Last day of School

Anna Grace with her 4K teacher Mrs. Bertram, and friends Maddie and Lauren Nelson

Another year has come and gone and I can't believe it is over. Time continues to fly and move at a faster pace each year. Moments like this are so bittersweet. I am happy summer is here, but so sad it means that we are getting older and my "baby" is growing up! I can't even grasp that she will be in "BIG" school next year. Where does the time go??

I remember when we moved to Florence a little over 3 years ago (AG was almost 2 yrs old), it seemed like an eternity before we would have to think about schools for AG to start 5K at....so where did the time go?? How did we get here so fast?!?

Here are a few highlights from the last day of school...

The children giving Mrs.Bertram her end of the year gift. When we came to the classroom to give her the gift, the children were helping Mrs. Bertram take down everything on the walls and pack up. It was so sad.


They had a few jump castles to jump around in! AG enjoyed jumping around with her friends.


AG has been at Calvary for three years and it seems like yesterday I called Mrs. King and asked for a tour of the school. I enjoyed the last day of fun at AG's school, but I was also very sad at it. It is hard to say goodbye to a place we have driven to for 3 years and know we won't be going back. It is exciting and sad to close a chapter in this book and start the next. Thinking about dropping AG off at Delmae next year makes me so excited and sick at the same time!! I want my baby to grow up and at the same time, I want her to stay young forever. So many mixed emotions about next year. I know AG will do fine. I pray that I will do fine too!

Day at the beach

Anna Grace and I went to the beach last Tuesday to visit my sweet friend and roommate from college, Lou. She and her family were vacationing at Litchfield beach for the week. It was such a special treat to see her and spend time with her family. Laura lives in Atlanta, so I don't get to see her often. What was even more special was that it was Laura's nephew's birthday. Little George was turning 5 and they had a transformer party for him at the beach house. AG and I were delighted to celebrate George's special day with the family! We felt like family too!

At George's party, he had an Elmo pinata!
George took a turn hitting the pinata.


Anna Grace takes a turn hitting the pinata!


Time to sing "Happy Birthday" to George!
George's mom Shannon helps sing!


Time to play in the ocean!
The ocean water was FREEZING and the weather was overcast and windy...but that didn't stop two 5 year olds from putting on their swim suits and rushing for the water!


Running around in the ocean is so much fun!


AG and George had a great time playing in the sand too.


They had a ball together!! It was a special day.


Happy Birthday George! We enjoyed celebrating your special day with you! AG has been asking when she can see you again! Thanks for inviting us to your party!

Sweet Moments

I love the BIG moments with Anna Grace and am so glad I was finally able to catch up on my blog about them. But what I LOVE even more is sweet, simple, unplanned moments with Anna Grace. We had a few of those last week and I want to share.

Thomas and I are going on a mission trip this summer with our church. There are about 30 adults going to Belize. We leave June 25th and will be back on July 2nd. This is our first international mission trip and we are very excited about it. We are not going for medical missions. We are not going for construction. We are not going for vacation bible school. We are going for a simple reason. It is to tell people about Jesus.

If you came to KidzFest at our church on Saturday, then you saw a sampling of what we will be doing in Belize. We will be playing high energy, competition style games with the kids to get them pumped up and excited about Jesus. Then we will share scripture with them and the wonderful news that Jesus came to this Earth, lived a sinless life, and died on a cross for our sins, so that we may be forgiven of our sins, and live forever in Heaven. Such a sweet, simple message that we are very excited to share!!

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him, will not perish, but have eternal life."

Anna Grace will be staying with her grandparents while we are in Belize. We have told her that, and she is THRILLED she will be in Greenville for a LONG time at her grandparents house. Thomas and I are blessed that both of our parents live in the same town, so she will get to spend time with both sets of grandparents while we are away. We have told her we are going on a mission trip and she has asked us many questions about it, which we have answered for her.

She and I were in Schlotskys the other day and she started talking to a man in the restaurant. She told him, "My mommy and daddy are going on a mission trip to Belize." He said, "That is wonderful", to which she replied, "There are many people in this world who don't know Jesus. They are going to tell them about him." There were many people standing around listening to the conversation and all I wanted to do was cry. She put it better than me. She completely understands why we are going on a mission trip and I love that!! There are so many people in this world who don't know Jesus. What are we waiting for??

Matthew 9:37-38- "Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

I love that my 5 year old is already telling people about Jesus. What an example she is to me!
Acts 16:31 - "They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household."

A few other fun, special moments...
Thomas was away last week, so AG and I spent some special time together. I can always tell a difference in Anna Grace when we spend time together. She craves time with me and when I don't give it to her, she starts to act up. But, when we spend time together, I can tell a difference in her - she is a different, happier, joyful child.

We bought a bird house at Hobby Lobby and came home to paint it...


Here she is working very hard on it.


AG loves to paint, draw and be creative.


We let it dry overnight and then found the perfect place in the yard for it...
Ta da! The perfect place for it to reside - in her play house window!


And here it is up close!


Matthew 6:26-27; 34- "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

And then we had Wyatt over to cook with us!
Anna Grace received an Easy Bake oven for Christmas and she hasn't cooked with it yet...so Wyatt came over with aunt Sage and guess what we did?!? Got the Easy Bake oven out!
Anna Grace was so excited! She went and put outfits together for herself and Wyatt!


And don't they look cute?!?


Here they are stirring up cake mix with water...


