Full of Firsts

Last week was an emotional week for me. It was full of firsts, and well, it was a lot for one week: The girls had their first Awana meetings at New Home, Jolie started her first day of K-4 with a new teacher, Josie started kindergarten, and Josie had her first acolyte training. I also worked on finalizing the details for Jolie's 4th birthday and Joel's first. I can not believe that in a little over a month my sweet precious baby boy will be a year old. The phrase I often use for my life is lather, rinse, repeat. So much of my life, just like everyone else's, you get up, do the same things, go to bed, and get up and do it all over again. I think my brain is just on automatic pilot sometimes and I'm not enjoying enough of our life and the little moments as I should. If I were I would not be as surprised that Josie has started kindergarten and Joel is turning one. WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE???
I know I am older, but I don't feel any older, therefore, my children should not be older :)

Now back to something above that I have not talked about before. In past blogs I have talked about Josie being a junior usher during the church services, but now she has attended acolyte training and will be acolyting in church. This is a HUGE deal in our church. Acolytes are the people that walk up front during the service and light the candles. At our church this job is left to the children. We had a fairly large group of children (all girls) that took the training Sunday and will now be even more active in the worship services. I remember what an honor this was when Ben and I grew up and now my daughter has learned to do this. We are supposed to be getting a calendar of when each child will acolyte so I will let everyone know in enough time in case you want to come watch Josie for her first time. I will probably be crying just like I did the first time she ushered. I am just so proud of her. She had a big week, starting kindergarten, learning her Bible verse for Awana, and learning to acolyte.

I am also super proud of Jolie for learning her Bible verse. I will admit I was a little nervous. She is not as disciplined when it comes to learning as Josie is. Yes, I do know that there is a 1.5 year age difference, but still even at Jolie's age Josie loved to learn things and practice her coloring and writing. Jolie, well, not so much. She is getting better and is learning new things, and she learned her verse fairly quickly. I was very proud of her.

We had a busy weekend that left us all a little tired this morning. Friday we picked up the kids and went to Buck Masters. After Buck Masters we stopped by my grandmother's house and visited with her. Saturday Joe had to work at the church while the girls and I cleaned up the house. We had invited Other Mama and Pap-paw over for dinner so we needed to do some tiddying before they came. We had a birthday party at Pump-It-Up that afternoon which is always fun. Joel loved it. Joe and I took turns taking him into the bouncy houses and took turns taking him down the big slide. He loved every second. If you put him down to crawl around he would crawl straight for the ramp to climb the steps to the top of the slide. After the party we headed home to cook the spaghetti and get ready for dinner. Sunday we had singing, Sunday School, church, then Josie had her acolyte training and Joe had a meeting. We were able to get an 1.5 hour nap in before eating dinner and heading to Awana.

The kids and I are getting adjusted to our new schedule. I still have a really hard time getting them to eat breakfast and Lollie never wants to get dressed, so needless to say there is a lot of fighting over that, but time wise we have done great each day. I have walked Josie in to her class each day and I'm not sure when I'll stop. She wants me just to drop her off like some of the other parents, but I don't know if I am ready for that :)