Three years ago today....

Happy birthday, Luke!

We love you soooo much!

Tracy's Deacon Ordination

Finally getting around to posting photos from Tracy's deacon ordination service. It was such a special night. Unfortunately, I didn't get too many photos because I was trying to be fully "present", rather than seeing everything through the lens of my camera.

Also, part of the time I was crying so hard that I couldn't even begin to think about pictures! There is a part of the service where all the ordained men (deacons and preachers) who are present come by and lay hands on the candidate and pray over them. Needless to say, that is a very emotional part of the service, but even more so for us because Tracy's daddy is a deacon as well. The closer Howell (Tracy's daddy) got in the line, the more I cried! Tracy said he was about to lose it too, because he could hear me on the front pew just boo-hooing! It was such a sweet time. It's also customary for the church to present the men being ordained with a Bible. Well, of course Tracy's dad was chosen to present his. Our pastor, Bro. Lee, gave him (Howell) an opportunity to say something, but bless his heart, he was crying too, and he just said, "I can't talk!" So sweet! After that, the congregation was given an opportunity to come by and speak to Tracy and me, and all I could do was cry. As people came by who have been so special to me through the years, I just cried and cried. Afterwards, we had a a reception/fellowship...and boy, was it a spread! It was just a wonderful night.

Our pastor, Bro. Lee, with Tracy and Glenn (the other deacon being ordained)

Not a very good picture, but the best I could get of Tracy's dad presenting him with his Bible.

You can probably tell from this photo how much I had cried--my nose was all red and my eyes were puffy!

Tracy with his parents. He is the third generation to serve as a deacon in our church.

Our associational director of missions, Bro. Dicky, (L) has known Tracy all his life, and he preached the charge to the church, and our pastor, Bro. Lee (R) preached the charge to the candidates.

Look at the spread!

Tracy's mom is a florist, and she always does a beautiful job!

Happy Thanksgiving!

"There's a roof, up above me, I've a good place to sleep.
There's food on my table, and shoes on my feet.
You gave me your love, Lord, and a fine family.
Thank you, Lord, for your blessings on me."



Happy Thanksgiving, my blog friends! Take a few minutes today to stop and truly count your blessings. I think we could all agree that we are blessed beyond measure! Kellie had a great post earlier this week that really makes you stop and think. What if we didn't have our families, our health, our jobs....would we still be thankful? Just the fact that Jesus died for our sins, to save us from hell should be enough! That thought makes me all the more thankful for all the other blessings He has given me!

I'm especially thankful today that my dear friend got good news from her PET scan yesterday, and is CANCER FREE!

Off to start cooking! We'll be at my mama's for lunch, and at Tracy's grandma's for supper. Tomorrow we're going to get our Christmas tree (live) and then watching the Alabama/Auburn game. I've worked hard earlier this week around the house, so I'm hoping to just spend some time relaxing and enjoying my family the rest of the weekend!

Ramblings

I've had lots of thoughts running through my head the last few days, and I'm hoping I can remember them all!

• Since my last post, I've done something I always warn my students never to do....met "in real life" someone I met online! Actually, I met my blog friend, Lauren. We're from the same area and we've been corresponding long enough that we were pretty sure the other was "okay"! Ha! We had a great time, and she is even sweeter in person!
  


• For two weeks in a row, we've had something going on most every single night. This week, it was Report Card Night at school, church, steak dinner prep, and last night, another FBLA/FFA steak dinner fundraiser. We sold 250 plates; down a little from last time (340), but still a good sale. However, all this activity has made me decide to put the brakes on our activities. From now on, I'm going to do my best to limit our commitments to two nights a week--church on Wednesday night and one other activity.
  


• On a related note, these two-hour faculty meetings we've been having after school have got to stop. It wears us all out, and it's not fair to us nor our families. I can see occasionally having to meet that long, but not every week.


• I've got birthday and Christmas fever, bad! Luke's birthday is coming up, and I've finally just decided to decide for him that we're having a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party. I'm getting excited making plans!


• Luke's getting excited about the presents. In last Sunday's paper, we got the toy books from Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us, and he's looked at them all week! His favorite .....Stinky the Garbage Truck. How do they come up with these toys? I can't say much though. When I was little, I just had to have Milky the Marvelous Milking Cow, and yes, you actually milked her!


• Matthew, on the other hand, already knows what he wants for Christmas and hasn't spent too much time on the toy catalogs. He wants a bow and arrow and some of the Dukes of Hazzard episodes on DVD. Both my boys have Dukes fever, bad!



