She's in Kindergarten!

Avery, our oldest baby, is officially in kindergarten as of Wednesday, August 19, 2009!! OH MY GOODNESS!! How the heck did this day get here so fast?!? Everyone says that they grow so fast, but fast doesn't quite describe how it flies by.

I wanted to call and check on her all day long like I normally do when she's gone from me this long. I wish that there was a video camera in there so that I could watch her from afar. Mrs. Wright was so great that morning and had them out something to color on right when they got in so they would be busy. You can definitely tell this ain't her first rodeo!

That morning we all hit the ground running. It started at 6:20 when Mother called and woke us up ~ thank goodness! I got dressed, we got the girls out of bed, put the muffins in the oven, bathed the girls, dried Avery's hair, got them dressed, fixed her lunch, ate the muffins and we were out the door. Whew! I'm tired just putting all that down. She had a bit of a melt down while we were putting on the socks. Who knew they would be a size too big and come up over her knee caps? I only got the size that fit her according to her shoe size!! Thankfully I found another pair of socks that would work. She got it together and we were gone. The day was made even more special because all of her grandparents were here to surround her and encourage her with their love. Yes, we are all so very blessed.

Due to the traffic and limited parking, we decided to park a block away. Jeff and I held her hand on each side with her in the middle. She was so very excited and not nervous in the least. As we started walking down her hall my tears started forming. Mrs. Wright had the crayons out and the papers on their desks. So right away, they all got to business. Come to find out, the little girl that sits next to her lives right around the corner from us on our street! Avery barely even noticed that we were there at all. They stood up during the announcements to do the pledge of allegiance and she did so great. *Sigh* I was so very proud of her. Then it was time to leave for the boo hoo breakfast. I can't believe I only had a few tears well up. The breakfast was great because we were able to meet some more parents.

The day did not end there. That night I invited the family over to celebrate the day with us. Avery got to pick the meal. We had Sloppy Joes, sweet potato fries and lemon squares for dessert. We had Jeff's parents, Mother, Tracie, Barney, Jeb, Molly, Gabe, Renee, Izzy and Aunt Debra all over for dinner. Avery was so excited to tell everyone how much fun she had and how much she loved her school. Did I mention that we are blessed??

Needless to say, the day was a success. I just can't believe that this day is already here. I'm so shocked that it got here so quickly. That about wraps up our first day. Jeff and I are so excited to watch her learn and grow throughout this year. That's what helped us from getting so emotional on this day. Just the excitement that we have for her in all this year holds for her.

Us outside the school

Family pic taken by Mother

Avery and her Paps

Grammy and her girls

Mimere and her big girl

Gabe, Renee and a tired Izzy

Proud Mom & Dad

Molly, Tracie, Barney & Jeb

Aves & Aunt Deb

Cute Kendall

Kindergarten Eve

Where to begin this one.....

Where have the years gone?? Avery, my oldest baby, starts kindergarten tomorrow. She is embarking on a new journey in her life. I'm so very excited for her but oh how this hurts my heart. It hurts because time has gone by so quickly. It has been such a blessing to raise her the past 5 1/2 years. She has already taught me so much. She has such a sweet, sweet spirit. She is so very generous. She is so joyous and encouraging. I could go on and on all night. I'm apparently trying to stall this as much as I can. If you notice the time of the post, it's almost midnight. Normally on a week night, I'm in bed by 10:00! I'm not even the least bit sleepy. I've made the muffin mix and put them in the fridge to put in the tins tomorrow morning, I've ironed her jumper, I'm washing a load of whites with her blouses and I made the tuna fish for her sandwich tomorrow. **sigh** The one thing that I can't prepare tonight is how her first day will go. I'm so excited for her. God has given me so many things to show me that this is where He wants her...and I'm so thankful for that. Jeff and I are so excited for her to get home and tell us all about her day. You know us, we're having everyone over tomorrow night for dinner. Avery picked out Sloppy Joes and Lemon Squares for her dinner and dessert. So, I guess there is nothing else left for me to do tonight.....

