Whew, What a Week!

In the last week, we have celebrated with Elsie and Mary Grace on their first days of preschool, nursed Elsie through what we were told was likely H1N1, thought we were illness free so celebrated with Jack Roberts on his 3rd birthday, served our church in two separate services on Sunday morning, watched as our wonderful painter transformed our drab kitchen and living/dining/loft into a bright, freshly-painted area, moved countless pieces of furniture to prepare for said painting, and tried to keep our heads above water at work. Oh, and I fit in a hot 8-mile run with Adrienne.
Just when we thought we were back to normal with a typical Monday morning routine, Mrs. Lentz called from Happy Apple to tell me that Mary Grace was running a fever and not feeling well. Here we go again! Stephen picked her up as she was walking back to Miss Julie's with the gang and stayed with her until early afternoon. I then took her to the doctor's office where we waited for almost 2 hours to see her doctor.
Thankfully, she tested negative for flu but the doc thought her throat looked a little red. Armed with prescriptions for an antibiotic, cough medicine, and a steroid, we headed for Publix. While we were waiting for the pharmacist to fill her scripts, Mary Grace threw up. Bless her heart, though, we made it to the bathroom just in time! We got the medicine and came home, where she fell fast asleep on the sofa watching Dora.
She and Elsie have been in bed for an hour. Hopefully, she'll be feeling much better tomorrow.
I have taken pictures of Elsie's first day, our sick days at home on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and Jack's party on Saturday. I'll post those when I get a chance to upload them.
Pray for Mary Grace to get well soon and for this beginning of school sickness to leave our home!

Ps. 116:1-2

"I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live."

This is the Bible verse that popped up on my widget for today. What a wonderful verse!

Mary Grace's First Day of School

Today was Mary Grace's first day of school. She is in the 4-year-old class at our church preschool, Happy Apple Academy. ("Happy Apple" because the children are the apples of God's eye.)
She's in Mrs. Lentz's green apple class. For the first week of school, the kids will be getting acquainted. Today, she learned how to properly set a table. Next week, they will start learning their letters using the Zoophonics program.
The report from the central office was that Mary Grace was leading and directing all of the activities in her classroom today. In particular, she was telling the other children what they would play and deciding what would be for sale in their pretend store. I don't know where she gets that take charge attitude!
Ms. Natalie said that she crashed when she got home to Ms. Julie's house after school at lunch time. She was exhausted from the day and it was only 3 hours!
She'll be back at it tomorrow since she's going 5 days per week. Elsie will join her tomorrow for her first day of preschool. Her classroom is right across the hall from Mary Grace's and is also the same room that she's in for church every Sunday.
What a great day!

Happy Apple Open House

We had a wonderful time at the Happy Apple Open House last night. We saw many, many friends and I'm reminded how blessed we are to live in this special little community. I'm excited for the new school year and are so happy that Mary Grace and Elsie will be in school together. We planned well when we had them so close together! I knew that I wanted them to be in high school for a couple of years together, so that's why we had them within 2 years of each other. I didn't even think about how sweet it would be for them to be in preschool together. So sweet!
It was a very exciting afternoon. When Stephen and I went to Ms. Julie's to pick them up, several of the other parents were there getting their kids all dolled (and hair-bowed!) up to go to the open house, too. It's fun for the girls to have so many friends who will go from daycare to preschool to elementary school together.

Painters are coming tomorrow!

The paint crew is coming tomorrow to paint the den, upstairs, dining room, and kitchen. I'm so excited! There's nothing better than a fresh coat of paint, especially when someone else does it!

Ready for Fall

Can you tell I'm ready for Fall? It's my favorite season but we don't get to enjoy much of it here. It'll be hot until at least mid-October, then it will get more pleasant around the end of October. We don't get changing leaves though, just falling pine needles. Funny, in Douglasville, we paid for pine straw. Now, we'd probably pay to have someone come and haul ours away!

Where Did the Summer Go?

It's been a great summer in the marsh. We've been to the beach and the pool countless times, spent lots of quality time with family and friends, and have enjoyed having nothing to do on the weeknights except stay right at home.
Public school is back in session already, so activities are gearing up. Wednesday night supper at Church is back on.
Mary Grace started Ballet I and Cumberland Dance Conservatory last Monday. We are excited that she is in class with a couple of sweet girls who she already knows and are looking forward to a positive experience this year. She's in class with Kindergardeners but seems to be keeping up with them. She'll start soccer practice on this coming Tuesday. I guess I should say that we all will be starting soccer practice on Tuesday, since Stephen and I are coaching her team. Games start after Labor Day weekend and continue through mid-November. We are looking forward to a fun time with this team of 6 U-6 (under six years) players. One little girl, Jilli, is also in Mary Grace's class at Happy Apple.
Speaking of Happy Apple, we have orientation this Thursday and school starts for Mary Grace on Monday, the 24th. She'll be going 5 mornings per week from 9-noon. She is a green apple and her teacher is Mrs. Lentz, who we know from church. I think Mary Grace will do wonderfully in Mrs. Lentz's class!
Elsie starts at Happy Apple on Tuesday, the 25th. She'll go two days per week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) from 9 to noon. She is a yellow apple and will have two teachers, Mrs. Kolgaklis and Mrs. Galluccio, who was Mary Grace's teacher last year. Elsie already knows several of the kids in her class: Maddie, her BFF; Reece, our friends, the Bakers', son; and Anne and Matthew, who she knows from Ms. Julie's and church. It's a great group of kids!
Other big news on the Elsie front: We're close to declaring victory over diapers! Since Tuesday, she's only worn pullups for naps and overnight. She's pretty consistently going potty both at home and at Ms. Julie's. Yeah, Elsie!
Stephen has been very busy at work and took advantage of being at home by himself all last week while the girls and I were in Raleigh. I think he got caught up on a lot of stuff while we were gone.
I'm getting into the swing of things at the courthouse. I'm on the bench at least four times per week, either doing bond hearings or hearing civil cases. I'm going to start doing bad check bench trials in the Fall. It's turned out to be a great job. Low stress, easy hours for a full-time job, and great benefits. And the Saturday morning bondings don't bother me nearly as much as I thought they would. It's nice to have an afternoon off during the week on those weeks that I have to go in on Saturdays. I'll trade an early hour on a Saturday for 5 hours during the week almost anyday!
I'll be back later to post some pictures from our summer adventures.

Hey, Momo!

This update is just for you!

I'll be back soon with more photos and stories from the summer. It's been so busy lately that I haven't posted in a while. My other excuse is that Nana has a lot of pictures that I need.