Please Pray for Elizabeth

Please pray for Elizabeth Parsley. She is the sister of a dear friend and also volunteered at Evan's A-Camp. She was in a terrible car accident and the family and doctors are desperately wanting her to wake up on her own. Specific prayer needs are listed here.

http://prayingforliz.blogspot.com/

Thank you!

Woo Pig Sooie

Last night, Derek and I went to the Hogs game in Little Rock. We have tickets to both games they will play here. It's nice they consider two games in Little Rock as "home" games because we wouldn't leave our kidlets to make they trip all the way to Fayetteville to see them. We are now 2-0. It's funny because I don't really understand football. I was on the dance team in high school and cheered in college, but I really don't get it. I mean I understand about touchdowns and first downs and field goals, but anything deeper I just don't care about. Ha! I love the tailgating, calling the Hogs, the people watching, and the half-time show. Other than that, I'm happy being the only one seated during most of the game. Usually, my seat ends up being the one right next to the big guy that has had one too many and is quite loud. Sigh! I was so happy because this time I sat right next to a sweet couple, who like me, sat almost the entire first half. =) They left though, after the little girl behind us spilled her Dr. Pepper down his back. That's the sort of thing that usually happens to ME!

I am so excited Derek and I get to start our new Life Group at church tonight. This is the first one we have gotten to participate in because I have always been worried about child care. We have two new members to our family. Bethany and Katie are two very sweet 20-year-olds that now watch our kidlets when we need to go somewhere. The great thing about both of them is they are great with Evan. He LOVES them (and, of course, so does EG). I look at these two young women, who have their heads on straight and whose priority is serving Christ. They are so much more mature than their years. I wish I could have been more like that at 20! Wow! We are so blessed. It has been so good for Derek and I to get to go on dates on occasion and for Evan and Ella Grace to have someone new to play with them. We came home the other night and what a great feeling that while we were gone, Katie was sharing Bible verses with Ella Grace. Just precious!

Autism Speaks Walk

Derek and I are forming a team for Evan for the upcoming Autism Speaks Walk in Little Rock on October 2nd. I have a special place in my heart for this event because the last one I participated in was in Tennessee hosted by my very sweet blogging friends, Meagan, Megan and Lauren.

If you would like to join our team, go to

http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=335892

Evan's team name is Evan's Voice. You can join our team or donate by supporting a walker. Every donation is making "Evan's Voice" heard that we want to stop autism from reaching another child and family. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

This Kiss, This Kiss

One fun thing about my new job at Ella Grace's Mother's-Day-Out program is that I get to see things I normally wouldn't. Last week during Praise and Worship, my class was sitting directly behind Ella Grace's class. She was sitting by a very cute little 3-year-old boy that we know from last year. I noticed he was looking at EG all dreamy-eyed. He kissed her on the cheek, and then grabbed her hand to hold. I thought it was precious, but when I told Derek about it precious wasn't what came to his mind.. LOL!

We happened to run into this handsome little boy Friday at the park. I think they must have planned it. =)

M-D-O and a J-O-B

Love the pose she chose

Today was Ella Grace's first day back at "school." She goes to Mother's Day Out at our church. It is the most precious little program. She just loves it there. She could hardly wait to get back to see her teachers and friends she has missed (and not forgotten) all summer.

New lunch box and backpack

First backpack had to be returned for not being pink enough

Sweet, precious girl

In her class room. Soooo excited!

I missed her and she was just down the hall. =(

Today was also my first day. I'm teaching the two-year-olds. I think Derek thought I might have lost my mind (ha!), but it was something that just kept coming around and I felt like maybe God was wanting me to give it a try, so here I am. I was already impressed with the program, but I had absolutely no idea what planning went into it. I worked the week before school started, getting my room ready, creating lesson plans (yes, for two-year-olds), and reviewing Bible and academic curriculum. To say it was a busy day was an understatement. The kiddos did great though, especially since most of them have never been away from Momma. Only a few of them cried, and that was at nap time. Their favorite part of the day was Praise and Worship. They LOVE it! I knew that was always Ella Grace's favorite part, too. To see these babies worshiping, singing, doing hand motions to songs, listening to Bible stories is about the most precious thing I have ever seen. Looking forward to more adventure tomorrow. Oh, and I do have a c0-teacher. Praise the Lord! =)

We use this during circle time to go over our memory verse, color, shape, number, letter, and weather for the day.

Such a nice room. Ella Grace was in this room last year. She's checking out the equipment. =)

Weekend

I ran the Run with the Son 5K on Saturday. It was sponsored by a nearby church. It was a lot of fun and I even ran into some old high school and OBU friends!

This is me and my friend, Laura. She is a serious runner. She runs 11 miles on Saturdays. Whaaaat? I am training for my very first half marathon. The farthest we have gone so far is 6 miles and I promise it took me a whole day to recover! My training group is doing 7 this Saturday. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be training for a half marathon, I would have laughed SO hard. I really can't believe I'm doing it. I am not a natural runner (ask my junior high track coach...ha). I just want to at least do one half marathon , and I figure I'm not getting any younger, so here's my chance. We'll see how it goes. =)

The rest of the weekend we swam. I think I might go into serious mourning when we have to close our pool. I'm a summer girl and NOT ready for it to end. I wanted to include a video of Ella Grace. She took four lessons and turned into a little fish. She swims all over the place now. It is so cute and amazing because she looks too small to be doing all of that. I'm so proud of her. She's still working on coming up and getting a breath and doing GREAT! I apologize in advance for my hick sounding voice. Every time I hear it on this video, I want to crawl under a rock. Good grief!

First Day of School

I can't believe I haven't blogged all summer. Well, really I can believe it. There was NO time! We were so busy between camp, therapy sessions, and every day fun. I've missed it tho. I started thinking I needed to get back so I can start documenting our memories. I'm not a scrapbooker. In fact, I'm thinking about selling all the stuff I bought from Creative Memories that is just sitting in the closet. Sigh! Anyway, here is my attempt to get back at it.

I want to create sort of back-to-school tradition. We had my niece and nephew over the weekend before school started for one last swim, and then Wednesday, I took Evan and Ella Grace out for a special back-to-school lunch at Purple Cow. Always a treat to go there. I think I just found my tradition. =)

Me and my BIG school boy

So handsome, so sweet, so precious

Sweet sister, thinks her brother is IT. She told me, "You might miss him," when we dropped him off at school. Somehow, I think she was talking about herself, not me.

Evan had a GREAT first day back at school. I was a bit worried about it because the night before was open house. He cried! I think reality sunk in that summer was over. =( I prayed really hard and clung to Lamentations 3:23 - "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. " I also prayed, prayed, and prayed some more. The next morning, he woke up early. He was SO happy and SO ready for school. He did GREAT and had a very fun day.

I wish there was a way to convey how incredibly PROUD I am of this child!

Evan and one of his teachers, Ms. Myrie. He was so glad to see her (and so was I). I love his new little backpack and lunch box. He wore it around the house the night before. =) About 30 seconds after I took this picture, I bawled my eyes out! It was a weird mixture of being so proud of him and how hard he has worked and sad at how fast time has gone by.

I hope all of your little ones have had a fun and easy transition back to school. Here's to a great year!!!