WoW three months this time. I really have to do better at this.

I was sitting here tonight reading everyone's updates and decided, since tomorrow is my Birthday, I would too.

Well, tomorrow will officially mark me entering my  MID Thirties.  My Mom asked me yesterday if I felt old, I told her "no not really". Then I back tracked and said "I only feel old when I think about how old the girls are" LOL! You see because tomorrow is also Anna's Birthday. She will be 13, and in 2 weeks Alex will be 15. THEN in a month Alex  will be starting HIGH SCHOOL!!!!!  at the same HS her Daddy and I attended and graduated from!  Just plain weirdness to think about.  Alex and I will go pick up her schedule and wander the halls that hold SO MANY memories for us, the good, bad AND the ugly! Time is flying. THAT is what makes me feel old. Not the number 34.

As for what has gone on with us in the last 3 MONTHS since my last update, I think bullet style is the best approach...

*April didn't see much going on Peggy and I went to the SoTT gathering at Gena's and got tattoos (Yes you read that right, See bottom of post!)

*May was BUSY! Graduations, end of year concerts, awards and in general no time for ANYTHING else! Both of our girls did amazing this school year. They collected several awards for music and academics.

*June is defined as VBS month. Ben and I had the honor of writing our VBS curriculum this year. SO stress was the name of the game until it was over. We did and Indiana Jones type theme called "The Ultimate Adventure" instead of Indiana Jones, our main character was called Arkansas Jefferson (Jefferson is the county we live in) We had our largest number of kids to date with 198 elementary age kids!! WOOHOO! Preschool had around 40! The Preschool also wrote their curriculum and it was awesome. It is really awesome to be able to not have to buy a curriculum. God has really blessed our Children Ministry (preschool and elem) with creativity to be able to do this. Cause trust me it ain't easy! That in a nut shell was June.

*July is just really getting started. Like I said before, tomorrow we have 2 birthday girls. And in 2 weeks we will have another. The girls want Rock Band for our Wii for their birthday and I told them that we really can't afford it. I told them if they were smart they would pool their Birthday money and if it wasn't enough Daddy and I would make up the difference. The girls go to camp at the end of the month. Then when August starts both start summer band rehearsals. Anna made flagline so she will start a little earlier than the rest of the Junior High Band.

OH and we have Church League Youth Softball all the month of July. We had our first games the week. Alex has NEVER played Softball before and the first game she was back catcher for the last two innings. I was so nervous! But she kind of got the hang of it and did OK.

So that's about it for the last 3 months. I hope you're all still with me! HAHA I may not post but I do get around and read most of you guys stuff everyday.

 Well, it's been a pretty week so far and it's only half over!

We spent last Saturday in the metropolis of busy downtown Hamburg, Arkansas! Sounds exciting huh? Well it was. Alex had All-Region Choir auditions. The tryouts were being hosted by Hamburg High School so hence that is where we were. We woke up at the BOOTY CRACK of (BEFORE) dawn 4:30am  because we had to be at our school at 6:00am  to meet the buses. Ben and I chaperoned so we ALL got up.(I had only had a little over 1 hour sleep because I COULDN'T SLEEP AGAIN!) Poor Anna went along too, amazingly she was in an agreeable mood all day. We sat in the Hamburg gym for EEEVVVVEEEERRRRRR. We had to wait for over 600 kids from 11 or 12 schools from Southeast Arkansas to audition individually. Let me just say the judges DO NOT get in any hurry to get though them all.

OK to the exciting part.... Alex was auditioning for a spot in the Soprano I section of the choir. 40 spots are available, they call the spots chairs. In her section alone 94 girls auditioned. She made 21st chair!!!!! If you have NO clue what I'm talking about being selected for All Region Choir is a very big deal. In Jr High this is one of the highest accomplishments you can achieve in Choir. We are so proud of her!!!! I had to talk her in to auditioning 3 months ago. It's not that she didn't want to do it, she just gets very nervous and doubts herself. So, with LOTS of encouragement she DID IT! That is one of the main reasons we went along, for moral support, so she wouldn't let her nerves get the best of her. On November 17th there will be an all day rehearsal and a concert that night. She will also get a trophy at the end of the year!

She now feels like she could take on the world. She needed this boost, she is so proud of herself, just for overcoming her fear and trying out.

Try outs ended at 5:30pm and we went strait from there to Ben's parents church for their Hotdog roast and hay ride. Which we didn't get to until 7:30pm because of the 2 hour car ride home. We were one tired group by the time we got home. After church Sunday was REST TIME!!!!

Monday was errand day and Lasagna for dinner, Yummmmm!

Tuesday our High School hosted a marching contest for bands around the region. Alex wanted to go watch all the bands so we went. WE FROZE! Note to self, bundle up for game Thursday night! We had a good time though. Yes, I am a band geek and so are my girls! GEEK AND PROUD! I like watching the bands too, I tend to watch the flags and the drill teams because I was on the flag line. Alex will be in HS next year so she got to see what is in store next year. Henderson State University did an exibition show that was GREAT! Their theme was Sting and Police songs. AWESOME! The girls ate dinner at the stadium. We picked up Ben from his class after and he and I had Wendy's chili because I was COLD!!!

Tonight we will have our Church's "Holy-ween". Alex is a Pepper Shaker and Anna is a Pirate (pictures to come later) And yes we tried to get Anna to be the Salt shaker and the hard headed kid wouldn't give in! There was also a couple other costumes that we tried to convince her of but noooooooo she just had to be a dirty, Jack Sparrow type pirate. Not even a girlie pirate! What's up with that? My girlie girl? Oh well, we did give them the freedom to chose (with guidelines of course!)

Like I said Thursday is the last HS home game and Alex wants to go to a game without having to march, so that's where we will be.

Friday I think is date night, the girls what to go to Grandmas. So I think Ben and I might go eat, or just stay at home and chill. Don't know, we'll see.

Whew, I'm tired just typing all of it!

I'm sure I will have plenty of pictures of tonight so stop back by tomorrow!