Thankful Tuesday

My Ten Things That I'm Thankful For:

1. Friends like Ryan that read my blog on a regular basis!

2. School's out for summer!!

3. PBS- I love their shows for kids especially "Word World" and "Read Between the Lions". Another good thing is that they don't advertise toys. When my kids watch cartoons on Saturday morning on another channel, they are bombarded with advertisements for toys and eventually become brainwashed.

4. My parents' lakehouse - we can take mini vacations there and not have to pay for a hotel room, eat out the whole time, etc.

5. All the dishes are done (for now)

6. Getting to be a stay-at-home mom. There are times when I'd rather have a job job, but I know that I should be grateful.

7. Softball - I think that I may have listed this before, but I really enjoy being at the ballpark no matter whose playing. I also really enjoy the break I get from the kids when I get to play.

8. Girls' Night Out - We have started doing this on a semi-regular basis at church. I really enjoy getting together and growing closer with the other ladies from church.

9. Micah's family - Yes, I'm very thankful for mine as well, but mine is very, very small. I love it that Micah has a big family and I love getting together with everyone in it. We got to do this last weekend for Memorial Day.

10. Being able to pray openly to God. I'm listing this because I have a few prayer requests and I was just thinking about how lucky we are to be able to take all our cares and worries and give them to God. Prayer Requests: 1) Friend who is looking for a full time job for next year; 2) Friend who just had a baby; 3) Friend whose daughter is going to be tested for autism. I know that there are plenty of others. The list could go on and on.

I hope that everyone has a great week!

Daphne's Preschool Graduation and Riverfest

Daphne graduated from preschool Thursday night. It was all very exciting! Her class sang a lot of songs and then each student got to get a graduation certificate. My parents and some friends from church got to come. I took a lot of pictures, but most of them her of kids' backs as they were turning to walk away.


Daphne receiving her diploma


Daphne and her friend Megan


Daphne and me



The other thing that we did this past week was go to Riverfest. Riverfest is an annual festival on the Arkansas River. It has music, arts and crafts, kiddy activities, and of course a lot of food. It was very, very muggy outside and I felt like sweat was pouring off of me. But the it started to rain (which all of the meteorologist had said wouldn't happen until Sunday) and the rain helped cool us off a lot. The kids had a lot of fun. Noah really liked getting to ride on the shuttle (which was a bus) that took us there. He also enjoyed getting to see some big fish and talking to the firetruck. The girls both got to paint pictures, get the faces painted and probably their favorite thing was getting to bounce really high. Tonight, we drove down close to the river and watched the fireworks that officially ended Riverfest.


The Kiddos


Noah talking to the fire truck


I have got to stop letting Daphne have the camera!


I hope everyone has a great week!

Thankful Tuesday (but posted on Wednesday)

Ten Things That I’m Thankful For This Week:


1. That when my battery died in my car, at least I was at the church building and not on the side of the road or in downtown Little Rock where I had been earlier.

2. That when my battery died in my car, my kids were able to go inside where they could play and there was air conditioning.

3. The new battery for my car is suppose to last 7 years and it has a good warranty.

4. Only 3 more school lunches to pack!

5. Daphne got to finally play soccer again last night. Her games have been rained out, then a tornado destroyed the soccer and baseball complex, and then a when the games were rescheduled, the other teams weren’t showing up.

6. Daphne graduates from preschool tomorrow night. Daphne has had the most wonderful teachers this year at her school. And Kaylee will get to have them next year and then Noah the year after that.

7. My parents bought a party barge to keep at their lake house so that we can all go out on the lake together. My dad has a bass boat, but we had to take turns riding in it because we couldn’t all fit. Also, the girls will be able to fish better out of this new boat.

8. Good friends that will listen to whatever I need to talk about that particular day.

9. Good friends that offer to pray with your over problems your having or problems other friends are having.

10. Riverfest is this weekend! www.riverfestarkansas.com

Our Separate Vacations

Yes, it's true. Micah and I decided that we needed some time apart, so we thought it was best to go opposite directions and each take our own little vacation.

Okay, so we did each go on a separate trip, but I hope that none of you believed it was because we needed time apart! I didn't post anything about this earlier because I didn't want everyone out there in BloggerLand to know that there wouldn't be anyone at our house for a few days. You never know who's reading this.

I'll start with Micah's trip first. This year and last year, Micah has gone on a 10 day mission trip to Burnt Corn, Arizona and Tuba City, New Mexico. He went with a work group from our church. They go to an Indian reservation and do whatever needs to be done to help out the church there. They have built buildings for the people there to worship in. They've replaced roofs, poured cement, painted rooms, etc. The work is hard and they do it from sunrise to sunset. But, after they've worked for a few days, they get to visit the Grand Canyon on the way home. I'm glad that Micah has found something in the church that he is passionate about. He's already talking about going back next year.

