Day 10 of Thanks

I'm thankful that our first sleep over was a success! A friend of mine who I teach with and whose girls are in the same classes as E and C had to work late with our school chorus tonight. So I picked her girls up from school and brought them home with us. I suggested that she let them spend the night since she would be pretty late. The girls were so giddy all night. Ella slept in the pack n play in Caroline's room. And Eva slept in the toddler blow up bed in Elizabeth's room. It may have been a miracle that all four girls went straight to sleep! Hallelujah!!









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Flashback Friday

Today I am thankful that I am able to share this stage of life with my bestest friends.  One of which, we are going to see this weekend as we celebrate Gaines's 4th birthday.  

November 2009- Gaines's 1st birthday

Their relationship is the same today... E invading his space, and G pretending she doesn't exist!  Ha!

Day 8 of Thanks

Today I am thankful to teach the most awesome kids. Today we had our Who's Who program where we tapped 33 students to represent "the best" of Pope. I realized I have taught 32 of the 33 and many of them for 2 or 3 years. I'm so lucky to work at this school, with these young people.

My senior psych classes

Mr. and Miss Pope... They are both in my 2nd period class and I taught both as freshmen!

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30 Days of Thanks

I love that so many of my facebook friends are posting something they are thankful for each day in November.  I'm going to try to do that here.  I'm 7 days behind, but I believe I can catch up by sharing 7 things I'm thankful for in just the past 24 hours.

1. I'm thankful for a video monitor that showed us last night that our little girl was in distress.  We heard Caroline bark coughing and she appeared to be scream crying, but no noice was coming out of her mouth.  Basically, she could barely breath. 

2. I am thankful that Bert was home from class when all of this took place.  Not only did he help keep me calm, but I was able to take Caroline to the ER while Elizabeth stayed sleeping.

3. I'm thankful there was absolutely no waiting in the pediatric emergency care at Kennestone.  Seriously, when does that happen?  Thank you, Jesus!
4. I'm thankful for strong steroids and epinephrine that allowed my baby to start breathing normally again very quickly. 

5. I'm thankful for a fun field trip today in the cold weather that helped keep me awake after a whopping 2.5 hours of sleep last night.  And this beatiful scenery that accompined it.
6. I'm thankful to be home right now, in my pjs, and sitting by the fire.
7. And finally, I'm thankful for some movement on the job front for Bert.  The last two weeks have been very hopeful.

Election Day

Today is election day and these pictures have absolutely nothing to do with that!  Except that they are pictures of my little girls who are so blessed to be born in a free country where they will one day have the privilege of choosing their leader.  Going to vote is such an exciting experience!  It gets me every time!!

As sisters they will inevitably disagree and argue on many topics.  Politics may even be one of them.

I pray as they grow, so will the love and respect they have for one another.  That love and respect should always trump any other differences.  

And I hope they show that same love and respect to others who differ in their views and beliefs. 

We will teach them to love their family, friends, and country.  But that's easy.  Anyone can do that. 

I also want them to love those who don't love them, who don't believe what they believe, who come from different backgrounds with conflicting viewpoints, and those who no one else feels worthy. 

That's hard for me to do, much less to teach my children.

The only hope I have is if their hearts truly belong to Jesus.  That is the prayer I pray the most for my girls. 

I want them to be happy like every other parent in America.  But more than that, I want them to experience the joy of Jesus Christ and be that joy to others.  They are certainly that joy to me!

"No one has ever seen God.  If we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us."

1 John 4:12

We thought it would never happen...

The Tennesse Volunteers battled the Troy Trojans on Saturday.  I never thought we'd be a house divided unless Tennessee was playing Memphis, but we were definitely split on Saturday.  Since it was Tennessee's homecoming, we decided it would be the perfect first game for our girls to attend.  Despite how incredibly hard a football game is with a 1 and 3 year old, we are glad we did it and lived to tell about it!

We started at the Vol Walk cheering on the team as they entered Neyland Stadium.

We met the Odoms by the Torch Bearer.  I love this picture only because it shows perfectly how our morning was going: out of focus, a few tears, and a whole lot of crazy!

Finally some smiles!

Attempt #2 at a family shot.  Caroline supported the Volunteers while Elizabeth wore red (but still cheered for the Vols with her orange pom!)

As Christy and I took pictures of all of our babies together at their first UT game, I couldn't help but laugh at how much things had changed since our time in Knoxville.  It may not be a walk in the park, but seeing these smiles is worth it!

 

These next 3 pictures make me laugh so much.  In the moment, I was not laughing!  We just wanted one pciture, but my children were less than cooperative.  I'm glad we have these to sum up our experience and to prove that we were there and we survived! 

Elizabeth kept saying, "Let's go watch footbal!"  She was so excited when we started walking into the stadium.  Bert may not have been given a son, but a cute little girl who loves football may even be better!

We enjoyed the first quarter of the game with the girls.  The second quarter got ugly real quick!  On the field and in the stands (i.e. Caroline was over it!) 

We left before halftime started, and were almost home to Marietta by the end of the game.

Our photo booth pictures!

Care Bear was asleep in the stroller before we got out of the stadium.

Both girls were asleep by the time we left campus. 

They might be 15 before we try this again, but I'm glad we gave it a try and got to see Troy play Tennessee.  Maybe a first and a last.

Flashback Friday

We are on the road to Knoxville tonight so my "flashback" will be random pics from the past week.















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