Ten on Tuesday

Feeling a bit random today so I thought I would do a ten on Tuesday post. Hope ya'll had a wonderful Memorial Day!

1. Rachel did so well giving her welcome speech at Friday's graduation. Thank you for praying for her. I have lots of pictures to post soon.

2. Four very special friends surprised us by attending graduation....what a blessing!

3. Did I tell you that Rachel got a haircut and highlight 3 days before graduation? She went to the same girl that she always does but this time Rachel came home with gray and purple streaks. Yes, I could have died when I saw them! It was a light purple and gray but still. Rachel hadn't noticed. I called my dear friend Vonna, she does my hair, for HELP. With her guidance we were able to get rid of the gray and purple. Rachel is far too young to have gray and purple hair. Oiy!

4. True to their history, Mr incredible and Rachel always do things unintentionally at the same time. For example: in 6th grade Rachel broke her foot the day before Mr Incredible had his torn ACL surgery. And one month before Rachel's brain surgery, Mr. incredible had an emergency appendectomy. Last week Rachel had purple/gray streaks in her hair for a few hours and my man got the worst sunburn on his face that I have ever seen. Oiy

5. With his red sunburned face, I started calling him my Red bull and saying, "how" (Indian for hi) whenever I saw him. He wasn't nearly as amused as I was.

6. I learned this weekend that I am not as young as I used to be. We helped host the all night after graduation party. I sat down for all of 30 minutes that night. And it took me all of Saturday to recover.

7. My daughter, on the other hand,crawled into bed at 5:45 Saturday morning, slept until two, and then had the energy to go on a date. Her daddy and I waved to her from the coach as she skipped to the door. To be young again.

8. We had enough energy to make it to church Sunday morning, lunch with friends and family, and then a major nap.

9. We drowned our sorrows about being old and feeling the aches and pains of being on our feet all night by treating ourselves to a Magnum bar. Have you tried them? We had our first one Israel but they are now in the states. They are amazing! We found ours at Walgreens.

10. It is just beginning to sink in that we are on summer break. Delight!!!

Ya'll have a blessed Tuesday.  It looks like we might just be blessed with some much needed rain today.

Memorial Day 2011

Our community always has a Memorial Service and this year I encouraged my man that we needed to go and honor the families of fallen soldiers...and to honor his Pawpaw and Pappaw.  My Grandpa and my Pappaw are buried in Kansas and Arkansas so I wasn't able to honor them in person today, but I certainly did in my heart.
The wind was fierce but the fellowship was sweet.  It was a beautiful Memorial Day Service. 

We sang the Star Spangled Banner and His Truth is Marching On as the American flag waved above us:

I loved getting to snap these two pictures. The first one is a daddy and his son and the second one is of a grandpa and his grandson....so precious!  Makes me tear up every time I look at them.

And these last two are of Mr. Incredible's Pappaw's grave and flag, and His Pawpaw's grave and flag...and a flag flying downtown. 

I am thankful that we were blessed to attend the Memorial Service this morning.  And once again reminded of how blessed we are to live in the United States of America. I am thankful for the men and women who courageously serve our country and humbled at the thought of those who gave their lives for our country. 

A Grand Graduation Party

Rachel's Grandparents hosted a Grand Graduation Party for her this past Tuesday evening.  The date was carefully chosen and marked on everyone's calendar.  Nonnie and Poppie worked so hard to redecorate and landscape their already beautiful backyard to make the party place perfect.  Tuesday finally arrived and the weather looked like this:

No, that is not your typical gorgeous west Texas sunset-that is dirt and smoke and high winds.  The weather was awful...kind of matched how I felt about the upcoming graduation.  Okay, not really.  I am over the top thrilled for our daughter and so proud of her...but the years flew by way too quickly.  I want to go back to the days of Rachel dressing up like Pocahontas and singing "Colors of the Wind" at the top of her lungs, and me joining her singing only for a short while before she would always say, "No sing, Momma! This my song!"

 
Days where we had to order a bowl of maraschino cherries as an appetizer whenever we would eat at a restaurant. And speaking of eating out, we ate at Rachel's favorite place last night, Olive Garden, and she didn't need us to order the cherries for her anymore. {Sob!} 


So even though this momma's heart of mine is saddened to see how quickly the years have gone, I am so proud of the young lady that Rachel has become and her daddy and I and our family will be cheering her on tonight.  Speaking of tonight, she has the blessing of giving the welcome speech.  Please, pray for her at 8:00 tonight if you think about it.  She read the speech to me over the phone and we both cried.  What a precious gift she is!

