Emma went to Church Camp

= notes in suitcase from me and daddy
=little presents for each of the girls each day
=special surprises hidden in her luggage.

Emma went to church camp :)

Before picture (at drop off)...

11 am this morning (Friday) couldn't come soon enough! Emma has been gone to church camp since Monday. (Mt. Zion Baptist Church Camp, the same one I went to when I was a kid!!) It is the longest she has ever been away from me (2 nights was the longest) and the first time she has ever been away from family longer than 1 night.

Emma and I had a fun time packing her suitcase. After all was packed, Burt and I snuck back in her suitcase and added extra notes of encouragement for her to find throughout her week. Well, I added love notes like Mom's do. Burt added notes of advice ("Don't chase black cats with white stripes." "Don't feed the bears." "Don't get mad at squirrels that throw nuts."...) When I went to pick her up from camp, she had taped all the notes she had accumulated to the wall by her bed. :)

We had 5 girls from our church to go, Baylee, Hailey, Sarah, Emma and Katie. Mrs. Denise also went as the room mom. (There were 2 other girls from different churches in our room too). They all seemed to have a great time.

After picking the girls up from camp, most of the mommies, uh hum.. moms, and girls went to eat lunch at Tamollys. There were several stories told, songs sung and lots of giggling. (Some of the songs were the same songs we learned at camp when we were kids!). When we got home, I expected to hear lots more stories but Emma just wanted to lay around for some reason :). I look forward to hearing more stories in the days to come. We are all glad Emma had a great time but we all missed her bunches and are glad she is back home. She can't wait to go back next year!

After picture (at pick up)...
Definitely enough camp until next year!!!


**The following Sunday the girls got to speak in front of the church about their week and Mrs. Denise had created a neat slideshow. Emma proudly told the congregation about prank night when, "they hung the camp director's bra and panties from the flagpole." Such a proud moment... ha.

These are the days...

Wednesday night, 8:30 pm. We have already been at church for 2 hours and 15 minutes. VBS is next week so I have accomplished a lot tonight and am ready to go home. I run down the kids, always a chore when leaving the church, only to find Ella outside mowing on the tractor with Burt. She couldn't be happier. There aren't many times she gets to just be with her daddy and he is probably her favorite person on the planet. So.... here I am, still at church, swinging on the porch swings, waiting a little longer to go home. And, here comes Eva Grace to help. What is a little while longer.... These are the days, right?

Perfect rainy summer day

I'm curled up on the porch swing with the cat watching the girls play in the rain, which they have been doing for the past hour. Ella just brought me flowers (from the crepe myrtle bush). Life is good.

Trip to Bootheel / Swim Lessons / New Outfits

Summer trip to the Bootheel Checklist

*Looked for snakes in big ditch outside Paragould. Didn't see any this trip.
*Ate at Bill's BBQ in Kennett.
*Looked for melons but none were ready or picked yet.
*All the girls got to drive on the gravel back roads in Senath, Cotton Plant and Hornersville. BURT, we don't text and drive! (He was actually playing with the music, which isn't any better!)



SWIM LESSONS
We did our traditional swim lessons at the YMCA this year! (Except Emma, she did a golf camp instead). Eva Grace did really well. She will be a guppy next summer. Avery and Chloe were in her class, as always. Ella also did really well, she gets to jump up 2 classes for next year. Her teacher described her as "vigorous." ha. She will be a polliwog next summer and was in class this year with Addison, Berkley and Ella Mae.



I made these new shirts for the girls!
I had some fabric that Mama Ruth and I had picked out together. I couldn't bring myself to cut it but it matched Eva Grace's shirt so well. I decided to let Lori make her some shorts out of them. I am so glad I did. The shorts are perfect and Eva Grace was excited to have something so special from Mama Ruth. I will treasure them forever. She also made Ella some cute little capris to match her shirt.

Eva Grace Softball 2011

Fabulous softball year!! We had an awesome coach, a very sweet group of girls, a wonderful group of parents... can't brag enough about this experience! All the girls on the team are the same age and this is a brand new team. Our team name was Genesis... meaning we are starting from the beginning, which we literally did. This was our first year in fastpitch softball.
(team picture top: Paiten, Lawren, Hannah, Alexa, Vidalia, Lexie. Bottom: Laynee, EG, Gracie, Abby, Chloe)

Her favorite position was catcher, although, she also played left center, 2nd base and pitcher.It helped that one of the parents was a professional photographer. He got us lots of great action shots! One of the favorite events of the year was an ice cream social we had with one of our opposing teams, Valley Girls. Lots of our friends played on that team. Here is a picture!
Lucy, Sophie, Gracie Onstead, Hadden, Paiten, Vidalia, Abby Lynn, EG, & Chloe.

4th of July! 5K, Dinner at Barrett's and Fireworks

Another awesome day! We have been trying to run a family race for a while now but things keep falling through. This weekend we finally did it at the Freedom 5K at Craighead Forest. Adam, Andrew, Sarah, Emma and I all ran. I had asked Emma a few weeks ago if she wanted to run it and train with me. She said yes, "I'm going to win it." I tried to do the motherly thing and encourage her but not let her hopes get too high. I really thought it was way out of reach! BUT they had age divisions and she WON her age division (9 and under). Not only did she win but the next kid that finished behind her was 14 minutes later. I am still SO PROUD of her. Her time was 34:24, almost a minute before me, and a great goal to improve on! Thankfully, Aunt Sarah could hang with her speed. I completely underestimated her. Hopefully the first of many times! We had a huge cheering section. Grandma, Burt, Eva Grace and Ella all came to cheer us on. (Eva Grace woke up early to give Emma and I a big hug and tell us, "Good Luck!") :)Burt being Burt! hahahahaha... He said he forgot his ring! (Green Lantern shirt...)

That evening we did our traditional 4th celebration at Nanner and Poppy's. The girls got to shoot off some fireworks. Smoke bombs were their favorite again this year. After dark, we all went to Kohl's parking lot to watch the city firework show. The Brown's rejoined us for that!

Redbird Game, Uncle Andrew and Aunt Sarah here :)

This weekend was awesome. It started with Burt being off 5 days in a row :) Then Uncle Andrew and Aunt Sarah came in for the weekend from Atlanta! Adam cooked a fabulous meal for the whole family, including Greenwoods, Saturday night. Sunday, we had church followed by a Redbird game in Memphis. Burt and the girls stayed home for the game but the Greenwoods and Browns went. Unfortunatly, there was a deadly shooting across the parking lot while we were at the game. Two were killed, including a police officer.

After the game, there was a firework show. Where we were sitting, and the direction of the wind, made it a true fire show! There were pieces of fire falling from the sky landing all around us. A piece landed on Andrew's shorts. I had to get up out of my chair because a big piece fell there, and a piece fell on Martin. It was like a new sport. It was more dangerous to flee though because it was falling everywhere, so we stayed there and played dodge fire with Andrew screaming with laughter like a little girl :)Fun times!!
I had the best jersey in the park, a throw back jersey of Ozzie Smith's! (From Andrew a few years ago!)