• I've gotten a little shopping done, thanks to Hillary at Mint Julep Monograms. Not nearly enough though....
  
  
• And finally, on a very serious note, we have a special event coming up tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. Tracy has been elected to serve as a deacon in our church, and the ordination service is tomorrow. He will have the examination with the ordination council (made up of preachers and other ordained men) at 3:00, then the ordination service at 6:00 with a reception following. I would be so grateful for your prayers for him tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be a very special day for our family and for our church.

With all that said, I think I've bored you enough. Be back soon with some pictures from the ordination (hopefully)!

Fun Overload!

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and that's where I find myself this afternoon. We have been on fall break this past week, and I'm not ready to go back to school tomorrow! We have had an absolutely wonderful fall break! I didn't get nearly as much accomplished as I wanted, but I sure have had fun! We've done some shopping, spent an entire day visiting an aunt I don't get to see often, had a fall festival at church, visited our local fair, and just had a lot of fun. I did manage to get my carpet cleaned while we were off. Thankfully all the spots and stains came out...otherwise I was about to get new flooring fever. I really want hardwood in our living room, but I'd like to wait until Luke is a little older. I'm not sure how well it will hold up to Luke's tractors and bulldozers, and I'm pretty sure I can't stand that much noise!

Our church puts on a big fall festival every year as a big community outreach, and it just awesome! Notice there are no pictures of Matthew. He ditched me as soon as we arrived to find his buddy, Zach. He's growing up on me. (sniff, sniff!) Luke and Mama and I had a great time though. Luke is a little small for some of the games, but everybody helped him out a little so that he could play too!

We also carved jack-o-lanterns from the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch last weekend. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time we've ever done it! Well, Tracy did most of the carving, Matthew and Luke just directed the designs, and I took pictures!

Don't worry, this is just a battery operated tea light! Luke loved it, though!

Tonight we're having a fifth-Sunday sing at church. Sometimes we have a group come in to sing, but tonight it's going to be more of a "pickin' and grinnin'" affair. Anyone who plays an instrument is invited to bring it, and we're just going to pick and sing, sort of Gaither style. I am so excited, because I love to sing old songs. In fact, I'd better finish up this post and get to the church. I'm taking all my old songbooks and we're going to pick out some favorites. Maybe I'll even get a video or two....

Happy Halloween, everybody!

My Punkins

We had a fantastic day today, just having some family time. It's been quite a while since Tracy has taken an entire Saturday off. We ran some errands and then visited a local pumpkin patch. This was our first time to go, and it was a fun little outing.

First we headed to the corn maze...

Luke's not sure which way to go...

He decides sticking with Daddy is the best option!

Believe me, I was right behind them! Even though it was daytime, I was not that crazy about the corn maze. Oh sure, I could get out, one way or other, even if it meant running right through the corn, but for some reason it just wasn't that "fun" for me.

Now this is the way to travel...

Taking a break, waiting to get on the wagon to go to the pumpkin patch. Isn't it funny the way little kids drink out of bottles?

We found the perfect "punkins" as Luke says!

This & That

Whew! I am waaaayyy behind in keeping y'all up to date with all the exciting fabulousness that makes up my family's life. Uh, yeah, right. October has just been a crazy, crazy month! Why is it that all of them are starting to be kind of crazy? Sometimes I just want life to slow down! Tracy has been baling peanut hay in the afternoons and at night, so the boys and I have been on our own a lot.

School is also stressing me out right now. We have some new programs and strategies, mandated by the state DOE, that have to be implemented, and honestly, there just aren't enough hours in the day. It already takes all we can do to plan for and keep up with the paperwork associated with our classes. But we're supposed to be superheroes, I guess....Thank goodness we are on fall break next week. We need it something awful!

Here are a few scenes from the last few days...



Luke explains to me that the duck is going through the car wash.
I just love what he comes up with sometimes!

And it must take a lot of concentration to operate said car wash...




Somebody has started wanting to get in my bed to watch TV...



And of course, it's the season for Halloween costumes!

I couldn't resist this photo of Matthew in his hat, snuggling with Luke in his bed.

(Luke's bed, not Matthew's!)



We also had our school's Fall Festival.

Matthew was so excited about being Mario that most of my photos wound up like this...





I finally managed to get one halfway decent picture,

although you can tell Matthew isn't too happy about standing still!

Have a great weekend, friends! I'll hopefully be back soon with more pics!