The Phone Book Surprise

At Cole's school today, teachers handed out the school directory to all students. This is the yearly publication with all students' names, addresses, phone numbers, etc. Guess who's artwork was on the front cover??

Something New

Us at the U2 concert in Atlanta

Goodbye to Wubba #1

Our puppy is a chewer - she's a Lab! Initially we had some trouble finding a toy that would last longer than a week in our house. Eventually, we learned what she'd destroy and what would make it a while. Three cheers for the Kong brand!

This is Daisy's favorite toy:

It should last us 'til Christmas. This is what it replaced:

She plays hard!

Peek-a-Boo!

New Do for 32!

It was time for a haircut, she did it a bit shorter than I envisioned, but kinda sassy! I think I like it!

Yes, my birthday was this past Friday. It was a week of celebrations, but I don't have many photos.

Wednesday night we went over to Brice's parents for dinner. His brother's family was in town with their newborn and I was looking forward to holding the little bundle. After dinner, I was presented with a cake, cards, and a beautiful poster colored by my nephews. Such a sweet surprise! (no photos)

Thursday night my boys took me out for Mexican, my favorite cuisine! We went home to play a game of my choice, which, of course, was Mario Kart! (no photos)

Friday, my actual birthday, began as usual - breakfast and goodbye to the boys. The next hour was filled with various phone calls from family members and I must give props to my brother: he was the first to call and from China! That afternoon I left with my mom for her church's women's conference in Shocco Springs. It was basically a 24-hour conference with worship, games, lessons, and we had a great time! How appropriate that I spend my birthday with my mom, the birther! She brought a couple of presents for me to open in the hotel room - isn't she sweet!

Yea Mom!

Saturday night Brice had arranged for some some friends to meet us for dinner. Then we all went to see a band where a friend of ours is the drummer. Good times! (no photos)

Sunday night we headed over to a friend's house under the guise that we're having a meeting about the children's ministry at our church. After we opened in prayer, all the kids entered with balloons singing Happy Birthday and Shannon brought out a yummy chocolate cake! Turns out that another girl there had a birthday Saturday so our sweet friends decided to have a joint celebration for us! So sweet! We played a Newlywed type game - very fun, lots of laughs!! (no photos)

So, yeah, it was a great week. Shout out to my hubby for trying so hard to make me feel special - and succeeding!

In the Name of Love

My sister and brother-in-law are at a conference this weekend so mom and I flew up to keep the kids for them. You may recall that I did this by myself in the spring. I must admit that it's more fun having another grown up around!

My sister is so good about taking photos of her kids, so I thought I would make sure that continued in her absence. For those of you that read her blog regularly and are therefore going through withdrawal, here are several photos of our two days together.

There have been many bubbles

Memom is quite the cook!

"Can you find the blue marble?"

After retrieving the mail

Bedtime stories

Special breakfast outing with Aunt Anna - yea McD's Playland!

Playing at the park's water pump

A couple of cool peeps!

Just chillin' in the shade

Den Picnic - chicken nuggets and Cinderella!

We've had fun - and we're all tired! The parents return tomorrow night, hopefully in time to tuck in the kiddos and let them say "Happy Birthday" to their daddy!

Back to School!

It's official - my boy is a 4th grader!

And the 1st different thing this year - he is riding the bus! Thankfully, the boy across the street was in his class last year and the two boys down the road go to our church, so he was in good company and had fun.

He said his 1st day was "Awesome!" However, he has a "strict teacher and lots of troublmakers in his class." I'm not worried. He'll love her in no time and she'll straighten those kids out.

So back to homework, back to early mornings, back to packing lunches, back to routine!!!!

Last week, our baby church ventured out to have a VBS-style event in people's own backyards. It was called Rock the Block. We had 3 host homes that averaged 15 kids every day. Two clubs met in the morning but mine met in the evening. This was our way to take God into our communities, reaching out to local kids and developing relationships with the parents.

And what fun it was!

There were crafts,

puzzles,

games,

teaching,


singing,


jumping,

water balloon tossing,

and watermelon!

Several kids asked if we could do it again next week! I take that as a good sign!

Brice is glad that it's over, being that he was in charge of getting the whole thing organized. Big shout out to The Church of Brook Hills for their generosity - they donated supplies and personally came out to our church for training! It was definitely a great time for all involved!

Cow Day

If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know that the Jacksons love free food! Chick-fil-A and Bruster's are two of our favorite places to get it! So of course we participated in the recent Cow Appreciation Day at CFA.

It was such fun to see the restaurant filled with fellow cows grazing on their nuggets and fries! A family from our neighborhood was there with all 3 kiddos in full attire! Unfortunately, Brice couldn't eat with us - he had class that night. But he wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity. He still dressed up and grabbed his free meal through the drive through on his way to school!

Long live the cow!

The Big 4-0 for Big Bro

This summer my brother turned 40. That's even weird to type! Fortunately, my brother is 8 years older than me so I have a little ways to go! :-)

When he arrived from China, we were all shocked to see a yellow/orange head of hair! This was his attempt to outdo anything we were planning for him. He's a one-upper, if you know what I mean. Thankfully, his mid-life crisis display will grown out and be just a memory. But we do have plenty of photos to make sure we never forget!

My mom's brother and his family came up from Florida for the festivities as well as her cousin and his wife who live locally. I didn't know my parents house could hold that many people, much less get them all around a table to eat!

Mom had an Andy-centered bingo game for the kids, Brice and I did an 80's pop culture Jeopardy game, and Becky collected messages from people in Andy's past. Good times.

And in true Cheely fashion, a t-shirt was involved! Three cheers for my clever sister!

It's a puzzle - can you figure it out? (The top right picture on the gals is a knot.)