Tea Party

Tricia wanted to have a tea party at our house. So last Thursday we invited five girls to come for tea. As it turned out only four were able to come becuase she had cousins come in at the last minute and wanted to spend time with them. The other four girls came however and had a wonderful time.

I wanted things to be as fancy as I could make them without spending a bundle. I couldn't find a tea set without paying a lot of money for it so I opted for clear plastic plates which looked like china and some clear plastic cups. We put a white table cloth on the table and set it with candles. We bought some fancy napkins and I made name tags for each place. We had everything set when the girls arrived. Since Tricia doesn't like bread I had to think of some things for her to eat as well as accomodate her guests. I made little pbj sandwiches along with cheezits, cheese cubes, crackers and pickles. The girls thought that was great!! I had to laugh. We would expect fancy cookies and cakes and little tea sandwiches out of fancy meat. They didn't care. It was just the fun of being there.

After we had our refreshments the girls played in the play room while I cleaned up. Then I called them back into the kitchen where we made princess crowns with their names on them. They had fun making the crowns and I had an opportunity to remind them that they are special to their families and they are God's little princesses. They did a great job on their crowns. Each girl had a different idea and it was fun seeing the amazing talents of each child.

I put on some music for them to listen to. Veggie Tales and a c/d I had bought for Tricia when she was little that played nursery rhymes with quite a nice beat. They had fun dancing around in the living room with their crowns on. When I had the craft cleared away I called them back to the table again for ice cream sundaes and cookies. While they enjoyed their treat I read them two stories.

The girls had a wonderful time and Tricia was so happy to have all of her friends come and play with her. We are looking forward to having another party soon. I just have to come up with a fun theme.

None of the pictures are in order but you can see what fun the girls had.

It's HOT!!

We are really having some warm days here. I am not an outdoor kind of person anyway and this heat only makes me want to stay indoors more. We are trying to do the beach thing to stay cool. The girls have a blast swimming. I'm not much of a swimmer myself. It will be nice to see October and November come and hopefully some cooler weather with it.

Not much going on around here. Just lazy summer days. Looking forward to a Tea Party tomorrow. Really excited about July 4th and the middle of summer. Not much else.

Just letting you know that we are still alive and serving Jesus. Hopefully something exciting will come along and I can tell you all about it.

Graduation is finally over!!

WOW!! That's all I know to say to describe the kindergaten class of Hobe Sound Christian Academy. They were awesome. The graduation was fun and the kids put on quite a show with their story of "The Ugly Duckling." The also did the old story of the donkey, dog, rooster, and cat that went to town to sing for their supper. Not only did they do stories but also quoted the 23rd Psalm, sang a song about Daniel, Shadrach and his two brothers and told us all about what they had learned during the school year. If you go here you can watch the whole graduation under the archives. Just click on Live Streaming and it will take you to the archives. You will really enjoy. Here are a few pictures.

My girl

Today was Award Chapel at school. The elementary classes all met to see what awards they would receive. I was really impressed with the students who had excelled in all of their subjects. Then there were a lot of kids who excelled in a particular subject. Tricia didn't think that she was going to get an award. She was so surprised when her teacher, Mrs. Deckard called her name. She went to the front with a great big smile on her face. One thing I did not do was push her in school. By doing so I might have made her not want to study. Math was a challenge for her but even by now, she has done so well with her math and writing her numbers. She did very well in all her subjects.

Tricia's award was for writing. I think I may have mentioned before that in kindergarten they start out writing in cursive. Somewhere along they way they also learn to write in print but cursive is the preferred writing. Tricia has done very well with hers. I was so proud to see her get an award for her handwriting. She deserved it!!

Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is Tricia with her award.
The second one is one of the pages she wrote last week.

I'm looking forward to no more school for a while. The alarm clock can be shut off for now.

Thanks for stopping by. See ya.
~Gale~

Goodness, Graciouse, Me-o-My!!

How the time does fly. We have been so busy here in our little town that I have not been able to blog until now. I have been keeping up with all of you but too busy to type a blog for myself.

School is almost over. Thank God!!! I am so looking forward to sleeping in just a little bit longer in the mornings. Tricia has done so well. Her teacher was commenting to me the other night about her hand writing and how nice she thought Tricia's writing is. HSCA uses the Abeka curriculum and it requires kindergartners to start out writing in cursive. I was so unsure about that. I was also very surprised and excited to see how easy it was for Tricia to grasp the cursive writing. She is doing so well with it. She has excelled in her numbers too. At first we were having some difficulty with numbers and math, but she is now doing really good with them. Reading has completely stunned me. She can read short stories with 4-5 letter words in it. She just sounds out what she doesn't know until she gets the word right. She is a little slow at reading but we have been working on speed the past few weeks and she is doing really well. Now when we drive places she wants to read the signs that she sees. I really don't want her to read all of them :):) but she loves to sound out the words so they make sense. I'm pretty proud of her in case you haven't guessed already.

