the kids didn't have to go to bed, so they were up watching Mulan when we got home.  Beau didn't want to lay on a sleeping bag, so he was on the couch.  I love these moments!  Kelli is so good with the girls! (and Beau in this case)

 It was so funny the next day when we were letting the kids play....we found them like this!  ha!

 We had to go pick up the big girls at basketball camp, so Whit wanted to do Beau's hair.

We played and talked and had lunch.  Erin had to get Blake and head back to Greenwood.  It was a quick visit, but so fun to just hang out with my BFF!

Last Day....we thought!

 I took this picture hoping it would be the last cast picture....

 She was so funny when they took it off and we had to wait.  She walked with it up in the air.  She rubbed it and told me it still hurt.  I didn't think much of it, just thought it felt funny to have it off.

 Waiting on the doctor after xrays.  She didn't want to lift it or put it down like normal, but had to have this table to lay it on.  She's so funny!

 Then he came in and told us that it wasn't healed and we needed to wear another cast for 2 weeks and then check it.  Praise the Lord he told me they had a waterproof liner she could have and swim in her cast!  Oh.my.gosh!  I wish I had known about that before!  The nurse asked if I knew it was $20.  I said no, but that was fine.  I think I would have paid $120 for it!  Ha! (ok, maybe not, but still)

So we will go back and check it out and pray it's healed.  I went to WalMart and got some kids calcium chews to boost her calcium and hopefully bone growth!

FHS Basketball Camp

 Both big girls got to go to Basketball camp at Fayetteville High School.  They were excited.  Especially Courtney because last summer she wasn't old enough to do many camps.  They were excited and ready to go!  Maybe one day they will be playing in this gym as a Fayetteville Laday Bulldog!

 The last day they had Kiko Hydar come and talk.  He graduated from FHS and played for the Razorbacks.  He's a great example of hard work and dedication.  He was so nice and took a pic with the girls.

They had a great week.  There weren't many girls, so they were in the same group. But it worked out and had a good time.

Brandi Came to See me!!!

My precious friend Brandi Kay and I met 9 years ago when we were both new teachers at a school in Olive Branch, MS.  Her husband Kirk was in seminary there and Ryan was working 2nd shift at Cintas in Memphis.  We got really close super fast.  We have stayed in touch over the years and I got a text from her a couple of weeks ago.  She said she was driving to Branson from TX and was going to be close to me.  So it was a no brainer...she had to come see me!  Kirk is deployed so Brandi, her 3 kids (who happen to be almost the exact same age is our kids and are only off by 6 months) and dog came to stay one night with us.  It was so amazing.  God has blessed this friendship and I'm so thankful for her.  She is such an encourager and precious friend!  I knew I missed her but I can't go 9 more years and not see her sweet face....

 We stayed home and had dinner with the kiddos...that night Whitney was at Mawmaw's house

 Lindsey and Jeremiah

They played really well together!

 Kirklynn and Courtney...2 peas in a pod for sure!  They played American Girl dolls and lots of other things.  They became quick friends!

Whitney and Kristen were funny.  I don't know why we didn't get a pic of them.  Oh well...

Saturday Fun!

 One Sat. morning we watched Landon for a little bit and I took them swimming.  It was so fun!

 While we were swimming Ryan was at home cleaning up the boat so we could take it out that afternoon!  So fun!  Going to the lake has become one of my favorite things about summer!

 Ryan borrowed some trainer skis from a friend at work and we had talked it up and the girls were ready.  Courtney was allllll about it at home and was going to be the first one.  However, that all changed when we were out there! Ha!  L was ready though.  Here she is getting a feel for them and some instruction from Daddy!

 She fell the first time, but literally popped up the 2nd time she tried!  It was awesome.  She liked it!

Then there was time for some tubing!

 

Then with some convincing but not pressure Court skiied!  She did the exact same.  Fell the first time and popped up the 2nd time.  Crazy.  She wasn't the fan Lindsey was but we weren't surprised.  She's our "sally safety" and is so worried about falling or getting hurt it takes the fun out of it for her.  Bless her heart!

