Full Swing

What a week!

After Big Daddy's birthday party, things didn't slow down. Tuesday, Grandma and Grandpa Owens were still in town, so ML stayed home from school to play with them. Then we checked JR out of school and we all had lunch with Big Daddy and then went home to play with Grandma and Grandpa.

That night, Grandma and Grandpa Owens helped us out tremendously by taking JR to football practice from 5:30 to 7:30, while Big Daddy went to coach ML's soccer practice from 5:15 to 6:00 and I got everything ready for our Young Adult Bible Study that happens at our house on Tuesdays from 6:30 - 8:30. Whew! It was quite an evening. Lots of moving parts, but 2 extra set of hands certainly helped!

Wednesday we got up really early to take Grandma and Grandpa Owens to the airport. But after a late night and an early morning, we were all dragging. I think this pic of ML Wednesday afternoon sums it up best:

(And yes, I've just noticed that there are no less than 4 different types of polka dot fabric in this picture. I think I might need a support group for this problem!)

I got my second wind though, because that night was super exciting, as Pam Tebow came to speak at our church at a women's event called "Girls Night Out." There was an awesome dessert bar.

The ladies who worked on this event deserve a ton of praise, including my sweet BFF. Everything was effortless, even though there was a lot of work that went into it!

Pam herself was AMAZING. I really can NOT say enough good things about this woman. She just exudes the Holy Spirit. She talked about hope and let me tell you, as a wife and mother, and child of God, it was just so refreshing. I have never left an event feeling so at peace (and isn't that what we're all striving for??? Peace??? Well, you know, except for me - I mean anyone reading this knows me already and you know I've already got it all together. Right? Right? :-)

I didn't have the courage to take a picture of Pam speaking, (plus I was mostly mesmerized by her the entire time she spoke!) but I did snap one of Nicole singing! Nicole is just amazing, has just started attending that Tuesday night Young Adult Bible Study and she just got word that she has been accepted into Hillsong University in Australia!!!! WoooHooo!!! Nicole will be the third student from our church to study at Hillsong - we are going to be sooooo blessed when these students return and share their talents with us! (Hint, hint, hint. LOL)

On Friday, I finally purchased a dining room table! I am so excited! I have been looking for one for over 5 years. I've never found exactly what I was looking for at a price I was willing to pay, but I finally found one that I liked enough and the price was right, so I jumped on it! It's by a local lady who buys, refurbishes/ paints and then resells furniture. I'm smitten.

I drove out to Big Daddy's new subdivision to take pictures for his FB page:

We also had spend the night company, which was a ton of fun for the kiddos!

Saturday was non stop. First we had ballet, then a birthday party, then another birthday party, plus a trip to the Botanical Gardens.

ML had such a great time skating at her friend Katie's Birthday party! ML has known Katie since they were in the nursery together in preschool.

And speaking of preschool, I was excited to attend the second birthday party because the birthday boy was one of ML's classmates at her 'new' school. ML misses her friends from her old preschool terribly and is always asking for a play date. The only problem is, she is out of school at 12:20, but her friends aren't out until 2:30 or later. And we have to pick up JR at 3:00 and it is non stop every night trying to do homework, feed the kids something, and get to practices on time. So no play dates yet this school year for poor ML. :-(

Luckily, I was able to meet some really nice moms at the birthday party, and I think we will have a play date in the very near future!

Sunday, I worked on getting sponsors for the CARE Center 5K,

did bags of blessings with my small group girls (who are now in 8th grade! I can't believe it!) How sweet is this picture of (three) small groups praying over the Bags of Blessings they assembled?

Bags of blessings are bags of food sent home with at risk children every weekend to be sure that kids have food, even on the weekend when they aren't at school.

JR was a little jealous that his sister had been roller skating the day before without him. He's trying to work his way up to rollerblades, so I took him to the roller rink to practice his skating before practice.

After some MORE (yeesh!) football practice, we headed to Mellow Mushroom to end the weekend with some fun with our other Bible study group!