Well, it's been awhile since I've posted and lots has been going on. Nannie, Papa, and GeGe came to visit for Laurel's birthday. Nannie and Papa took cupcakes to school and had lunch with Laurel, then picked up Zachary from his school and took him out to lunch. GeGe stayed at homed and played with Tyler and Mommy.

Grandma Sandy, Grandpa Carl, Uncle Michael, Aunt Tammy and Hannah came over to watch Clemson play one day and Grandma gave Laurel a special gift for her birthday, a musicbox that GrandDad had given Nana (the kid's great-grandparents) as a present years ago.

Here is my most recent picture of all three kids. Laurel got a GameBoy for her birthday...can you tell she is excited?

A friend from church is a state police pilot and his wife invited us out to the hanger to see the plane and helicopter. We took our picnic lunch and played in the hanger for a couple hours with several other little boys from church. We had a great time and even got to sit in the plane and in the helicopter.

This picture doesn't really do the situation justice...Chuck and Zachary play football in the kitchen all the time and now Tyler has gotten into the game. He gets in front of whoever is playing "center" and puts his hand on the floor just like a defensive guy and then chases them around. It is a riot!!!

Chuck and Zachary met PawPaw and Grandma Colleen in Charlotte for a Panthers football game. They had a blast and Zachary has become quite the football fan!

Go Clemson

Zachary and Chuck and Chuck's friend Tom went to the clemson game at Death Valley this weekend. This was Zachary's first time at the Clemson Stadium. They had a great time and Clemson pounded UNC so that made the game even better for my boys! Sorry 'bout your Tarheels, Tom!! They had seats at the 50 yard line in the upper deck...Thank you PawPaw!!

While they were in clemson, Laurel, Tyler and I went to visit my grandparents, Granddaddy and GrandBetty Ausband in North Carolina. Becasue Chuck had the camera, I couldn't take any pictures, but we had a very nice time visiting! We went to see the house they lived in while I was growing up and the cottage that my Uncle Frank now owns overlooking the pond, and then we played at the park. Thanks for having us, GB and GD!!!

Laurel makes the news...

This summer the library had a reading program and in August they had a celebration for all the people who completed reading logs. We went to the party and a photographer from the little news flyer in our town was there. It was fun to see this picture in the paper of Laurel and two new friends we got to know from going to the library (and now also from church) this summer. Laurel is on the right.

School Update

Just wanted to update those of you that have been praying for Laurel and her school situation...She is doing MUCH better. Monday she had no school which was a big bonus for her, Tuesday I gave her a task to find out some interesting facts about one new classmate and her report to me at the end of the day was encouraging. She reported "only crying 10 minutes, Mom!" after telling me all about a new friend. On Wednesday the report of "I only cried 5 minutes, today!" Was even more encouraging. By Thurday we were down to 30 seconds, and Friday I am happy to report that she "only had 1 tear all day". Thank you for your prayers for her. It has been an encouragement to her to know that people have been praying and that your prayers are being answered! Please continue to pray for her because I'm sure that the start of a new week will once again bring challenges.

Happy Birthday, Tyler!

We recently celebrated Tyler's first birthday with family. I can't believe my baby is one already. This is our last little baby so I'm trying to really enjoy each of his milestones since I know we will never have a 1st birthday party in this house again! Kinda sad, but kinda exciting too! He has been taking some steps with help since we went to the beach, but on his birthday, he actually let go and chose walking as his mode of transportation.

He loved eating his cake made by...

Brother and Sister Decorating, Inc.

The finished product...those of you that know me well know that I love to decorate birthday cakes for my kids (someday maybe I'll post pictures of my favorite cakes...) anyway, this time I was having creative cake decorator's block so I think that my backup decorators did a better job than I could have ever done! What do you think?

ME DAY
Today is Me day. Chuck took the kids to visit Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Carl and to watch the Clemson game. I had asked a month or so ago if I could PLEASE have a break so he arranged this little trip as day gift for me. I have done nothing productive all day except visit my friend and her new baby in the hospital. I downloaded some pictures and thought I would post them and some others while I had a few more hours of uninerrupted time. Thank you Chuck for a little bit of time to do nothing! To hear no whining, to have no agenda, to have to fix no dinner, to change no diapers....

Amy, these pictures are for you in answer to your blog question about the best pet to have. These two new family members have been great pets! Very little work and entertaining when you want them to be. We got "Emma" (the larger of the two) first as we left the beach and decided once we got home that "she" needed a friend so we had mom get "Barnabas" (named by my cousin Kristen) as she was leaving the beach. I thought I killed Emma by giving her a bath in water that may have been a little too hot for her and mom thought she killed Barney when she left him in the hot car probably a little longer than she should have. But all is well they are both still living six weeks later and still entertaining us whenever we have time for them.

SOCCER MOM

As of this morning, I am officially a soccer mom. Chuck is coaching Laurel's team, the Shark's and today was the first game. That is Chuck in the orange hat (showing off his Clemson team spirit) and that is Laurel fixing her shorts and shin guards. She is walking in the background in the second picture. At this age they don't keep score, but according to Laurel, her team scored the most.