I'm sure we will have many many more trips and pics from the lake in the upcoming months!  I'm so thankful for these memories and times we get to spend with our family on the lake!

End of the Year

 I can't believe another year of school is already over.  Wow.  It was such a fun year.  It was a great year for so many reasons.  I'm so thankful these girls love school!

My big girls...soon to be 1st grader and 3rd grader

 On the last day of school Lindsey had her awards program.  Here she is with her BFF Maggie.  They were in first grade together.  It has been another great year together in 2nd grade too!

 God blessed us so much when he put Lindsey in Miss Mitchell's class.  She was such a good balance of fun and serious for Lindsey.  It is sad to leave her class (I may have asked her to loop up several times).  Lindsey loves her and we will always remember what a great year she made it for Lindsey!

 After school I surprised the girls and took them to get their first pedicure.  They were so excited.

We are ready for summer.  The girls have lots going on and it will be fun!  Can't wait!

Courtney's Awards

 Courtney had her Kindergarten awards on Thursday and she got 2 awards.  She got completion of Kindergarten and "Top 100s" in her technology class.  Which I asked her teacher what that was and she said she just scored really high.  Ok!  Go Courtney!

 Mrs. Baltazar got to come back for the last 2 weeks of school.  She was so great for Courtney.  So sweet and yet very organized and firm.  What a great start to Courtney's school career!

Mrs. Seagers was the aide in Courtney's room.  She was so sweet to Courtney and really encouraged her in doing her best.  She helped her a lot with writing and making it her best.  Courtney will miss her so much!

 

Brady adores Courtney.  Courtney likes playing with him, but you can see his little hand on her shoulder.  I love it.  So innocent and sweet.  They have become good buddies.

 Whitney got to come to the awards and wanted to be in a pic since Courtney was taking pics with everyone!

 Bentley and Courtney and Lilly.  Bent and Court became quick BFFs.  They had lots of playdates and really had a good year.  Courtney sees Lilly at church some and is another sweet friend!

 Havannah (Bentley's sister) and Whitney have become quick buds since they get to see eachother fairly often!  They are so sweet!

 I can't get this pic to look right, it's all stretched out, but since I'm not in pics very often I wanted to put it on here.  I'm such a proud mama!

 After school we had this pool party planned with some friends.  It was cloudy and so cold!  However it didn't seem to slow the kids down.  At one point, these silly girls were the only ones in the pool.

Way to go Courtney!  We are proud of you and your hard work in Kindergarten!

Field Day/Variety Show

 During the last week of school, the girls had "field day" on Wednesday.  It wasn't like the field day we used to have with 100 yard dash and tug of war, but more just like a carnival and they could walk around and play games as they pleased.  They each had a "theme" to dress up as and a color to wear.  

Lindsey was supposed to wear purple and dress like a cowboy or indian....simple, but it worked!

Courtney's team was supposed to wear red and camo to be "army rangers" (Mrs. Baltazar's husband is in the army, so I'm guessing that's where the idea came from).  Thankfully we had a red Razorback shirt and Kelli had a camo hat that happened to have a Razorback on it.  Court looked pretty darn cute!

 Some of the teachers were in the dunk tank.  This is Miss Mitchell.  Lindsey is waiting in line to have a chance to dunk her.  By the time Lindsey got up there it was Mrs. Houston (the assistant principal) and Lindsey tried hard, but didn't get her down.

I checked the girls out of school to go to lunch.  That wasn't the plan, but they were kind of bored and the only thing they had left that day was the variety show after lunch.  So we went to lunch.  But Whitney had been complaining of her tummy hurting and just not being herself.  So I stopped by the school nurse to ask her thoughts about it when she hadn't been sick really.  She mentioned UTI.  So I called the dr. when we left school and they could see her right then.  So bless the big girls' hearts we had to go to the dr. for Whitney when we were supposed to be going to lunch.  Long story short, she had strep.  By the afternoon she was pretty miserable and running fever.  We went to lunch and back to school for the variety show.  Lindsey's class was toward the beginning of the program.  However, before they even started Whitney was complaining of not feeling good.  It was all I could do to keep her calm enough to watch Lindsey.  I missed Courtney's performance and I hate that....but what's a mom to do?  I sure didn't want Whitney to get sick there at school.  So we had to leave.

