Amelia Joy's 1st year

Amelia Joy turned one on Saturday. I can't believe how fast this year has gone.

The Gang's All Here...

Lexie came back to TLC Academy today!!!  That is the very exciting news I was talking about in my last post.  I decided that since I had time, I wouldn't let you wither away in suspense for a few weeks.  We all know I am not very diligent about keeping this blog updated regularly.  You could have been waiting months!  Now you can share our excitement while it is still fresh in our minds and hearts.  It was a surprise for everyone.  The kids didn't know she was coming and she just showed up at school today.  It was so fun to watch.  Bella and Hannah are especially excited to have their best buddy back!!

I really can't believe we have Miles and Lexie back!! I was so sad when they both left but it was clearly God's plan at the time.  I really didn't think I would be so blessed to have them back at TLC but here they are!!  God is so good all of the time.  (In hindsight, it is comical to me that God orchestrated everyone's lives so I could take a year off {sort of} and have a baby!)  I am such a blessed woman to have the opportunity to teach and love these kids every week.  I don't take this amazing privilege lightly and pray for strength, patience, wisdom and kindness to fulfill this calling.  I am unworthy and incapable in many ways but God promises that He is strong when I am weak and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  I am so grateful...

The girls brought me flowers when they came in from recess and told me I am the best teacher ever.  I nearly cried.  They are so sweet.

Amelia was so excited she ripped all of the books and papers off the shelves!  Oh wait...she does that everyday...

The Wedding of Kimberly and Joseph Welch 8-25-12

My baby sister is married!! I am so happy for her and her husband.  Kimmy is such an amazing person.  The beautiful things that make her who she is spill over when you are with her and always make you feel a little more joyful, playful and loved when you've spent just a few minutes with her.  My new brother Joe is also an amazing person.  He has such a huge heart, he's fun to be around and is a man of great character and integrity.  I couldn't have picked a better guy for my baby sis.  I was honored to be Kimberly's Matron of Honor.  It brought me great joy to stand with them as they professed their love and commitment to one another in marriage.  I am so happy for them both.  I can't wait to see what great things God has in store for them.

 Congratulations Kimmy and Joe Welch!!!!!

Obviously, since I was in the wedding, I didn't take any pictures of the actual wedding.  All I can offer you is the wedding from my perspective as the Matron of Honor and busy mother of the junior bridesmaid and ring bearers and cutest and best behaved baby ever (thanks to my amazing husband and his never ending stash of cheerios...)

The wedding rehearsal...

The rehearsal dinner

On the morning of the wedding, Carly, Kimmy's long time friend and amazing hairdresser arrived at my mom's bright and early.  She was doing Bella's hair at 5:45am.  She didn't stop doing hair until 5 minutes before we got in the limo to go to the ceremony.  She did such a beautiful job on all of the lovely bridesmaids hair and, of course, the beautiful bride!!

The reception as at my parent's house under a huge tent.  It was amazingly beautiful when it was all lit up.  So much time and effort went into this day.  It was so special and so much fun.

My mom put so much time and care into making her gardens beautiful for the wedding.  They were simply stunning (but they are every year...)

It was all hustle and bustle at my mom and dad's the morning of the wedding.  1 bride, 7 bridesmaids, 1 junior bridesmaid, and 2 flower girls all getting ready for the big event!  It was so much fun.  Everyone looked so amazing!

Amelia was such a good baby and cute as can be.

Our friend Robbie did Kimberly's bouquets.  She also did mine and Angela's when we got married.  These were so beautiful.  The green bouquets against our orange dresses was stunning!  Kimberly, being the artist that she is, really brought so many details together to make her day so beautiful.

Instead of a wedding cake, Kim and Joe had a beautiful display of wedding pies!!  They all looked so delicious.  They were all made by various friends and family members which made it even more special. 

This day of celebrating didn't end when the sun went down.  After the DJ left, Kimmy's favorite local band The Fear Nuttin' Band, arrived to do a few sets.  Everyone also had fun lighting floating lanterns and sending them off into the night in honor of Kim and Joe.  It was so pretty!

