Busy Week....

I know you guys probably think I fell off the face of the earth, but I didn't. We have just had the busiest week! Cj started swim team practice and practices each morning from 8:30am to 9:30am. This week, he also had football camp which was from 9am to noon. Because they overlapped, we decided to go to swim team practice until 9:15, then leave and make it to football close to 9:30, so we would just shave a little off of each thing. It worked out, but I need a vacation!

Cj loves swim team. Anyone want to guess why? Here's a picture of him with his coach.....

Here are more pics from the week for you to enjoy......

"Swimmers take your mark...."

Cj accepting his 2nd place ribbon!
Then to Football Camp - CJ learning to block....

Cj posing with Coach Eric and Coach Hymel.... The camp kids having fun with a little help from the Pville Fire Dept...... A LONG, great week.

School's Out!

We are so proud of all of our children. Sam made it through the year only to end up with strep and mono. The last four weeks of school were spent at home and taking finals as she could! She is feeling better, slowly, but surely! Carly finished up with honor roll and field day that ended on a sad note. One of her friends is moving to Montana, and some others are moving up to High School, so she is excited for them, but they will be missed.

Cj finished up with honor roll (amazingly) and received a silver medal at the awards banquet yesterday morning. He also got two classroom awards from his teacher. One was "Most Creative" and the other was "Funniest".

A few pics from his ceremony....

Cj showing off his medal, standing with his teacher

Me and my friend Amy. Cj missed getting in her 2nd grade class but the good news is she's moving up next year! Fingers crossed, Cj will get her next year for 3rd grade. She's an amazing teacher and she's from TN! So she talks like me! What a blessing! :)

Cj's Journal

Today, Cj brought home his notebooks that he had in his desk all this school year. Such a sad time. Except, going through them is quite interesting. This is probably a post mostly for Shane, who loves the Cj-isms.

Cj's teacher, Ms. Reed, would give the class a topic each morning when they came into the classroom. Then she would give them a few minutes to write about the topic in their daily journals. For Cj, it was a time to just jot down some random thoughts. So, to get a better idea of Cj's random mind, I decided to blog about some of his entries......Some were funny, such as the entry about what he would see at the zoo. His entry was "penguins, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers and bears - oh my." And some were odd, such as the entry titled, "I would like to be a Devil Ray". But here are a few of my favorites in his exact words...

This one is a little hard to read. It says, "My birthday is December 25. I was born on 1999. Christmas is the time year where family get together. Good kids get presents and bad kids get cole." I'm just hoping Cole is not a kid in his class! :)

This topic was to describe foods that you like. Plain and simple!

This topic - what you would do if you were President...what does an 8yr old know about taxes? And this day, well, who knows what the topic was, but whatever it was, Cj wasn't ready to talk about it!

Final Band Concert

Carly's final band concert for this school year was last night. They did so good! They played performed 5 different numbers and they were all great. Carly is between the blond haired girl and the girl with the black and white headband. My fav, of course, was the last one...."Secret Agent Man". I tried to video it, but my camera's battery was low so it only got the beginning. I turned the camera off and then started it again so its in two segments. HAD to get a shot of the girl in the very back playing the cow bell. She's got the spirit! If we could all be that passionate about what we do! :)

Saturday Fun!

Our Saturday started early and ended up late. We picked up Carly's bff Brette and headed for the woods. Mike brought his friend Ryan to help and CJ was there because he makes us laugh. We went to our camp in Clinton and loaded up some deer stands. Quite boring, but had to be done. Once finished, we let the kids have some play time. Pics for you to see the trouble they ended up in! Good thing everyone had change of clothes and the camp has an outdoor shower! Enjoy!

Carly and Brette on the "Redneck River Walk"

Carly and Brette on the "Redneck Riviera" (you see where I'm going with this...)

CJ just before his outdoor shower....(and still went home with sand in his pants!)

And, of course, there was standing water, so I had to go through it! (such fun!)

CFC Jambalaya - that's how we roll....

Cooking for Christ one of my favorite ministries at the church!.... That's what you get when you mix Kids In Action, some crazy Moms looking for a fundraiser so their kids can to go to camp free and HPC! Yesterday, me, bff Beck, Kari and Rox all took an hour out of our Thursday to cut up the sausage so the CFC team could make us up some awesome jambalaya. It worked. This morning, we put together over 400 plates and went out into the world. Most were pre-sold and we delivered (thanks Melissa, Janna, Monica and several of the guys!) but the others were left for Bro. Ronnie to take out into the inner city and to some needy families. We blessed a Cox Communications worker who just happened to pull into the HPC parking lot to rest on his lunch break. Who knew he'd end up eatin some jambalaya? I'm pretty sure he wasn't expecting it. Close to the end and a little delirious from the chocolate brownies I had the peeps pose for a picture (Melissa looks really surprised, but I did count outloud before I took it, so she knew it was coming)......

Then Kari wanted to show off her "trick". See, it seems that every where we go Kari is trying to toss up food and catch it in her mouth. She's pretty good at it. So I challenged her with a sausage. Before she did it, she felt the need to explain a real trick that she does (really gross) and then she makes her attempt. Her "warm up" ends up on the ground outside, but following the 5 second rule, she quickly retrieves it and makes the catch.....all (of course) caught on video.

Showers of blessings...

I'm not so sure! This is what we woke up to this morning. Pouring rain, then lost power for a short time and when the "sun" finally made some form of an appearance, I see that in the backyard, "A River Runs Through It", and in the front yard, the canal runneth over! Oh, will it ever end? Its been raining like this since yesterday afternoon. Oh well, at least the grass is pretty and green.....

The Backyard.....

The canal....

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I had a terrific day. It was really busy, but we are always busy. :) I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day and if you are a Mom that you were treated like the Princess you are!

I'm posting a few pics from our busy week and Mother's Day weekend!

Mike and I at a "Seafood Party" in New Orleans on Thursday. It was at the Port of NO and was really cool! We had a great time.Ms. Sherrie preaching the message at our very first Mother's Day service at Winbourne! She is so awesome. I want to be just like her when I grow up! :)

Me, CJ, Mike and Carly at PF Chang's after church! What a way to do lunch! I love PF Chang's and so does CJ. He is so predictable! His meal is always the same....Brown Water Soup (WonTon Soup) with Burnt Rice (brown rice) and Root beer. I mean, come on! He must be part Chinese! :)

Sorry for the break!

It's almost been a week since my last post! I'm so sorry to my 3 faithful readers. I guess life has just taken over and it's been a little busy around here. Mike and I attended the "Zoo-to-Do" again this year and it was tons of fun (except for the birds!) It's a formal benefit for the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. We took our best friends, Trent and Paula. They are a barrel of laughs a minute so we all had a blast. Other than that, its just been church and ball for us. Pics from the Zoo-to-Do.....

Mike, me, Paula and Trent ready to leave for the Zoo!

Me and Mike (his tie has little blue monkeys and yellow bananas on it! - so handsome!)

Me and Paula (we had a blast!)

Ragsdale's New Addition

It's official. We have a new (used) vehicle. With Sam needing something to get back and forth to work in, Mike caved and got another vehicle. He believes that in the Bible somewhere it says, "thou must own a jeep". So, now we own 2. It's great and tons of fun.....