Last day of Summer

Today is our official last day of summer. We are going to spend it at the Dallas Arboretum with friends and then some last minute errands for school.

We have been glued to the Olympics for the last two days so that will be hard to tear ourselves away from. I LOVE that my kids got to see Boudani and Johnson give all the glory to God after winning a silver medal in diving. They did such a great job at putting God in the spotlight rather than themselves and it made me cringe a little less at their very small swim suits.

We have also been spending a lot of time with some of my high school students. I LOVE when the kids start coming back to school and then when they want to come to my house...they get to see the real deal and they get to see that teachers have lives outside of the classroom and that we too FAIL miserably. What I mean by FAILING is that I learned the most from teachers who showed me that they were real, that they made mistakes and that they didn't have it all together. They were people and I loved them for that. I think as teachers we have to show kids how to not have it all together but how to fail and become better. We need to show them we too are desperate for God and for 2nd, 3rd, 4th chances. I let two students (one a senior, one who just graduated) come over and I NEVER CLEANED A THING. They sat in my dirty kitchen, with crumbs literally encircling them...as my kids literally threw a baseball from one side of the living room to the other before crashing into some artwork...while my other kid spilled 5 different colors of glitter on to the floor and into her brand new bookbag. There was a pile of dishes, including some burnt easy bake oven cookies, 2 huge mounds of laundry on the sofa and all of my lesson plans, curriculum and doTerra papers literally covered the island. It was so awful that it was funny.....but it was so real and I was so glad that we got that time together before school started and before one of them leaves for college tomorrow.

We went to Meet the Teacher on Monday night and my kids were giddy when they saw their friends. Its so sweet to see little girls run and squeal after they haven't seen each other in a whole summer or just 2 weeks (so many summer birthday parties). I also loved that Baby Boy and is bestie, Collins are in the same class again..I was shocked at HOW BIG they both are compared to the other 4 year olds. She was in a cute pink dress and he was "dressed' up, meaning he matched and didn' t have on a cut off shirt and they literally tackled each other and then played together for the next 30 minutes. I LOVE IT. I think their teacher got a glimpse of their activity level too!!!! PRAY FOR HER!!! Ribbit loved her teacher and loved that she has birds all over her room, just like in our home. She wanted to go back and tell her bye multiple times. I have no clue what happened at Goober's orientation...I spent the first 10 minutes gushing with the other moms about how we cannot believe we have 6th graders and then I was given the "you can go now" look and so I did. He owns that campus anyways and he knows to always come back to my room or his dad's office...or go shoot hoops in the high school gym...teachers kids think they run they school :).

Baby Boy went rock climbing with his bud Kason! LOVED IT

This right here was fantastic...grass bed beef, spinach, brussel sprouts with lots of curry and tumeric!!

We got one of those huge melon slicers and not only does it work but it take all the seeds out too!!

Mr. Yard man right here. He took over the lawn maintenance this summer and even got paid for mowing our neighbors yard too!

Waterpark day with the Eberts!

LOVE my new car diffuser from my in-laws. The kids love it too and like to guess what oil I have in!!

Making her own birthday cake, using the same doll mold that my mom and grandma used to make cakes!

Some rock climbing buddy love!

Pretty awesome for a 4 and 5 year old!

Putting on some final touches!

Her 7th birthday cake. She chose to do a mermaid. She looks so big in this picture!!! The cake was so stinking good to..dark chocolate mint!! It was gooey in the middle while made it even better!