The Peach Parents: Circle of Blessing

We had a good DAY of summer...Friday was our first and last day of "summerness" for a while. Monday/Tuesday I have inservice and the kids will go to Cougar Club. Wednesday we will be packing for our Galveston Beach Trip with Friends and Cruise. We leave Thursday and spend TH-Sat with friends at the beach. Sunday, Daddy drives down and we board the cruise ship!! The next Sunday we come back home and wake up to VBS for the next week!!! The next week we start all of our camps and then maybe we can get back to this thing called summer :).

However, our one day of "summariness" was fantastic. We played with the chickens, roller bladed, skateboarded, rode bikes, bought handles for our kitchen cabinets which means we have kitchen cabinets!!!, took naps, went to a graduation dinner and then graduation.

The kids can't stop talking about the cruise and who they think might be their teacher next year!!! They miss their friends but rest assured we have plenty of camps and playdates already mapped out!! We were supposed to have a yard sale this morning but we woke up to thunderstorms (not predicted) and therefore we took the opportunity to use the free chick fil a breakfast cards that a sweet family at our school dropped off for us yesterday. They kids and daddy all got chicken biscuits and the kids played in the playground while it stormed all around us....oh well, we have every thing ready and organized for the next nice Saturday that we are home to have the sale.

Some thigs I want to remember.

Baby Boy calls all black birds "scarecrows"....i think he means crows :).

Ribbit was so sad to leave her teacher and prayed for her on Thursday that "she will like her new kids and have fun with them".

Big Man won the Grace Award for 5th grade and I ugly cried....grace is not my strength and to see God give it in abundance to my child is very humbling and convicting...for his teachers to notice it in him gets the ugly cry.

Well, it happened, we heard this may happen when we were in foster parenting class but it finally happened yesterday....5 years after adopting our first kid I was asked " are you their babysitter". I smiled at the nice cashier and said "No, I am their mom"...she said "ohhhhh", then tried to back out of that awkward situation and said " you just look so young". I am not sure how young I looked in a torn Newsboys shirt from 2001, running shorts, flip flops, unwashed hair and paint all over my body from finishing up painting our kitchen cabinets. I had also asked them all to put down gum at least 3x and reminded Baby Boy about the circle of blessing twice while she was checking us out...not sure how any of that relayed "babysitter" to her brain but it did. I love that Big Man smirked at me when she asked and we had a whole conversation between us with just our eyes ;).

Speaking of circle of blessing, thats my mantra this summer. No yelling, no threats, nada. If they will not obey then they will be reminded that they are outside of Gods circle of blessing and are therefore being disobedient...there are consequences for that and a spanking will soon follow. They respond and should fear being outside of God's circle of blessing much more than mommy and daddy's circle of blessing. Plus, when we are in public all I have to do is hold up a circle with my two hands and its a reminder that the next step will be a physical punishment. This keeps my mood in check and reminds them that their ultimate authority is the Lord. I love that!!....There were 2 circle of blessing talks yesterday...one for both boys and both of them responded well...not immediately but with genuine apologies and acknowledging bad behavior.

Someone earned his yellow belt in karate!!!

Blueberry kefir plus spinach...YUMMY!

Performing at the Retirement Home with 5th grade strings.

Kindergarten Performance

She dressed herself and looked so sweet!

Getting his Grace award!

A very proud momma!!!

Last day of school celebrating at Jump Street with all of our friends. Collins and Baby Boy have been the best of friends all year. Collins has been battling cancer since May of last year and has been given a clean bill of health after a year of chemo....WE LOVE HER!

Our Paleo icc cream. 3 frozen bananas, 1 bag of frozen strawberries, 1 can of full fat coconut milk, 1 tbsp of vanilla. Blend for 1 minute and ITS READY!!!

I was shocked to get nominate for Master Teacher for the 4th year in a row. I work with simply amazing teachers and I know every ounce of good I do in the classroom is because of the Lord. I didn't see it but all of the other teachers said that my kiddos made the sweetest faces when they heard my name called. Big Man said he thought to himself " I am not surprised"...such a sweet compliment from my kiddos.

Practicing our rollerblading.

We will miss everything about PK3, especially our amazing teacher Mrs. Perona...she inspires a LOVE OF LEARNING and has the patience of a saint!

We had a great second year of Kindergarten...can you believe that Ribbit went from reading level 1 to reading level 8 this year? Her teacher, Mrs. Whitten couldn't wait to tell us!!!! Mrs. Whitten gave Ribbit the award of Joy and Creativity for kindergarten and I couldn't agree more!