Okay, so back to the party, thanks for taking that little detour down memory lane with me.  The weather didn't stop the party one bit.  Many of Rachel's friends joined all of her Aunts and Uncles, Grandparents, parents, sister, and cousins to celebrate:

The food was absolutely delicious! My mother-in-law is a caterer, I think I've told you that before. She prepared all of Rachel's favorites: mashed potatoes, chicken, green beans wrapped in bacon, rolls with butter, my mom made Rachel's favorite layer salad, Ooey-gooey cake, and Strawberry Pie and so much more. Delight!

Sweet friends and family....special memories!

Having all of them there was gift enough, but many generously brought gifts anyway.  I think the picture of Nonnie passing out the Popsicles is so sweet.  Nonnie loves having her family over and she goes to great lengths to make sure she has just what everyone could ever want or need even down to favorite Popsicles.

These next two pictures make me grin from ear to ear!  Little Wes wanted me to follow him with my camera.  He found a rock and wanted me to take his picture.  This is the pose he gave me, all on his own.  Love it!  Hello Mr. GQ cover man!  His cousin Austin watched and waited and then he told me it was his turn.  Delight!

One of my favorites from the evening! This is Rachel with all of the little cousins:

 Ray-Ray with her Aunt Sissie and Uncle Jeffey:

These are Nonnie's sisters: Aunt Robbie, Aunt Bobbie-O-Kay, Rachel and Aunt Margie.  The next one is Rachel with the cousins.  Jaclyn and Laci were in my wedding 21 years ago...they  are all wonderful mommas and amazing women.

Rachel with the Grands!  Poppie, Nonnie, Rachel, Granny (she use to call my mom "My Ganny!") and Grandpa (or G pronounced "Guh" as she use to say when she was little).  The second picture is of us girls.  Aunt Sissie, Nonnie, Rachel, me, Hannah, and Granny....my most favorite women in this world.  What a wonderful heritage of faith my girls are so blessed with!

I set my camera and handed it to Mr. Incredible to take my picture with Rachel.  He had fun with my camera.  He started acting like me...you can see from the bottom picture that we were all giggling at him.

What a special, special evening...it was "Grand" in every way!  Thank you sweet family for your generous gift of love...ya'll are such a blessing to us!

Senior Dinner and Recognition Service

After the Senior Girls Kidnap Breakfast, or Operation B as I called it on my calendar, Rachel and I had a fun day of shopping and getting pedicures together and then we went home for a little siesta.  A few hours later, it was time to get ready for a Graduation Dinner at church. 

Rachel's youth minister fixed the most delicious fajitas for everyone.

and invited a special guest to be our speaker.  At the end, he asked us to surround our graduate and pray over them.  Mr. Incredible, Hannah, and I surrounded our precious Rachel and thanked the Lord over and over again for all that He has done in her life and we asked His blessing on her future knowing full well that He dreams big dreams over her life.  Mr. Incredible prayed and then it was my turn.  The tears began to flow as I reminded the Good Lord that Rachel's graduation day was a day that I had been dreading since the very first day of Kindergarten, it is so bittersweet. 

We once again placed our daughter in His hands knowing full well that as much as we love our daughter, her Heavenly Father somehow loves her even more....oh she is so dearly loved!  Hannah prayed the sweetest prayer for her sister and then it was time to close.  I think we were the last group still praying.

After the prayer, Rachel hugged us all and then told me that she felt every tear I cried because they landed on top of her sweet head....I didn't even realize it at the time.  I grabbed a much needed Kleenex and then it was time to take some pictures.

This is Rachel on the left with her best friend Caroline (they have been best friends since preschool days at First Baptist Church) and Kelby on the right:

Sweet, sweet friendship:

We headed home shortly after that to get ready for bed and for Sunday's Graduation Recognition Service.  This was proudly hung near the back door to grab on our way out the door to church:

Hannah and I watched as Caroline and Rachel got ready for the service.  We quickly found our seats just before the worship service started and then the congregation all stood as the graduates made their way down front:

Here they are, four different high schools represented in this group:

And of course the "besties":

This is Rachel and Hannah's youth minister Russell.  He and his family are such a blessing to our family and our church family:

And my girls:

Can you tell a difference between these two pictures?

In this last picture, Rachel had to stand on a step in order to be taller than her younger sister.  And true to Hannah's sweet self, she let her sister be taller just for a few minutes.....as she has always looked up to her big sister...what a blessing sisterhood is!