Honestly, I couldn't believe it was over the next morning.  Kimmy and Joe were off to Hawaii for their honeymoon and I was absolutely exhausted (I must be getting old!!!)  We had spent so much time getting ready and anticipating the big day and it went so quickly!!  It was a day of beautiful memories and the beginning of a beautiful future for Kim and Joe.  Congrats again!!!  I love you both so much.

catching up

It's been a long time since I posted last.  We are back to school now and I realized that I need to catch up so I can get back in the habit of posting our homeschool adventures.  So here is a (not so) quick overview of the end of summer and our start to the school year.

Many (most, all) of you have already seen these pictures of Amelia on Facebook but for the few that only see the blog, I had to share them again.  They are just too cute!

My children entered a writing contest at our local library.  They each entered a short story and they all won a prize!  Isaac won 1st place for his age group, Ian won 2nd and Isabella won 2nd for her age group.  I am so proud them!  Here they are with the mayor and the speaker from the award ceremony. 

The biggest event of the summer for our family was the marriage of my baby sister!  She and Joe got married on August 25th.  I have so many beautiful pictures from that amazing weekend and I will be making a separate blog post to share them all.  This was the happy couple the evening before their wedding at the rehearsal. 

This is the beautiful bride on her big day.  Words cannot describe what an amazing day this was.  The pictures will help so stay tuned.

I just have to give a big loud shout of thanks to Grammy Chris and Papa Ken for housing us for the weekend of the wedding.  It was such a crazy, busy weekend and they provided us a home away from home, fed us and helped me with the kids.  Thank you, thank you and thank you again! 

Amelia is getting so big!!  She is ridiculously adorable and (of course) super smart.  She has a little routine in the mornings with her daddy.  She stands at our window and watches him leave for work and waves to him. It is really cute. 

She is also turning into a ham. 

I made grape juice.  I could write a whole post about this.  My mom picked concord grapes with her friend and I got to take them home and make juice and jam.  I love doing things like that.  My great uncle Ted used to make grape juice and I tried to make it like his.  I tried some but it really needs to sit for a month or two at least for a better flavor. 

A few weeks before the first day of school we got some excellent news... Miles is back!!  He moved back and he is back at TLC Academy.  It is amazing how God works and we are just so excited to have him back.  The boys are especially stoked about having their best friend back at school!!!  Our first few days were a little rocky.  School went fine but Amelia was very very cranky and it took some time for her to adjust to our new routine (she didn't like sharing the attention with books and lessons at all).  I had planned to take some great first day of school pictures but in reality, getting the camera out was simply not on the top of the priority list that day.

 

They boys are playing soccer this fall and loving it.  Miles is on their team too.  They are pretty awesome!

We are using a new curriculum this year called Sonlight.  It has a lot of reading time.  I read to the kids everyday.  It is pretty cozy.  Every school should be this comfortable.

Hannah celebrated her 11th birthday last week on our family day at the Big E.  It was such a great day.  I had so much fun with everyone.  Family is such an amazing gift from God. 

The best view of the parade was from Uncle Joe's shoulders.

Hannah's favorite part of the day was this giant turkey leg that she devoured.  I think she is afraid someone is going to try to take it!!

Uncle Joe and Auntie Kimmy took the boys to play some games and helped them win some great prizes. 

So, I really plan to take a lot more school related pictures in the coming weeks.  We have something REALLY exciting happening on Monday.  I can't wait to post about it.  I'm also not the only one taking pictures these days.  The kids periodically get assigned a photography challenge.  It is done individually. They get a "theme" and they can take up to 20 pictures to capture the theme.  Instead of loading up the blog, I am going to post the albums on Facebook and give you a link.  Please "like" your favorite photo and the winning photo for each challenge will get blown up and grace the walls of TLC Academy.  The photo challenges are are part of the kid's Task Jars and it is one of the 100 or so tasks that will get pulled form the jar periodically so this won't be the only challenge... 
Click HERE to see Hannah's Fall Photo Challenge Album

Click HERE to see Bella's Fall Photo Challenge Album.

So...stay tuned for the beautiful pictures from Kimmy and Joe's wedding AND for the great surprise coming to TLC...