And (of course) sneaking a taste!


AG wanted the chocolate icing, so Wyatt (was very sweet) and took the vanilla icing.
They both sampled their icings. AG said hers was YUMMY, and Wyatt said his was DISGUSTING. Here they are showing us what their icings tasted like...
AG - "MMMMMM"
Wyatt - "YUCK!"


Since Wyatt was such a good sport and so willing to share with Anna Grace, we found some yummy chocolate icing in the refrigerator for him to use on his cake. We tossed the nasty vanilla icing in the trash.


And here they are eating their yummy cakes that they made themselves!!


What a sweet, fun afternoon with my daughter and nephew. Sometimes I just need to slow down and realize what is important. If I move to fast or get caught up in the busyness, I miss the moments that make being a mommy so special. I love sweet, special moments like these!!

Tearing up the yard....

So we decided that we were tired of the tree roots, shade and dirt in our backyard. We decided that this summer we want to have a little more sunshine, less roots, less dirt, maybe some grass....and....a deck/gazebo?!?

So here are some before shots...

Bricks coming up due to tree roots.


More tree roots, shade, dirt...


And more tree roots, shade, dirt and broken bricks


Another shot...different angle of the yard.


We had two truckloads of dirt brought in to cover up the tree roots and level out the yard. We also had a tree guy come out to cut some limbs off of our trees and take two trees out of the yard. This helped bring in some sun light.

AG LOVED the dirt mountains!! She spent hours on top of them playing. Here she is climbing up one of them.


Here she is on top of the mountain!


She brought Little Foot up for a tea party.


Thomas and i picked up all of the bricks....this was hard work.


Thomas and I shoveled all of the dirt over the backyard.

And...here is where we are in the project 3 weeks later....


You can see our backyard is currently a sandbox. AG and Shug love it, but I don't know if it is what Thomas and I were hoping for.


Here is another angle of the yard as it is today. Enjoying our "backyard retreat"!


We spent yesterday planting some plants and they do look grood! Just in time for the rain to hit and water them well! We hope to have some sod down...and a quote on a gazebo soon....
Stay tuned....
We hope to have some sort of "backyard retreat" one day soon!!

Still catching up....

A few more events to blog and then I will be caught up before SUMMER gets here!!

After Anna Grace's birthday party on April 25th, we went over to Sage's house to celebrate Walker's FIRST birthday!!! We had a wonderful dinner of salmon, asparagus and salad (Walker's favorite meal...Just kidding! ;) ) along with....what else...BIRTHDAY CAKE!!

We had a wonderful evening celebrating Walker's first year of life and spending time with family!

The birthday boy with his BIG Brother!


Big Pop with his grandsons - Wyatt and Walker


Nana and Big Pop with Wyatt, Bess and AG


Bess spent the night with us. AG and Bess had a wonderful time together. Bess is the daughter of my dear friend Sallie. Sallie and I grew up together and were roommates in college. She now lives in Columbia, so I am glad she isn't far away and we can still get the girls together. We say that AG and Bess will be roommates when they go to CLEMSON!! :)

Back to the sleepover....
AG has twin beds in her room. I put the girls to bed - AG in her bed and Bess in the other twin bed. I heard lots of talking and laughing, so I went back to check on the girls. Bess had AG's flashlight and they were having fun watching it move around the room. I let the girls talk and have some fun. Later I went back to check on them and this is what I found....looks like Bess and AG decided it would be more fun to sleep together!!


The girls eating breakfast together before church.


The girls before church on Sunday. The girls both picked out one toy to take in the car to church. AG chose her new American Doll puppy and Bess chose AG's "Singing Barbies - Island princess barbies". Bess LOVED those Barbies!
We were stopped and asked a few times by some people at church and at lunch if the girls were twins! I guess they act like sisters!


Anna Grace has been in Awana at our church all year. She has been a Cubbie. You may remember my post a few months back about Cubbie coming home to spend the week with us...in Cubbie's the children memorize a bible verse each week. They earn patches for memorizing verses, attendance, etc. It has been a great program for AG. It has been a blessing to hear her memorize God's word and tell us about Jesus.
She had her awards ceremony (the last night of Cubbies) at church. Here she is with her Cubbie vest on - with all of her patches.


Here she is in line with the other Cubbies - waiting to go into the program.


Here she is on stage - about to receive her award for participating in Cubbies!!


She is very excited because next year she will be a Spark!!

AG took gymnastics this year. We had parent watch day/Awards day in gymnastics last week...


Here is AG in our yard - before we tore it up!! We decided to renovate the backyard three weeks ago...So here is one of the before pictures....


And there will be more to come....I have to go get AG from school....

More pictures!!

Christina has Anna Grace's proofs on her website. Feel free to look at them...
Go to http://christinagrissettphotography.com/
Click on "Clients" and then enter "Anderson09" and click on the "enter" key.

Christina also wrote a cute post about Anna Grace on her blog. Check it out when you have a moment - http://www.christinagrissett.blogspot.com/

Pictures

We had Anna Grace's 5 year old pictures made on Sunday by my friend Christina Grissett. Her photography amazes me and I LOVE it!! Gram gave AG a special skirt to wear in the pictures - it is the beautiful pink pettiskirt she is wearing in the top picture of my blog - and Christina got some great pictures of AG in it! Here are two "sneak peeks" from the photo session! Enjoy and let me know what you think of them!