December 2008, 5 years old

December 2009

What a Rockstar, January 2009

My gorgeous baby, August 2009, 5 1/2

Reunion Weekend

On July 18th, Mom and I left early that morning to drive to Shreveport. I had a couple of reunions to attend, and she had a baby shower to host. First thing on my agenda was to drive by mine and Jeff's first house. We got a house in Broadmoor and absolutely loved it. It was built in 1960. There are several things still there that we changed....the red door, the green (although much lighter) shutters and the trees on the side of the house that are much larger. My goodness how that took me back. That was before we even had kids!! Isn't it funny that after I left I just dropped in a furniture store and ran into my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Byers?! It was such a cute house that we worked so much one. Sigh

135 Bruce Ave., Shreveport, LA

Now onto my first reunion. Both of my reunions this weekend were because of facebook. My first cousin, Tiffany, is a year older than me. We had lost touch over the years...my phone that had her number in it years ago got dropped in water and I couldn't remember her married name. So it had been 9 years since we had seen each other last. We started corresponding on fb and texts a few times. Her oldest daughter, Meghan, was our flower girl when she was like 3 or so. Now she is about to be a FRESHMAN!!! Oh how old I feel. So anyways, we met at a great little sandwich place and had the best time. I don't think we stopped hugging each other in the parking lot for at least a minute...in the July heat!! We seriously talked for over 2 1/2 hours! LOL It was so great seeing her and being with her again. Just like true friends/family, we just picked right up where we left off last time. That meeting was such an answer to prayer for me. :)

Macy, me and Meghan

My gorgeous cousin, Tiffany

Then for the last reunion of the night. I got together with my Phi Mu sorority sisters from Northeast. About 70 of us or so have found each other on fb. Instead of saying over and over, "we need to get together," I decided to pick a weekend. I picked a weekend back in May to make it easier for us to plan around it. There were about 30 of us there! And about 5 of us were from DFW....sad that it took us going to Shreveport to get together. LOL Oh my goodness I had such a great time. It was amazing how fantastic everyone looked. Talk about picking up where we left off. But my goodness most of us were so different...moms, married, etc. It was so much fun seeing everyone. There were more of us from my pledge class than any other. This will definitely be an annual thing that we do for sure. There were so many from Monroe that didn't get to make it because of vacations. But I am so glad that we were able to do it.

This weekend I experienced one of my firsts. I actually lost my voice from talking so much! LOL Seriously, I did! I talked with mom the entire trip over to Shreveport that morning. Then the 2-3 hours with Tiffany. Then there was the 5-6 hours that night with my sisters. Then I had the ride back home with Mom. I couldn't talk the next 3 days!!! I guess there is a first for everything.

Sandy, my pledge mom, and Ashley

Raygan, my last college roommate

Kristin, Sarah & Jennifer Kinnard

Jennifer Roach, my first college roommate

Cammie

Our Hot July 4th

OK, yes I do know that it's been almost 2 months since July 4th, but at least it's better than never!! LOL So on July 4th Jeff's parents asked us to join them for their anniversary night at the last minute. They were celebrating their 40th anniversary at a nice, new hotel in downtown Dallas. Once we secured babysitters with Mom and Leah, we were off. We stayed at The Joule which is one of the few luxury hotels in the world with Starwood hotels. There were good things and bad things about the hotel. The worst thing was the pool. We were all ready to go and relax by the pool first thing ~ which is pretty much the norm for anyone at a hotel in the summer. However, their pool isn't your typical pool. It's on the roof and surrounded by these big futon-type beds ~ which was great. In fact, I felt like I was walking into a pool in Miami...loud music, beds, scantily clad women, etc. But the pool there isn't for the guests at the hotel. It's actually owned by another company and you have to reserve the beds/sitting there. It's a $350 tab minimum to have a bed! Even if we had wanted to do that it wasn't an option since they were all taken. Needless to say we were all pretty disappointed to realize that we weren't getting to relax by the pool. Dad was pretty upset to say the least.

For dinner, we went to Ol' Warsaw. It's a very nice restaurant that we haven't been to in years. In fact, it's the place that Jeff took us for his Sr. Prom. LOL They have a crab-stuffed filet mignon that is absolutely delicious. Let me tell you that I ate every last bite of that steak!!! Oh yes I did and yes it was fantastic!!!

Now I'm saving the best for last. ;) Mom & Dad got a suite and we got a standard room. We all went to our rooms when we first got there. After we got settled, Jeff and I went down the hall to their room. They offered to change rooms with us for that night so that we could have the bigger one if we wanted (since they were planning to stay the entire weekend). I told them absolutely not. We LOVED our room ~ or should I say I? When I walked in the room, my mouth dropped to the floor. I will have a round bed one day. Not only was there a round bed, but the carpet was zebra print and the bed had red leather bed skirt!!! Yes, I did say red leather!! The wall across from our bed was full mirror with a flat screen TV ~ who the heck would want to watch TV?!? ;) It was a very small room...felt like we were in Europe, but very modern. So we had a fabulous time to say the least.

