What a year!

Charity and her two best friends from church!
Michael and one of his church buddies - who also happened to be in the same class at school and saved him from a fate worse than death - being the only boy at Charity's poodle themed birthday party!
Michael and more friends from church!
(I don't know why I never posted this one. I just realized I had it saved as a draft!)
The kids and I had our last Wednesday night church session last night. Charity has her end of the year program next week but all our other activities are done. I don't know if I've ever mentioned our Wednesday night activities or not. Our church offers all kinds of activities on Wednesday night. They have women's and men's Bible study, choir, the teens have activities and they have "clubs" for the younger kids. Michael and Charity love hanging out with their friends and doing fun stuff. The boys and girls each have their own clubs so they get to do stuff that they especially like. Charity's club has had a pajama party, painted nails, and had all kinds of fun. Mixed in with all this fun is teaching the girls how they are loved by Jesus and teaching them the value of serving. They made cookies for the workers in the nursery, cleaned baby toys and all kinds of other little projects. They had a cookout last night where they got to make smores - girls and chocolate go hand in hand you know! Michael has enjoyed playing all kinds of "boy" stuff with other kids his age and some long suffering dads. They have had paper airplane races, bike/scooter nights, and all kinds of other fun that generally has them coming home smelling like - well, boys! For my part I really enjoyed the Bible study I was in this session. I joined a bunch of wonderful ladies going through Beth Moore's study on the Patriarchs. If you've ever been through one of her studies then you know they are set up for a 10 week session with homework 5 days a week. Our church takes it at a slower pace which doesn't overwhelm me with homework and allows more time for discussion within our small groups. For each of Beth's "weeks" we take 3 weeks. We discuss days 1,2,&3 for week 1, days 4&5 for week 2, and the watch and discuss the video on week 3. I loved it and LOVED the study! If you've never gotten into a Beth Moore study - I HIGHLY recommend them! Thank you so much to the faithful family we found at LBC for all the love they have shown us while we were with you. We will miss you!

Summer is on its way!

Charity showing off her beautiful sunglasses - while eating chocolate of course!
He's so cool!
Hanging out at the Children's Museum with Grandma and Uncle Greg.

What a gorgeous day! Sunny and 80 degrees. I laid the kids down for an early nap so they will be able to get the most out of the afternoon. Plus I was really ready for some peace and quiet. Charity is not cooperating very well. She's exhausted but all wound up and isn't going to give in without fighting me for a half hour or so. I love my children but they can mentally exhaust me like no on else! There's nothing I can put my finger on today but they are just pressing my buttons. Another reason I'm so thankful for the beautiful weather. They will spend the majority of their time between nap and bed tonight playing outside - whether they want to or not! Eric finished another final today. 3 down, 3 to go. This one only took him about 1/2 an hour. They are scheduled for 3 hours and it seems like most of them take a majority of that time. His next exam is at 8:30 in the morning and I'm sure Eric is thankful for the extra study time that a short exam gives him. The kids and I spent the morning as we usually do - at school and at the Y. Charity had swim lessons so Michael spent the late morning hanging out with the other morning Kindergartners at the Y. I spent the lesson time reading a cooking magazine and wishing my pantry, fridge, and freezer would automatically stock themselves. I should go grocery shopping tonight but I think maybe I'll put it off for another day. The kids need the play time and I don't really want to go anyway.

The end is drawing near

Charity taking a break from dancing on the dug-out at Little League Opening Ceremonies
Michael's Team heading out to the field - he is #10 in the gray shirt.
All of the little leaguers on the field
Michael and his friend playing basketball on the back patio - a favorite past time.
Charity and a friend - all of them seem to be equally enthralled with princesses and dance clothes - maybe it's just the age!

We will be moving home one month from tomorrow! I can't believe how quickly the last 2 years have gone! Eric is in the middle of finals now. He has one every day this week and then he will be done for a few months. Luckily he'll only have one at the end of the summer. That will be a nice little break. And he just informed me that he will have only 2 finals at the most next winter! I can't believe it! 4 more finals this week and then 3 more EVER!! Of course he'll have the bar in February and that is probably worse than all his finals combined but we just won't go there yet.
We found a house to rent this weekend. It is a little 3 bedroom in the country - not far from several aunts, uncles, cousins, Mur-Mur, and OF COURSE - Mom. It has lots of room for the kids to run wild and is a stones throw away from one of my friends from high school. The situation is pretty close to ideal. The kids are excited to move home most of the time. We've had a few hard days lately when they really got sad about leaving their friends. Charity cried herself to sleep last week over it - that breaks my heart and makes me doubt our decision to leave. Not serious doubts of course, but it is SO hard to see them hurting. As long as I can keep them focused on getting back home to their grandparents and cousins then we will be okay. They had a blast this weekend with the family when my cousin Nathan got married so hopefully that will stay fresh in their minds. His wedding was wonderful, by the way. His wife is awesome and I'm so glad she has joined our family. They are in Hawaii for their honeymoon. Nathan managed to keep their destination a secret from Amanda until they were checking in at the airport. Good for him!
In other news, we are in the middle of baseball season for Michael. He has 2 games a week plus practice every Thursday. It's a bigger time commitment that we had anticipated but he's loving every minute of it. We had opening ceremonies at the local minor league stadium. The kids all got to go on the field and they announced their name and stuff. Michael loved it but Charity was bored out of her mind. Her favorite part was dancing on top of the dug-out (shocker)! She's filling her time by playing with friends and taking swimming lessons. She's moved up to the next level at the Y and is really starting to look like a little swimmer. She still loves her lessons so hopefully we'll be able to continue them this summer. There's no Y anywhere near home so we'll just have to see what we can figure out.