Senior Girls Kidnap Breakfast

A few of the seniors moms and I have been planning a Senior Kidnap Breakfast for weeks.  We had carefully written the date in code on our calendars and tried our hardest not to blow the surprise.  Surprisingly, none of our girls had a clue. Delight!

I was so excited the night before that I only slept about 3 hours.  At the early hour of 6:45 AM, I woke up my little sleeping beauty.  (Rachel use to call Sleeping Beauty, sleeping in the booty when she was little).  She thought she had the rare opportunity to sleep in...surprise!  I told her that she had 5 minutes to go to the bathroom, brush her hair and her teeth, and put on a foundational garment....okay a bra (sorry guys if I just made you flinch!). 

This was what Rachel did:

She thought we were playing a cruel joke, but finally she got up and got ready.  We had four other senior girls to surprise.  The surprise turned out to be on us!  All four of the girls were out of town.  Thankfully, we realized this before ringing their doorbells.

Seven other senior girls and four senior moms met us at Ihop where we all became Exhibit A as all of the girls had their pajamas on.

We had tiaras and wands and fun bling rings for the girls.  They happily put them on while we waited to order:

Before these girls started high school, we did a similar get together and they decorated pillow cases that day.  It seemed fitting to have the girl decorate pillow cases again...after all, they will need a special hand decorated pillow case,  carefully signed by their friends when they are homesick and away at college {sob!}. 

I think they had fun signing and decorating the pillow cases...and we had fun watching:

It was nice to have the back room all to ourselves for most of breakfast.  When the girls were just about finished, the waitresses started seating people in the back room with our group.  There were families with little girls who enjoyed watching our senior girls. 

True to their nature, the girls started taking off their tiaras and sharing them with the little girls.  We had extra tiaras and wands...and the little girls just beamed...but our senior girls did too.  I loved their precious hearts!  One of the mommas of a little girl got teary eyed as she asked me what our girls were celebrating.  She must know that it was just yesterday that our senior girls were her daughter's age. 

A special Senior Girls Breakfast complete with good food, rekindled friendships, and sweet fellowships made for a day to treasure!  What a thrill for this momma's heart!

Ten Images on Tuesday

Whew!  The end of the school year is always sooooooo busy, but this year having a graduating senior, it is busier than ever.  Here are ten images on Tuesday....I have so much catching up to do.  This is Rachel's graduation week so if I am MIA for a few days, you will know why. 

Last Thursday Hannah had an awards ceremony at the Middle School.  She was honored for UIL Oral Reading and One Act Play:

And she was honored for receiving no behavior demerits in 8th grade. Actually, she didn't receive one demerit throughout her junior high years and we are so proud of her!  Hannah also received the Presidential Award and a pin from President Obama (No, he didn't present the award to her, but it was signed by him).    Hannah received the Presidential Award, signed by President Bush, at the end of her 5th grade year too.  Pretty cool!

A few minutes after Hannah's awards ceremony, it was time for Rachel's.  Mr. Incredible and I quickly made our way back to the high school.  It was a special ceremony to honor the seniors, students chosen as class favorites, and to award scholarships to deserving seniors. 

Rachel was chosen as a favorite by her Science Teacher:

She received a scholarship to the local junior college:

The Community Development Committee awarded Rachel a $1500 scholarship for her brochure and demographic entry:

And she was also presented a very distinguished scholarship from a prominent family in our community.  We were just beside ourselves with joy and gratitude!

That evening, only a few short hours later, it was time for the band concert and both of our girls, for the last time, were playing.  Here they are before the concert:

Can you spot Hannah playing the flute?  See her new shoes?  They are her first pair of heels and she was so proud to wear them to the concert.  They make her nearly 6'2".  After the concert, a little girl came up to Hannah and told her that she looked just like a Barbie doll. 

After the 8th grade band played four songs, it was time to hear from the high school band.  Can you see Rachel?  Me neither.  She was in the middle section....I could only see her beautiful forehead and eyes: 

After the band played, the band director recognized the seniors who have made it through band their entire high school career.  Rachel has played the saxophone in the band since 7th grade....6 years of band is a major accomplishment in our community....and we are so proud of her. She could have quit band when she was suffering excruciating headaches, but she stuck it out and that is pretty amazing in itself!

I realize that I have posted 12 images instead of 10 but I just couldn't cut one of them out.  I'll try to post pictures from a very special and fun Senior Girls breakfast this past Saturday soon.