While Micah was gone, me, the girls, and my Aunt Marcy took our own little vacation. Noah got to stay at his Granddad and Grammy's house (Micah's parents). That meant that we were able to have Girl Time. First, me, Daphne, and Kaylee drove to Memphis to my aunt's house. Then on Friday morning we all headed to Pickwick State Park. It is about an hour and a half to two hours east of Memphis. We had a lot of fun. This is a place that I definitely recommend to others. It is a great place for families as well as just for couples. We stayed at the lodge. Our room was on the bottom floor and faced the lake. We could easily go out our back door and go to the lake, outdoor swimming pool (there's also an indoor one), to the playground, and just walk along the sidewalk. We all had a blast! The weather was perfect. The rain held off until late Saturday when we were already in bed. The girls got to swim a few times and fish. They both caught 2 fish so of course they were excited. It was so nice to get away and relax for a while. I want to thank my Aunt Marcy for taking us and she's talking about making this an annual trip. We can't wait to go again next year!

On our way back to Memphis we stopped at Shiloh which is where an important battle occurred during the Civil War. We watched a movie about it and got to walk around a little. The actual battle site is huge and it was really cool outside so we decided we've have to come back another time.

Well, I think that catches everyone up on what's been happening the past few weeks. I hope that everyone has a great week!

Thankful Tuesday

My ten things that I'm thankful for this week:

1. A safe trip to and from Tennessee this past weekend (I'll write more about that in a few days)

2. A safe trip for Micah while he was in Arizona and New Mexico (I'll write about that, too)

3. Daphne's fish still being alive.

4. Getting to spend some time with just Daphne and Kaylee this weekend.

5. The beautiful weather that we've been having (that is between the tornadoes and other storms)

6. Micah's parents agreeing to watch Noah for five days straight.

7. Only 5 more days of Mother's Day Out! Don't get me wrong, I love teaching there, but at the same time, I'm ready for summer.

8. Strong Christian friends that I get to go to church with and work with as well.

9. A semi-clean house (it has definitely been much, much worse)

10. A vehicle that gets fairly good gas mileage. (once again, it could be much, much worse)

Thankful Tuesday

Okay, so my friend Darrah that teaches with me at Mother's Day Out started doing this "Thankful Tuesday" thing a few weeks ago. Each Tuesday she posts 10 things that she is thankful for. I think that this is a wonderful idea so I'm going to try to remember to do it every Tuesday (although I think that "Thankful Thursday" has a better ring to it!)

My Ten Things That I'm Thankful for This Week:

1. 3 healthy kids that very rarely get sick

2. A nice house to live in

3. A nice, dependable car to drive (thanks to my mom and dad!)

4. A church that feels like H.O.M.E.

5. Great family on both mine and Micah's sides and that they're close enough to help with the kids when we ask

6. Jason's Deli - especially their kids' meals: I love that their kids' meals are cheap, can feed two kids, plus ice cream for dessert, and the best part is that there is NO TOY with the meal!

7. Being able to stay home with the kids

8. Getting to play softball with the church team

9. Micah nor I have to drive a long ways to work. I'm thankful for that because of safety and especially now because of gas prices

10. Having a faithful Christian husband that makes me go to church on the days that I'd rather just stay in bed (Yes, I do have days like that sometimes)

What's Been Goin' On...

This is just a quick update to let all of my loyal readers know what's been going on this past week. Micah and I both started playing softball again so we were at the ballpark 3 nights last week and it'll probably be like that every week for the next two months.

On Thursday, our Mother's Day Out classes went to the Little Rock Zoo. We had a lot of fun! Luckily, all of our mothers went, too so that made it a lot easier on us teachers.

Daphne got a new fish today. She named it Ariel although it's a male beta. I couldn't convince her that it was a boy. Her argument is that it's a girl because it's red and purple. Some things just aren't worth the effort to argue.

I had my ten year high school reunion this past Saturday. I'll hopefully have some pictures from it within the next few days. We had a picnic at the Tyndall park Saturday morning for families and then we had an adults only get together at Cafe 42 at the Clinton Presidential Library Saturday night. We had a fairly good turn out. I'd say about 150 former students showed up. And that was out of about 325? that graduated I was amazed at how many people looked exactly the same. They might have lost some hair or went up or down in weight, but they were still the exact same. And, unfortunately, most of them acted the exact same. It was really weird to see everyone drinking, and I do mean everyone (except me, or course). People that never touched a beer in high school and said they never would were walking around all night with a drink in their hand. I thought that was kinda pathetic. Also, quite a few people smoked who didn't smoke in high school. That was pretty sad, too. It was nice getting to see a lot of my old friends, but I'm also okay with not seeing most of my graduating class until our 20th reunion. Sorry for the negativity, but that's truly the way I feel.




Well, I think that's about all that has happened. Please keep my dad, Grisham Phillips, in your prayers. He's scheduled for knee surgery on Wednesday. I tried to talk him into getting a brain replacement at the same time, but he keeps putting it off.

I hope that everyone has a great week!