Birthday and Backpack

Since Lyla has started preschool..she has developed two pretty awesome friends. Addison and Darah.
They all fight like sisters... but then can't function without each other. Recently it was Darah's birthday and she had her party at Chuck E Cheese!

All the girls were excited to spend some time together .. outside of school.. just playing and having fun!!

Here is Lyla and Addison.. ready for Cake!

Darah is turning 5! What an awesome cake!

Present time! Darah opened up Lyla's present first.. which was a big deal to Lyla for some reason. I guess there is some sort of status symbol in getting your present opened first! I did take quite a while wrapping it and putting all the curly ribbon on.. so I'm glad she enjoyed it!

We got her a HUGE coloring book of Doc McStuffins.. and a DVD.

After the party I had to run by Target to pick up a few things and they already had all their back to school stuff going up.. so we swung by the school section to look at backpacks...because we all know that is also another status symbol of school.. You HAVE to have a cool backpack.

 

I , being the uncool mom, went to the backpacks that had the princesses or Barbie on them..

Lyla went directly to this one!

OMG!

Rainbow Spikes!

 

and her daddy approved!!

Not that I have anything against rainbow spikes but I just can't see my lovely little daughter walking into Kindergarten with a Rainbow Spike backpack...so I told her "Let's look around"

 

*fingers crossed that a FROZEN backpack crosses our path SOON..

I think that will be the only thing that will change her mind**

The clouds in Arkansas

I've always been one to lay and look at the clouds. I love them. I do remember as a child looking at the clouds and trying to figure out which animal they were shaped like.

I'm also a lover of storm clouds. There is something about the seriousness, the power that beholds a storm cloud.

 

In my book.. It is hard to beat a good ol' southern storm. Just a thunderstorm.. nothing rotating... some thunder, lightning.. just to clear the air. It's ironically peaceful.

Snapshot...

Here is a quick snapshot into my day.

If you open my refrigerator right now you will see this:

 

Why? Because I'm a wife who is about to ship her husband off again for more training on how to serve our country. So I have the right to own a jar of icing and a spoon.

 

And at work:

I've been trying out bullet journaling.. and I love it! It is definitely what I need to keep me organized at work. This is a cheap composition grid lines notebook and today the first few pages fell out.. which means that my bullet journal is obviously getting some use. There is no way I could stay organized at work without it!

Rose of Sharon

Summer is here in Arkansas.. A small.. super small part of me loves summer... I love summer through my daughters eyes... Most of the summer our weather has been in the 90's; which is kind of odd because usually by now Arkansas is well into the 100 degree weather. I will take it though with no gripes from me..You don't know how much cooler 90 is than 100 when you have a year like last year and we had something like 27 straight days of 100 degree or over 100 degree heat. Yuck!

One thing I always love about summer is my beautiful Rose of Sharon tree. When it blooms it puts out the most beautiful purple flowers. Not much can compare. This past winter we had a pretty good ice storm which made my Rose of Sharon lean pretty bad.. we think she might be leaning to far.. it seems that the big stalk of root at the bottom is coming up..but you know what.. I pray...This crazy lady prays for her Rose of Sharon tree. I sure don't want to lose it or it's beauty that it adds to my yard.

When it starts to bloom it is the first thing I notice when I pull up in the yard. Lyla loves it too. In these pictures she is checking out all the blooms and how pretty they are. The bumble bees love it too!!

Even though she's leaning.. and doesn't stand as straight and tall as she used to.. This Rose of Sharon is still loved and hopefully we can fix her.

If you know anything about trees.. or how I could possibly fix my Rose of Sharon ..

PLEASE... let me know in the comments or on my Facebook page.

I'm a praying lady...but I'm not a very good gardening lady.

My baby graduated!

 

This little girl graduated preschool!!

Wow...where did all that time go?

The above picture was the start of her last year at preschool and of course the below picture is her graduation picture. Her teacher told me that she grew 2 inches this year between August and May. She has done so great in school this year. Her teacher, Ms Ramona, was amazing! I couldn't have asked for a better last year of preschool. I have thoroughly enjoyed being at school with her but come this August she will venture out on her own. I'm not OK with that right now.. hopefully God will help me get peace with that before the time comes to let her go. She is more than ready to go to Kindergarten; thanks to Ms Ramona. She is reading pretty fluently. She can count as high as you want her to. She is adding and subtracting. I'm amazed.

I know that once I let this baby girl go in August to start a new journey it will seem like a blink of an eye when I'm comparing this bottom picture to her Senior Graduation picture. I am NOT ready for that...at all!