Little last minute things

Little last minute things always seem to creep up and multiply on me. I know it's totally my fault. I should be a better planner on this stuff but I'm often a terrible procrastinator and purposly work in a frenzy of last minute details. Who knows what madness prompts me to be this way. It's ridiculous truly. Time is ticking by quickly and all the while more things are added to my "to do" list. At this point, I'm just hoping whatever stuff I forget or fail to get done won't be anything too terribly important..... like forgetting to pack my luggage!

2nd Grade:
Carley will have her first day of Second Grade next Monday and I am a ball of mixed emotions. So excited for her and anxious about missing the experience of her first week. She still has her extremely loose front tooth barely hanging on, hoping to wait until school starts to lose it during class so she can carry it home in a cool tooth shaped necklace! It has been loose since before summer started! Silly kid. She cracks me up. I tell her she looks like Nanny McPhee when she makes it stick out over her bottom lip. :-)
We went to her meet the teacher night on Tuesday, lugging our 50lb bag of school supplies!!
She was excited to have two of her best friends in her new class with her this year. Her new teacher seems great and I am happy for the start of the school year.

Football Season:
Jeremy has been back in the swing of things for a while now and we had a wonderfully fun cookout last Saturday night at the head coach's house with all the coaching families. He is doing in-service and two-a-days so it is already back to long hours. I am very proud of him and his hard work and I am hoping it will be an especially blessed school year. We are looking forward to being involved in FCA with the high school kids this year too (even if it does mean a house full of teenagers now and then, yikes!!! lol)

Family on the Move Updates:
Brent and Traci and their family are settling in to their new home and new jobs in a new town (closer to us) and we are so very happy for them, and all God has in store for this year. What an answered prayer to have Tyler living back in Texas too, Yay!!!
Jodi and Chris and their family also are moving to their new home near Chris' parents and we are so excited for them. They are only a few minutes farther away from us than they were in McKinney so I'm ok with that. ;-) I know they will love their new place with the fresh country air and room to grow a large garden.

New Class:
We had our orientation tonight for a special course offered at one of the churches in McKinney. It is called Perspectives on World Missions and is basically a college course over the great commission with 16 weeks of amazing speakers, homework, reading, essays... the whole bit! I am so thrilled to get to take this course with my sister and a couple of friends. I had the chance to visit and sit in on a class once last Fall and it was incredible, so I can't wait to start.

and Packing:
I started working on packing on Monday and I still have to run a few errands to finish getting the last minute supplies. I've stocked up on a few snacks to put in each of my pieces of luggage, just because I have no idea what kind of food I will be trying out... some I may love and some uh, well, not so much possibly so I have a few "back up" granola bars, etc. I also have to make sure I get the right kind of mosquito net to sleep in and the right kind of bug spray, basic first aid kid, tylenol, and those sorts of things. It's an adventure already. I'm also trying to figure out how my art supplies for the kids will travel. What to take and what not to take. No scissors. Certainly not. But will aluminum foil, paints, brushes, pencils or glue sticks set off any kind of security questioning??? Surely not! But I'm trying to be creative and well, conscientious I guess you would say, about what I pack. Ah well, it will all work out.

oh, and I almost forgot.....

New Stuff:
We decided it was time to turn Zoe's little crib/daybed into a full-size bed like her sister's so that even though the girls have been sleeping together all summer in Carley's room there would be a nice room set up for Nana to stay in while she is here during my trip. It was exciting and a little sad to see the last of my baby's room becoming a big girl space. The girls love it though and I must say we do too. It is rearranged and we even found bedding that matched her room so it looks lovely. Nana and Papa were very surprised when they came through the other day and got to see it.

And "new to us" is a lovely black refrigerator. We did a little three-way family trading with our white refrigerator, Jeremy's parents black refrigerator and a different style black refrigerator from Brent and Traci. Since they moved to their new home and one was furnished for them we all traded so that ours is now in their garage, Brenda and Monte got one with the freezer on bottom from Brent and Traci and we got a black one that matches our other kitchen appliances. :) pretty sweet.


So, I'm sure there is probably more news and stuff that I forgot to share but that's all for tonight. I must finish up and get some sleep so I can get an early start tomorrow.

Hugs,
Jackie