The view from the door of our bed

The wall directly across from the bed

The bathroom vanity...yes, that is a red counter and a red light in the sink!!

The shower...if you couldn't tell

Our robes that matched the carpet and room

Good-Bye Mammaw and Pappaw

Jeff's grandmother on his mom's side, Mammaw Small, has been in the nursing home for a few years now. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1981. The last year has been rough for her in that she could barely even get out of bed and talk above a whisper. It was very hard to watch her go through that. She buried her husband back in the summer of 1993. So I know that she was so ready to go and meet him again in heaven but her little body just wouldn't quit. She finally went to be home with the Lord on July 24 at the age of 80. So we packed up and drove down to Many, La on the 26th and got there just in time for the end of the viewing. It was so great to see all of the family. It's so sad that it is so hard for all of us to get together at the same time! Her service was on Monday morning. Jeff was a pall-bearer and the girls did really well.

Then 2 1/2 weeks later we get the call that Pappaw Troha died on the morning of August 9. He was so ready to go...we know because he told us several times. He buried Mammaw in March of 1995 ~ less than two years after Pappaw Small. So back we went to Many for the second funeral. Jeff had worked Saturday night and had to work again Sunday night. I didn't want to wake him up just to tell him, so I waited until he woke up. We left on Monday after I was done at the hospital. Again, it was so great that everyone of us was all there together....Dad even flew Rob in from San Francisco. Pappaw started living with Mom and Dad while I was pregnant with Kendall. He so enjoyed the girls coming over so much. He would just laugh and laugh at them. It was fun tryig to figure out who was having more fun ~ Pappaw or the girls. I am so grateful that we were able to spend so much time with him during his last 3 years. That definitely made saying good-bye so much easier. I was curious how the girls would take his passing since they had spent so much time with him. I didn't keep them out of the viewing ~ I felt like they could decide what they wanted to do. Kendall just wanted to hug and kiss him over and over. She asked if he was sleeping or "night-night" so I told her yes he was. She leaned over and said, "Sweet dreams." It was all I could do to keep it together (and still is as I'm typing this now). I'm not one that has ever wanted to look at anyone in a casket. I don't know if it's because I don't want my last visual memory to be of them dead in a casket or what, but I think that Avery is the same way.

I will say that this was a huge learning experience for me that I didn't expect to get. There are 2 things that I learned from this. First, I learned that I need to let someone go if they are ready to go. By that I mean no feeding tubes or whatever I can do to sustain their lives anymore than what they want. I have never thought about this before really. This isn't easy to do but I think it's what is right. In other words, if Mom just starts deteriorating later in life, I'm not going to do everything I can to keep her alive just so she won't die. If her body starts shutting down, I'm going to let it do that if that's what she wants (but I will do what I can to keep her comfortable and out of pain). If she wants to live on machines then I'll let her do that ~ either way it's her choice to make. I pray that I don't have to make that decision, but I'm much more prepared to do that now if it does come to that.

The second thing that I learned is that I am by no means ready in any shape or form to lose my Mom. I can't even think about it yet. I'm praying that she takes after her Aunt Doris and is able to fix her roof in her 80s. Well, I know that she wouldn't just because she has a bad knee, but that she could if it weren't for that. I can't imagine what I would do without my in-laws either. That might sound funny, but since I've known them since I was 16 they feel more like parents to me than in-laws. I'm so very blessed by that. But I realize now that it's my parents' turn next since all of their parents are gone now. I pray that they live long, high-quality lives.

Thank you, Father, for giving me 2 sets of parents and for me never wondering if I was loved or not. I know that I have been blessed beyond measure with the family and friends that You have surrounded me with and I thank You for that.

