Back to School!

We officially have a 5th grader and 1st grader here at our house now!  Oh, and also a big boy in the 3 year old class at First Friends!  Both girls have had great starts to school and are enjoying their classes so far.  They have been blessed with awesome, fun teachers so I expect they will enjoy their entire year!  They met their teachers, which I think by now they knew them a little already, at open house before school started and then we got some official first day of school pics in too!

I do have to share one story about Kate.  For open house when she was going to meet Mrs. Raines she wanted to take her rubber snake with her.  She already knew Mrs. Raines wasn't a big fan of all the critters Kate loves so much and Kate thought she might scare her by surprising her with her snake.  Mrs. Raines is a good sport and she plays right along with her.  She seems so fun and I know Kate is going to love her!  I hope she won't torture her too much with all her crazy animals.

So excited to have Mrs. Grizzle!!

And Mrs. Raines!!!

Bryce's face kills me in these next pictures.   I'm cracking up just looking at them.  He could not get the concept of open house because he was not at his house he was at church!  When we got there he was ready to play.  I think because it is church he just feels right at home all the time.  Since he has Mrs. Lori this year instead of Sug we wondered how he would do, but so far so good!

Friday was the big day!  The first day of school!  Both girls were excited!  I held it together good until I left the building.  We had taken Kate to her room first and took some pictures then it was Cohen's turn.  She has so many friends in her class and they all had a seat saved for her so she was fine.  I took pics and then left.  It was at that moment that I realized I had just walked her to her class for the last time because this is the last year of elementary school for her.  I had to pick up the pace to get to the car because I just was about to lose it.  Its so hard to believe she is almost finished with elementary school.  

It wasn't until after the weekend had went by that I looked and saw this in Kate's book bag.  She had taken it with her on the first day of school!   Bless Mrs. Raines

sweet girls!

Bryce didn't start until Monday.  He was ready to go to.  There were lots of cars and trucks to be played with!   I barely got a picture of him with Mrs. Lori before he was on the rug playing with his buddies!  He was so glad to be back with Noah and Grayson!  This year Mrs. Lori has 9 boys and 3 girls!  We will definitely be praying for her!  

And after school we still have pool time!

Summer Part 2

Well I always get sad when I see summer coming to an end.  I know here in Georgia its still full on summer with our hot temps but when school goes back I can't help but think about how summer has ended somewhat for us.  Gone are our carefree days and nights, and now the alarms are set daily.  Boo!  Well I did a post on the first half of our summer days and now I'm rewinding a little to recap our last 6 weeks, or at least a little bit that went on in those last weeks.  We did have some vacation time that I already wrote about and there is still a certain adult trip post that is still to come.  Just like the first of our summer, the end was just as fun filled.  We packed as much fun as we could in our summer days and nights.
I think these pictures really were more at the beginning of summer but this does sum up a lot of our summer...in the pool!

Part 2 of our summer included a couple of trips to Lake Lanier!  Its always a fun little day trip and the kids love it.  I feel like the older they get the quicker we can cover it.  The obstacle course still ranks up there as everyone's favorite, even with a cracked tailbone for me this year!!

We made a quick stop in Commerce where these crazies tried out some new shades!

On July 12 our lives here in our little small town were changed for the better, our own Chick-Fil-A opened.  Now we have always had our share of chick-Fil-A but now it is 5 mins down the road!  You can only imagine our excitement!  And of course we went on the day it opened!

One night we were all just eating supper and I just couldn't help but snap a picture of the kids just sitting and talking with each other.  Now they heard the first picture and quickly turned around to give some silly faces but I thought these have the be the best days just soaking up my 3 kids at the ages they are.  I love it!

Kate's summer consisted of catching any creepy, crawly thing she could find of course.  One day when she went to Sug and Pop's house, Pop had this big snail waiting for her!  This was also a night they were staying the night while Kelly and I had a date night.  We had a little fun in Greenville and even checked out the Swamp Rabbit trail.  Such a fun trail to bike on if your ever looking for a fun place to ride and would be very family friendly!

Kate had a fun play date with her best friend Ellie the next day!  These 2 are so cute!  They also built a small fort city in Kate's room and had a blast in it!  We picked Ellie up at the school while her mom was working in her room.  When we got there Kate said, "I can't believe we are at the S word!"  Lol!

Kate brought the snail home so Ellie got to hold him!

What's a summer if you can't put a fishing trip in there!  Bryce was so excited when Suzy caught a fish on her line.  He himself kept saying he was catching worms, with excitement all in his voice no less.  Actually it was the worm on his hook, but if he was excited we were too!

 My birthday falls in July so I have to mention what these 2 sweet girls did for me on my birthday.  It fell on a Saturday.  Savannah had spent the night with Cohen and sometime around 5:30 am I hear all this noise in my kitchen.  I got up and saw Savannah in the kitchen and just asked if they were ok.  Her eyes got really big but she nodded her head yes and me I just went back to bed because I was too sleepy to think straight.  Well around 8:30 they both come to wake me up with a birthday plate full of peach cookies.  They had set their alarm to wake up early and bake cookies all by themselves.  It was so sweet!  Cohen laughed though and told me she didn't have enough oil so she just added more flour?!  I loved their sweet gesture though.  After a cookie we went to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast because again its now 5 mins away.

Later that day we had a cookout with our friends, which is always a great way to spend a birthday!

We had another fun Lake Lanier trip with more friends in July.  This has become a fun, annual trip for us!

I did a little picture work in Clemson and on our way home Angie & I made a stop at Clemson Confectioneries.  The cupcakes were amazing.  They had the neatest flavors.  And you can see Bryce was a big fan too!  Bryce picked out the Shirley Temple cupcake and the Butterfinger.  Delicious!

We had more play date and Chick-Fil-A fun, this time with Bryce's buddy Skyler!

We had some vacation fun and then while Kelly & I were away for a week the kids had a little fun with Sug & Pop.  They took the kids to the mountains to Gatlinburg and through Cherokee.  Bryce is still talking about seeing the Indians and how they played the drums with their feet!  I only have a few pictures from what they sent us but the kids absolutely loved their trip and told us how much fun it was.  I know they made some special memories!  Kate also lost a tooth on the trip.  She told me she didn't even realize it was loose!  I know one thing, she milked losing that tooth because not only did the tooth fairy come that night but she kept the tooth and put it under her pillow again when she went to stay with Suzy.  Again the tooth fairy came!  I think she ended up with about $8 off of that one tooth.  Some little girl is pretty smart I would say!

Once we got back from our trip to St. Lucia it was time to get ready for school.  There was back to school shopping which the kids always look forward to!

Yearly picture in Target:  2 5th graders, a 3rd grader, and a 1st grader!

There was one more week night sleep over for these cuties! They wanted to take some pictures they said "one last time" before they went to different schools.   Cohen is going to miss her BFF Josie at school this year.  Jo is off to middle school!

The day before school started we ended it a little bit like we started it, lunch at Finley's.  This time Bryce didn't decide to use the bathroom facing the main highway!   Savannah & Addison came over that afternoon and the girls made tie-dye shirts.  We had bought a kit back in the summer and then life happened and we didn't get the shirts made until the very last day of summer break.  But...we did do it and better late than never!

SUMMER 2018 was so good to us!  I'm so sad to see it end but so thankful for each moment!