First Day Of School

Lots of firsts this past week! Laurel's first day of school was Monday. She is having a very hard time adjusting this year so pray for her if you would. She cries thinking about going to school and cries while she is at school because she wants to come home. Her two best friends are in another class and she says, "I just want to be home with you, Mom!" She does look so cute in her uniform, though!

Zachary's first day of preschool was Tuesday and he LOVES it. He cries because he can't go everyday and pouts around the house on the days he doesn't get to go.
This is exactly opposite of what I thought would happen...I thought my first grader would love school! She has been interested in learning since birth, started reading by age 4 and always wants to learn more! "Give me a math test, mom! Test me, Mom!" and Zachary has never shown too much interest until just recently. I thought for sure he would complain kicking and screaming all the way to school. Just when you think you have them figured out....

BEACH VACATION

We had a great time at the beach despite having to lug half our household items for life with Tyler. Here are a few of my favorite photos. I know that a blog is more for journaling, but I'd rather post pictures!

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For the 1st time in my 30 some years going to this beach, we found Starfish swimming in the water. Laurel was the first to find hers and boy was she excited!

Zachary spent most of his time digging up sand, filling it into his front end loader, then moving it from front end loader to dump truck, then dumping it out. He didn't care too much for the pool, but loved going down on the beach.

Tyler LOVED the sand and the ocean (and the pool, too!) He loved to sit in the sand and then crawl down to the edge of the water. He would go just to the edge and then as the water receded, he would crawl a little farther. After crawling what we knew was too far he would be surprised by a big splash. We were right there to rescue him of course, but it didn't stop him. No sooner had we moved him back out of harms way, he was heading back to the water. And yes, in this picture he is licking his sand covered snot!

This was Tyler's first time at the beach!

My three beach babes.

My Mom and my cousin, Kristen came down and joined us near the end of our stay. They stayed a few more days after we left and we had a great time with them.

Can't figure out how to turn this picture but this is a traditional photo stop on our beach trip.

For the fourth of July we went to Lake Louisa with my family. Laurel played with Lucy and Jesse the whole time.

Tyler will kill me for this picture one day when he is older! He was hanging out on the boat with Laurel's Barbie life vest because we didn't have any others that would fit any better that weren't wet.

We roasted marshmallows and the next door neighbors came over to join us for a treat. Zachary was having a ball with his friend, Will.

In June the kids and I went to Harrisonburg for a week to visit with Nannie, Papa, GeGe, and lots of friends. we went to Vacation Bible School at our old church, Laurel took horseback riding lessons and worked at a Butterfly pavilion with Nannie and GeGe.

We got to spend a lot of time with the Kiracofe's.
Here are Parker, Mycala, Farra, and Zachary.



Laurel with Tony the pony.





Later in the week our great friends, the Bashaws came and stayed with us...Zachary and Jack play like they've been together every day. Laurel and David act like an old married couple!









We got to visit with Laurel's preschool buddy, Madeline Hall and her mom and sister, Danielle.










Tyler playing at the Kiracofe's house

We've had a busy spring so I thought I would share a few pictures from our adventures.

My brother Scott got married back in February so we celebrated over Memorial Day weekend with a reception in Bridgewater, VA for him and his wife, Christy.

Laurel had Field Day for school in May at Peak's View Park.

She graduated from Kindergarten in June.

Tyler is growing so fast!

Laurel and Chuck earned their green belts in May.

It's been a month since I've added anything to this blog...so much for keeping everyone up-to-date with our lives! This is my new favorite picture of the kids! How's that for a little brotherly-sisterly love!

We went to Harrisonburg for Memorial day weekend and Laurel found a snapping turtle while playing at the river with some family friends. She insisted that "Snapper" come home for school show and tell. I agreed as long as he could then find a new home at the pond across the street. Laurel was very sad to see him go!

I should be cleaning right now as I have company arriving in about 2 hours but I just got these pictures back and had to share! We got home from the pool the other day and Zachary stripped down in the laundry room. The next thing I know he was outside in in snow boots in all his glory riding his tractor around the yard!

ok...blog-start take two! I finally got my old computer hooked back up and copied some of the photos so I can try to upload...let's see if I can figure it out!

yeah, I think I've got it!

Zachary loves to play hockey in the basement. He also loves to play swords but somehow I always end up getting "stabbed" in the hand.

This is taken atop "Sharp Top" when Laurel and Daddy went for a hike together

Everyone wants to see pictures of wildman's hair so here is a fairly recent picture of Tyler. His hair is actually starting to lay a little flatter now than it was in this picture which is a little sad. The hair thing has been fun!

Amy...we could call the boys "hair twins"...see amy's blog in the links section to see what I'm talking about!

Well, my first attempt at blogging and...welcome to my world...I can't get my picture to upload! It's for a good reason though and it's just a way God is working on me...improving my patience! My DH gave me a great new computer for my birthday (flat screen is awesome!) and all my images and files have not been transfered to this new computer. Thank you, though, dear for at least hooking up my computer to the net...otherwise I would go crazy not being able to check my email! I'll try to upload pics of the kiddos asap!

I did, however, figure out how to add links so check out a few of my favorites! And no, I don't homeschool, but doesn't my sil have great websites (thehomeschoolmom.com and menus4moms.com)!!!!