Mom, Mammaw Small, Kendall, Jeff & Avery

August 2007

Uncle Joes, Pappaw, Aunt Debra, Uncle Gary & Dad

Pappaw and all of his grandkids (except Jeff since he was working of course)

Taken on his 89th birthday in May 2009

Avery's Big Day

Some of you know this but most of you probably don't. We have been interested in a charter school that is 5 minutes away from our house for the past 2 years. Jeff found out about this school while looking at schools on the internet before he was in CRNA school!! (to us that seems like an eternity ago if it's before he began school) It had these great ratings on the website he was looking at, but so did the neighborhood school that we are zoned for. Then wouldn't you know that a patient of mine had her children there and they loved it. They had previously had their girls in the private, catholic school system and enjoyed it but didn't enjoy the check they paid for it so much.

So, you are probably like Jeff and I were when we first started looking into this. What the heck is a charter school? I remembered Laura Bush bringing them about....at least that's who I think it was. Basically they are public, private schools. Meaning you don't have to pay for the education there and they get more freedom to choose their curriculum. In other words, they don't center their curriculum around the TAKS test!!! Our school is called Arlington Classics Academy. Their vision and mission statement is on their website.

Once you are interested in going to one of these you have to fill out an application. The way that they determine the students that get in is by a lottery. So they had over 200 applicants just for kindergarten alone. See, once you're in you are always in and siblings get in also. So out of the 80 possible seats for kindergarten only 21 of them were available after the siblings got counted in. Yeah, you can see that the odds were stacked against us. But I just kept saying, "Someone has to fill those seats. Why not Avery?" So they did the lottery back in April and we found out that we were #18 on the list. WOO HOO!!! I was ecstatic with that. It's amazing how many people change their minds about this too...not that I'm complaining about it or anything. ;) But they do testing before the child starts to give the parents a good idea what the child is struggling with before they start. They are only on kindergarten-level material for the first 6 weeks and then move onto first grade for the rest of the year. So, you can see that it isn't for everybody. They don't fail the test, like at magnet schools where you take a test and have to make a certain grade to get into the school. They do the testing during the summer so I decided to call and check in every now and then to see if we had moved up the list. In the beginning of July I called and found out that we had moved to 11. They were beginning to test later that week so she told me to call back at the end of the month to see if we moved up more. So last week I called on Thursday and found out that we were #5! Yes, I was jumping up and down and screamed in the lady's ear. Then on Monday I found out we were #2. When I called yesterday morning I found out we moved to #1 and then an hour later they were calling me to let me know that we were in!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD!! The next thing we had to do is get her tested. We asked for anytime yesterday since we were both at home.

Let me preface this with ~ Avery has been so excited to start kindergarten. She has been counting the months down since May. She's been telling everybody how long she has. It's been so great to watch her fervor. So I'm quite elated when I tell her that she has to go to her new school to meet a teacher and have a test. She begins laughing with excitement and then I see her eyes start to change then her demeanor. I physically saw her get overwhelmed and feel anxiety. She started bawling in less than 2 minutes. She was saying that she was shy and scared to meet the teacher, she didn't want us to drop her off and leave her there. Jeff and I were picking our jaws up off the floor. Is this the same child that I was just describing to you?? Again, God is good. Praise the Lord that we got in just in the nick of time so we could do the testing. Otherwise, I think we would have dealt with this and had more trauma the first day of school. So of course we resorted to bribery...a sucker to start off with and frozen yogurt from Pure Bliss at the end if she got it together. Guys, that didn't even stop her crying ~ which is shocking since that is a HUGE treat for us since we rarely eat that. My poor baby.

We asked the teacher if we could just walk back with her. We got a first grade teacher since none of the K teachers were there that day. She showed Avery a K room then her room and was just wonderful. Avery finally settled down and went in the room with the teacher by herself. Jeff and I entertained Kendall who kept going down the hall asking, "This my room?" She has never gone to a different "school" than Avery. After they were done, she asked us to leave the girls in the office while she went over the results with us. Apparently the principal usually does this, but he had a meeting. She said that Avery did great and had no problems. They did numbers, shapes, reading sight words, reading comprehension, letters, counting and a few things more. There wasn't a single concept that didn't have a check beside it to show that she got it. We were so excited with that news...and a little proud too. As we were leaving she told us that she didn't want to go and wanted to start kindergarten then. WOO HOO. We had our daughter back.

So now we're on to buying the uniforms. We start school on the 19th. So it's going to be here quicker than I'm ready for. I know the first day is going to be bad when I started crying in the parking lot of Target as we left from buying her school supplies! Yes, I did. That morning of the first day they have a Boo Hoo/Woo Hoo breakfast for all the new parents at the school where they provide the food ~ and Kleenex for those who need it.