Our church celebrates milestone years in the children's ministry. One of those years is for the 3 year old class as they leave the nursery and move to the preschool ministry. Each milestone year is commemorated with a new Bible. Emma was thrilled to receive her new Bible today!

So excited!!!

Trust me, it is no small feat to get this many 3 year olds to stand still!  They did an awesome job!  

She couldn't wait to start reading!  Oh how I pray that she will always be so eager to dive into the word!

We sure do love this little 3 year old!

W and EK were in Sunday school during the presentation, but we snapped some pictures at the house of our 3 after church. 

If we wear our fall clothes, and think pumpkin spiced thoughts, it will help some fall weather makes it's way to us, right?  We are over the mid-high 90's!

What We Are Up To

All of EK's ballerina dreams have finally come true! She was able to audition for a part in her dance studio's production of the Nutcracker and she was cast as an angel. She is beside herself!!!  She will spend every Saturday between now and December in rehearsals and she couldn't be more thrilled!

All is well at school for Miss EK.  She has been nicknamed the "AR Machine" bc of how many points she has earned. The reading teacher in me is beaming with pride!   One of her favorite parts of each week is definitely spirit dress day on Friday when she gets to attend the pep rally. I love that mama sends me pictures of my girl and her friends!

EK has started guitar lessons with daddy. She is LOVING learning to play!

Walker got to spend some special time with Kay Kay and G. He got to call the shots for what they did and fishing was absolutely a must!  He started out with the little fishy but then reeled in his first catfish!  He was super excited!

Walk is begging to take guitar lessons as well.  His hands are not quite ready for formal lessons, but that doesn't stop him from jamming out all the time!

Miss Em is having a ball at preschool. Her best little friend from mother's morning out is actually in my class this year, so Em doesn't get to see her as much as she would like. When they do get together, you can expect to see them holding hands. They are the sweetest!

We went for Em's cleft team appointment last week. This is just an appointment where we sit in a room, and 8 different doctors rotate through to see us. They then meet together and discuss her plan of action. We saw her speech therapist, plastic surgeon, dentist, oral surgeons, and several others. It was determined that her P flat surgery was indeed unsuccessful. This was absolutely not the news we wanted to hear, but we were not surprised to hear it. We were told before surgery that we would be able to tell an immediate change in the way she sounded. We couldn't. She has remained hypernasal. So, where do we go from here?  Well, the team believes that the P flap is actually in place, but it is just not big enough. Her palate was really wide and it is just taking way more surgeries than expected to piece it together. The team is hopeful that they will be able to just inject fat into the flap to beef it up and fill in the rest of the space needed. Great, let's do that!  Here's the catch. They can't know for sure what is happening with the flap until they put a scope through her nose and down her throat....while she's awake....and then she has to talk.....with a camera down her throat. Yeah, that should be fun. Children don't normally cooperate with this test until they are older, so our surgeon wants to wait until she is 4-5. We, along with her speech therapist would like this to happen sooner so that her speech can improve. Our speech therapist believes that she can convince the surgeon to go ahead with the scope after we have seen no improvement with our speech sessions over the next couple of months. All that to say, we are in a holding pattern for now. The prayer would be that she can have the scope done within the next couple of months and then that she cooperate with the test so we can actually get the answers we need to help her. She's a trooper though and doesn't seemed to be bothered by any of this!

We are all enjoying our football weekends at home. Today, we met up for some BWW and more games than we could count. The kids had a blast and are begging to go back next week!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Then I Saw Her Face

It has been 2 years since I received a phone call that changed our family forever. As I think back to that day, it was so wild.  The night before was a match night and we did not get a call. We were bummed but after 7 months of match nights, we were kind of used to the disappointment and would just say "maybe next month."  That is why it truly caught us off guard to get a phone call on a random Tuesday. I was on my way to bible study when my phone rang. I flew to the church and started calling J. Tuesdays are always full of meetings for him, but luckily after 5 phone calls to him and 1 phone call to one of the pastors, he was able to meet me. We sat in the foyer of our church and opened the email we had waited so long to see. We spent quite a while staring at her beautiful face and studying every detail about our adorable baby girl. It was perfect. She was perfect! 2 years ago, we never could have imagined that life with that sweet girl could be so full and we only thought our hearts were bursting with love for her then. The Lord really does write the best stories and we are so very grateful!!!

Happy Birthday, Kay Kay!

Today is a very special day! It's our Kay Kay's birthday!!! We celebrated over the weekend with some yummy Mugshots and GiGi's. The party continued on Saturday with a surprise celebration at our house by the kids. They picked out the decorations, made the cupcakes, and were so excited to jump out and yell "surprise!"

We are so very thankful you were born Kay Kay!!! Thank you for all you do for us! We love you dearly!

Bring on the Tooth Fairy!

The long awaited day finally arrived for Miss EK!  She has watched all of her friends lose countless teeth while all of her pearly whites remained intact. Bless her heart, she got her mama's (and aunts) genes where those teeth just hang around for a sweet forever. I had 5 pulled so they could finally put braces on me in 7th grade. Jo and Haley had even more pulled. It seems as though this will the the road she will be traveling as well. Anyway, EK has had 2 wiggly teeth on the bottom for the last couple of months. We happened to see our dear dentist friend at church last Wednesday night and he said he would gladly help get those little guys out of EK's mouth. With a tiny squirt of his magic princess gel, and a little pull, EK was given the gap in her teeth she so desperately desired! 

Here's the before.....

And the after!!!!

Robert's sweet mama made the kids these precious pillows and EK was beyond thrilled to get to use hers!  Thanks, Mrs Yvonne!!!!

Now the talk has already started about when the top teeth will start getting loose. Not yet, sister!

Randomness

Our August was a wild one but I finally feel like we are getting in to our groove. Here is a little bit of the randomness that keeps our crew busy. 

Haley and I went for a girls night to a painting class. We had the best time and we are so ready to go again. It was so fun to see each unique piece!

EK started back to ballet. It is crazy to me that this is her 5th year of ballet!  Sister girl LOVES to dance!

Our school year is off to a fabulous start. EK adores her teacher and she has the sweetest class. She is not so patiently waiting for the cursive writing lessons to begin. This is apparently a very big deal in 2nd grade!

Walker is loving school as well! He has the best little buddies in his class and he is quite fond of his teacher. Life was made even better when he ran into his teacher from K3 at the football game. We all miss Ms Ashley at the preschool but all my people are counting down the days until she gets to teach them in the 4th grade in a few years!

One of my favorite parts about being in youth ministry for so many years is being able to see our students become amazing adults. Last weekend, we were able to witness J's former intern marry his sweet wife in an incredible, Jesus filled ceremony. It was such a special time!

On our way back to the car from the reception, we happened upon The Biscuit Shop and Michelle was actually outside. She invited us in for a tour and a bottled coke. We had the best time visiting and can't wait to get back to try all her fun fall flavors!

While in the Golden Triangle, our friend Kelly snapped some pictures of Em. Mamaw made this gown for EK to wear at her baby dedication at church and it will soon be passed on to my cousin's baby girl. I love, love, love that we have these special treasures made by Mamaw!

These three...they love each other fiercely.....and they drive each other crazy like it's their job!!!

Well, we tried to help the Bulldogs, but I'm afraid it is going to be a LONG season! EK was in a bit of a funk over our poor performance.  We had to explain that frustration kind of goes along with cheering for the dawgs. Sometimes we win.  Lots of times we lose. Either way, we still love our team. 

I guess that pretty much catches things up on here. Bring on September....and please, please, please bring on some cooler weather!!!!