He Is Exhausted!

What a great week this has been! I have to say that as much as I miss my husband since he still has to work this summer, I have had a GREAT week with Anna! This is the first summer Tim has not been off in the summer like he has as a teacher since we were married 11 years ago! I am so proud of all of his hard work, but we miss him!

I was not worried about it being just Anna and me since we are together all the time anyway, but I was worried that we might get stir crazy now that school is out! She has been so great! She wakes up in the morning and goes into the living room and turns the cartoons WAY down to let me sleep in a little, and then when I get up, she pauses the TV (DVR - best invention ever!!!!) and asks me how I slept and if I noticed that she was being quiet so I could sleep longer! She has been a helper without complaining, and decided that she enjoys doing laundry...His love endures forever!!! I am serious, I hate laundry and it is nothing short of a God thing that she is loving it and that she really does it well. On Monday I needed to get the dishes done but also had been wanting to make a pan of brownies, so I asked Anna if she wanted to make the brownies while I did the dishes...you guessed it...she made them BY HERSELF. The only thing I did was pour it in the pan and put it in the oven.

I hesitate to even write this post at the risk of jinxing the wonderful time Anna and I have had together, but 1) I am not superstitious, OCD maybe, but not superstitious, and 2) I am so proud of what a sweet girl Anna is continuing to be and I want her to read this in the morning and know that I am so proud of her that I had to tell all of my friends about it! (she has already told me I can stop thanking her!)

OK, I am done. I will post later on what an amazing husband I have and all the craziness he puts up with, but for now I will finish with a conversation me and Anna had on our way to VBS tonight. We were listening to the radio and the song "He is Exalted, the King is Exalted on High" came on and we were just singing our little hearts out and then Anna said: "Mom, I think they should change the words of this song to 'He is Exhausted' because I bet He gets SOOOO exhausted putting up with all of us sinners!" HA! How true!

I want the years back!

Ok, so maybe I don't want them back, but I want them to slow WAAAAAAAAAY down! It seems the older I get the faster the years are going by! Anna graduated from Kindergarten today! I am so proud of her and am SOOOO proud to be her momma! Here are a few pics that make me want the time back!

Here is Anna on her first day of Kindergarten! I hate that her eyes are shut, but it will be a sweet memory!

This was her as she went into her classroom for the first time! She was so excited to see us go and leave her to her busy Kindergarten year!

Here is Anna getting to be the claendar helper one day. I was up at her school helping out with some other activities and I got to be there while she helped the teacher. This was her favorite thing this year...getting to help teach the class.

And here she is today getting her doploma from her Principal with her teacher right behind them.

After graduation they went back to their rooms and the teacher gave out individual awards. This is Anna getting her reading award.

OK, so since this is my blog I get to brag a little on my kid, right? Well, my sweet Anna left with a reading award because she LOVES to read and she is reading on a 3RD GRADE LEVEL! OK, this may not be a big deal for some, but coming from a momma who hates to read, it is HUGE! I knew she was ahead of the game early on in the year as we met with her teacher and decided whether to try to test her for 1st grade(we chose not to), but my biggest prayer was that she would have a love of reading like her daddy because I DO NOT! God is so faithful even in the little desires of our hearts! Don't you just love how He cares about the little things that are BIG to us? I could go on and on as I know many of you could too, but I will just say that I mean this now more than ever before...I AM A BLESSED WOMAN!

Over the past 6 1/2 years as we have tried unsuccessfully to have more kids, I have enjoyed my time with Anna. However, there was always that glimmer of hope that there was more on the horizon for our family and that we would have more kids. Not to say that God is finished growing our family, but I can say that if this is as big as our family ever gets, I have no complaints. I have a husband who loves me and his daughter second only to the Lord, and a beautiful, healthy, smart little girl who is blossoming into a lovely young lady. I am sorry THE lovely young lady! HA! We went out to eat tonight and the waitress brought Anna her drink and said, "and here is a drink for the young lady" All Anna heard was THE not A she talked about it all night long, "Momma, I am not just A young lady...I am THE young lady!" What a sweet girl!

Thank you God for the gifts you give us and every moment you allow us to be together! May we NEVER take that time for granted!