Watts Happening 2013

 Memorial Day weekend we headed down to Camden for the annual Watts Happening Family Reunion.  I believe this is our 28th year.  I'm 34.  So that means that I was Courtney's age when we first started going.  That is crazy to think about!  Anyway...here is the swimming hole that looks awful and if I hadn't grown up swimming in it would NEVER let my kids near the water.  But...what do you do?  We all survived, right?!

Such a fun cousin time!

 A few years ago we did a water balloon toss and Lindsey and Evan wanted to be sure we did this again.  So we did...but other than that we didn't have any organized games, just fun hanging out together!

 My girls LOVED Ellie Claire!  Here mom is "big Whitney" as she's fondly referred to at our house since we have "little Whitney." Ha! 

  

 Sweet sweet pic of Whitney and Wyatt!

 It's always fun to ride with the hatch open or help drive at Mustin...just like we used to do!

Courtney, Lindsey, Brooke and Whitney (all the girls Cousins on the Smith side)

 Lindsey was such a good helper.  She loves doing things like this and is at that age where she is really so much help!  I'm so thankful for her sweet spirit.  I think she literally got everyone's drinks!

 Katherine and I had come up with some Minute to Win It games for our Sat. night entertainment!

 This was probably the funniest one.  Mom and Aunt Janet trying to keep 3 balloons each up in the air for 1 min.  They got several tries, and were never successful.  Little did we know the entertainment value this would bring.  It was great!

 Then we did the cup stacking...the Scogin girls had been practicing.  Courtney won this round!

Another funny one was Evan and Lindsey having to jump/shake ping pong balls out of a Kleenex box that was belted on them!

One of the games we played was stacking blocks, so we modified it for the littles.  Whitney, Elliott and Wyatt loved this!  So cute!

 Our last game was hilarious to watch...it was the Elephant game.  A baseball inside pantyhose and put it on your head.  Jordan and Jana were good sports and did a great job!

 Leslie was trying to teach Courtney a trick with a rubber band on her fingers.  They were cracking up at each other!

 The next morning there was some fishing going on...but nothing big was caught!

 Then we headed over to the other cabin to practice some songs for church...kind of!

Lindsey, Ellie Claire, Courtney, Wyatt and Whitney

Sunday morning we have always had some kind of "church" and Susan had a great idea of putting together "Buckets of Love" to send to Moore, OK for the people that lost so much in a tornado there.  We divided into teams and made it a "game"...we might be just a little bit competitive in this family!

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Sweet Susan and Aunt Jo Anne were the ones in charge when all of this started.  Apparently they made awards out of newspaper the first year and this year Susan made a special award.  She called it "Servants Heart Award."  We had no idea she was doing this...but my sweet Lindsey got the award.  I love the look on her face of sweet humility and surprise as Susan said she was giving it to her.  Look at Honey in the background too.  So proud of her granddaughter!

 

I am so proud of her.  She had no idea that Susan was doing this.  She was just being helpful and loving it.  I know God will use her servants heart one day for him!  Such a sweet girl!

Then it was time for our worship leader, Courtney to do her thing.  She was so excited to sing some songs and do the motions.  Uncle David aka Uncle Gadget had his projector and Jordan had internet so we were able to pull up the words on youTube for everyone to sing with us!  We are getting more and more high tech at Mustin every year!

Family picture by the lake before we left!

Honey and Grangrad wanted a pic with all of us, so we tried....Whit was NOT having it...

Evan and Lindsey have become such close friends and Katherine and I are so glad.  They are 2 peas in a pod.  I'm so thankful for their friendship and getting to do so much together as cousins!

We had another successful year at Watts Happening.  The older I get the more I learn to appreciate and love the traditions and values of our family.  Yes it's hot.  Yes it's a long way to drive.  But when it comes down to it, it is all about family and being together.  We are blessed!