A WORLD AWAY!

Saturday we took Mike to the airport, and said our goodbyes. Little Pearl shed lots of tears, which caused this mommy to start crying. Mike was heading to Africa for the next two weeks. After 28 hours of Travel with a lay over in Amsterdam he finally arrived in Nairobi, Kenya. So far he has had lots of great coffee met with some board members and had pizza at a mall. Sounds rough haha. Tuesday morning (which is actually only in a few hours Kenya time) he will be leaving the Capitol City and jumping on a very tiny plane and flying to Northern Kenya. There he will be experiencing life in a whole new way. I am praying for his experience and interactions during this time are both enlightening and help him to continue to grow a heart for Blood Water Mission's mission! Please say a prayer for him to have a safe flight on the puddle jumpers and to be blessed and be a blessing! Pray for me and the girls as well will probably not hear from him until Friday or Saturday since it may be hard to get internet and Pearl is really missing her daddy. Click on this enlightening video of Larachi, a very rural and poor village sharing the need for water and how it affects so many things. I believe he said this is one of the places they will be visiting.

First Day of Kindergarten

Rose had a hard time waking up for school. Her school starts at 7:40 which is early for a little girl who usually doesn't wake up before 8:00.

We snapped a quick picture before we rushed into the car to go.

We love her kindergarten teacher Ms. Carter. She has been teaching for 37 years! At "Back to School Night" she told the parents that she wants us to know that she loves our children and had been praying for them to be in her class this year. what a wonderful thing to hear from a public school teacher.

She had a few "new" outfits for school but they were mostly too hot for starting school in early August in TN. So Rose picked this dress out at one of our favorite consignment stores.

She also picked out her own shoes. They are not exactly what I would have picked for her, however she loves her "Twinkle Toes". I can still remembermy favorite shoes in Elementary school. I had Kangaroos that I kept my lunch money in the zipper pouch and then I remember a pair of Nike's where the "swoosh" was rainbow colored but sort of changed colors when you moved. So cool!
Rose does not have a lot of time to each lunch at school so she shared her leftovers with her little sisters. Now when we pick Rose up from school Violet gets excited when she sees Rose's lunch box and says "cracker-cracker" and Rose always finds something to share with her baby sister.

Violet's 1st Birthday Brunch!

We have been busy and I have not been very good about blogging lately. I am going to try to catch up this week. I'll start with my sweet girl turning one in June!

She enjoyed the singing since we had been singing Happy Birthday to her all week!

Violet's friends-neighbors Silas, Stewart and Anna Rose. (We are blessed to live right next door to great friends.) We ask Violet "Who are your friends?" we say "Silas and..?" she says "Stew-ett".

The birthday girl with Mommy and Daddy!

She loved her party and was in a great mood the whole day!
She is very social and enjoyed all the people.

Her stroller and her babies are her favorite toys.

Originally I wanted to a do a "violet" theme, however she loves ducks so I thought this would be more fun for her. I made the cake just hoping it would look enough like a duck for Violet to recognize it. When she saw it she said "quack-quack"!

I made the "Happy Birthday Violet" banner by just printing out letters in color and gluing them on my scrapbook paper. A good way to use all my cute paper since I have not been scrapbooking in a long time.

The tissue paper ball directions are on Martha Stewart's website. The hardest part is cutting through all of the layers. The delicious blueberry muffins are from my neighbor, Debra. Mike made Lemon Ricotta pancakes with homemade lemon curd. (He used to work for the Sunkist and travel with the "Lemon Lady".) We also had several types of quiche, hashbrown caserole and fresh fruit.

My mom (aka Mim) came to celebrate Violet's special day.

Dear Violet,
You are so precious to our whole family. Even with two girls in the house already daddy and I were so glad to have another baby girl. Every morning and after nap when I get you out of the crib I am just as excited to see you as you are to see me. You are a very smiley and happy baby and like to be around people. You are also very independent and already know what you want. You have the worst temper in the family when you don't get your own way! You love to play with your sister and are starting to say "Sissy" when you talk about them. Pearl loves to kiss you and can really get you laughing but when you are done you let her know . Rose loves to talk to you and teach you new signs and words. You are talking more every day and even impressed your pediatrician at your one year check-up when she asked if you are babbling and I told her you can say words like chocolate and cupcake. You giggled when I asked you to say it for her but a few minutes later when you were ready you said "Chocolate". You also say Cracker, duck, quack-quack, Mama, Mommy, Dadda, Violet, Stewart, six (when we ask you how old you are and when you pretend to count objects), baby, cupcake, fish, and sissy. You can sign all done, more, please, outside, swing, tree, bunny, squirrel, and fish. You love to clap and dance to music and now you try to sing along. You have been taking steps for awhile now but did not really "walk" at your first birthday. Just this week you have started to walk most of the time. You have also been finally sleeping through the night so I am not yet taking your pacifier away for fear of you keeping me up a gain. You drink whole milk from a sippy cup and eat all regular food. You are a little pickier then your sisters but you love all fruits, bananas and watermelon are you favorites. You eats lots of yogurt. You weigh 23 pounds and have the yummiest chubby legs still.
We love you to pieces baby girl and are so glad we are blessed to have you in our family.
Hugs and Kisses,
Mama