Katie surprised me about 2 weeks ago by telling me she wanted to go potty. Every few minutes she was taking off her diaper and going to the potty. She wouldn't do anything, just sit there and play. I would get her diaper back on and she would take it back off. This kept going on for a few days so I dug out Tricia's baby panties and we started training. She did pretty good the first day and then the second day she had four accidents in the play room. I decided that maybe what she needed was pull-ups. She could take them on and off like panties and still not be in a diaper. From that moment on she didn't want anything to do with the potty. AARrrggghhh!!!! Now we just take it one day at a time. I take her to the potty and sometimes we have success and sometimes we don't. One day she'll surprise me and start going all of the time.

Buddy is doing great. Tom bought him a jute rope to play with. They are not supposed to be able to tare them up but Buddy did. We got him another nylon type rope with big knots in both ends. He shredded it. Tom went to the flea market the other day and talked to a trainer. He talked Tom into this red thing that has holes on both ends. One about the size of a pencil and the other a little bigger than a fifty cent piece. Tom takes a teaspoon of peanut butter and mixes it with dog food and puts it in the bigger hole. Buddy will lay for hours playing with that and licking his treat out of the hole. This one he can't tare up. (My fingers are crossed)

We still have a busy week ahead of us. Tricia graduates on Friday morning. She is so excited. They will be doing a little program with singing and recitations. It's about the ugly duckling. Guess who is the ugly duckling. She cried...:):) I told her not to cry because the ugly duckling grew up to be a beautiful swan. Her teacher told her the same thing. It didn't help...lol. She was so upset. I'm anxious to see the program. Tricia get's to sing by herself and then has another speaking part with a friend. Hopefully I can get some video of the program to share with you.

Well, I leave you with a couple recent pictures of the girls. Hope you are having a great Spring. God bless.

Meet Buddy

I have dreaded so much every time my husband would go to Craigs list or an animal shelter to start looking for a dog. I think he started way back in February when we were sure we wanted to move to the bigger house. The back yard is fenced in and is a perfect place for a pet and for our girls to play with a dog. I just really dreaded the work that is involved...feeding, exercising, bathing, etc. You get the picture. I did not want the added responsibility to all of the things I already am responsible for.

About 5 weeks ago my husband told me that he had found a dog and he wanted me to go and see it. He said that it was a Black Lab mixed and would be perfect for our girls. The owner was moving and had two dogs. The Lab was the bigger dog and he couldn't take both dogs with him so the Lab had to go.

We drove to PSL to see him. Tom got out and met the owner and dog at the door. When I got out of the truck Buddy was NOT happy to see me. He growled and bared his teeth. I was not really sure what to do because I love dogs and don't usually have any problems with them. He was not warming up to me in the least. I finally went around to the passenger side of the truck to get Katie out when he came bouncing back to me growling. That was the last time he growled. I guess he changed his mind about me and decided I wasn't too bad afterall.

We brought him home and he has adjusted well. The girls love him to death. They can lay on him and lead him all over. They love to go in the back yard and play with him. That is the only reason he is still here. Now I'm too soft to send him away. I sweep the floors every day to keep the dog hair up and believe it or not, there isn't any smell with him.

I guess we will keep him for now. He has become part of the family. Now if I can just keep him out of the trash. ***sigh***

This and That

It has been said that life is running faster than time. I'm beginning to believe it. The older I get the less time I have in the day to do the things I need/want to do. It get's quite frustrating at times. But I digress.

We have been busy. I started praying for some work and now I'm swamped. Thank God, I can do the work while Tricia is in school and I don't have to miss my afternoons with her. I missed a lot of her baby days because of work. I don't want to miss anymore of her growing up.

We are trying our best to find a dog for our girls. You would not believe how much my husband has looked. He has spent all of his spare time hunting for the right dog. Every dog we have decided would be great for the girls has fell through the cracks. It just seems hopeless.

A couple of days ago, my husband found another dog. This one is a black lab mixed. He is one year old and has been neutered. The owner is moving and can't take him with the family. He said the dog is really well behaved and loves his two small children. We were so excited when he called us today and said that the dog was still available. We told him we would come to see it on Monday night. The girls do not know about this dog. We are really excited about this dog and hoping it will work out. One things for sure, you can't go wrong with a Lab. They are so good with kids.

Last night was my husbands company party. They have a couple a year. We debated going but finally decided too. They had a bounce house set up and a horse for the kids to ride. Then sometime later in the evening Kelly's Ice Cream truck came to the party and gave everyone some ice cream. There was a Mexican group there singing and playing their stringed instruments. I enjoyed the music but not the words as I don't speak Spanish. Then the DJ got started. That was interesting to say the least. We didn't stay too long after that because we needed to get to Wally World before heading home for baths. Saturday's are always busy days for us.

Today has been very restful. We had our dinner alone, just the four of us. Most of the time we have someone over on Sundays. Today we just wanted to be by ourselves. Then Tom, Kate and I took a nap. Tricia never naps but she occupies herself with her toys. She got a new Polly Pocket with a swimming pool. She got in the bath tub and played with those for a while then got out and just played. She's pretty good about keeping quiet and entertaining herself.

The pictures at the top are just random ones. I hadn't posted any for a while so thought I would select a few recent ones to share. Hope you are having a great day!! Blessings.
~Gale~