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!