Collard Festival Parade!

These pictures are at least 2 weeks old.  Please forgive.  I can now officially use the excuse that I'm pregnant and tired.  And it takes all I have to survive most days!!!  So forgive me??  I am starting to have a little more energy and I'm trying to catch up on all the things I'm behind on.  Including blogging.  

A couple weeks ago, Randy and I took the kiddos to the Ayden Collard Festival Parade.  It may be one of my favorite things to do around here.  You may remember when we went in 2009?  Our new house is actually a little closer to Ayden then we were before so it was perfect.  We went 5 minutes or so down the road and found a good place to park.  It was a sunny day, but we found a tiny little tree that we all sat under to watch.  It was not crowded at all...probably because there was a home ECU game which takes out most of the city!  It was nice for us, though!  We had a ton of space to ourselves which helped the kids pick up some candy without older kids grabbing it all really fast.  They absolutely LOVED it!  It was wonderful since Randy has been working out of town so much these days.  We had a great morning out together!

My sweeties!

I love how simple "small town" parades are!  There really aren't any flashy floats like I always remember as a kid.

Ella loved this!  One of the little beauty pageant princess' drove in the parade in her little Barbie car!  It was so cute!

Some kids get scared of clowns, but Ella and Noah like them! 

Every once in awhile there would be a break in floats and all the kids could get the candy they missed!

Ella and Daddy

 Noah loved seeing the firetrucks, but the drivers kept honking the horn for the kids.  He didn't like that so much!! But how cute are his pudgy cheeks??

What a fun Saturday morning with my favorite people!

Special Announcement...

Ella and Noah have something special to share with you!  I'm going to keep it simple and leave all the talking to them!



I'll post the official due date tomorrow, but in sticking with our current trend......maybe we will end up with a May 12th baby?  Then we can have May 12th, June 12th (Noah), and July 12th (Ella).  Although I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing the newest addition towards the end of April..

Hurricane Irene Clean Up

This post is a little late.  Been hard to find time to sort through photos (or sew or scrapbook or read) or really do anything for myself.  Even though school starting this year was bittersweet, I am definitely looking forward to having a lighter load some days.

But anyways, I actually DID find some time this morning (during an episode of Sid the Science Kid) to get together these pics from Irene.  I have some video footage and other pictures from our own family experience, but the ones in this slideshow are just from the Sunday after Irene.  Instead of having church that morning we decided to go around and help anyone we could with trees down in their yards..It was an awesome morning.  Truly special!  A lot of these people would have been working all day to clear their yards, but with such a large group of volunteers, we were knocking them out in 30 min or less.  It was great!

You

Thought I'd share a new song our worship team introduced to the church recently that I just LOVE!  Enjoy!

Ella's First Day of School

Take TWO for Preschool orientation today.  This time it was Ella's turn to go and meet her teacher and new class.  I have to admit, the whole morning was pretty uneventful since Ella already knew the drill.  I still followed her around camera in hand and stayed with her a minute in her new class, but since she recognized classmates from previous years she was off playing in no time.  She wont really tell me much about her day except that she really likes her new class.  I'll take that though.  Sounds good enough for me!  After school we went to the Shoe Crate and got a new pair of school shoes for her.  It's always hard to find shoes for Preschool that are a good balance between tennis shoes and dress shoes.  Ella would prefer to wear high heels if she could, but since they play outside...I don't think that would work.  We found a great pair though that we both agreed on and they were the first pair that caught our eyes! They're perfect for her!  Girly, but practical at the same time.  I'll have to post a pic of her wearing them soon.

Here are a few pics I snapped in the five minutes before she sent Noah and I on our way ;)  So excited for the new changes for Ella.  This will be a big year for her adjusting to attending school every morning Mon-Fri.  Hopefully it will get all of us in shape for being up and ready next year for Kindergarten.  *sigh* I think I just said Kindergarten.  Could I really be just a year away from that?!? Let's just stick with Pre-K today.....

My big girl!  4 years old.  

She was happy to spot her classmate Tori from last year right away..

Noah's First Day of School!

We had such a great morning today!  Today was Noah's very first day of Preschool!  He has been looking forward to this all Summer.  Last year about half way through the year as he was talking more and more, he started saying things like "Noah pay (play) too!" and "my school!".  He was so pitiful every time we dropped Ella off.  He wanted to stay and have some fun!! Since we could tell he was so interested and having some play time at school, it was a no brainer during re-enrollment that we would sign Noah up, too.  

He is going to be going just two days a week from 9-12. I think this will be perfect for him to have some time out of the house to make new friends and learn.  Today they had school for just an hour so that the kids could become aquatinted with their new teachers and classroom.  Then on Tuesday he will start with his first full day.  He is attending the same school Ella goes to and even gets to have our favorite teacher Mrs. Sharon (who was Ella's two year old teacher) this year.  Ella will go tomorrow to meet her class and then she will start full time on Tuesday.  

Here are some pics of Noah checking out the new classroom.  As you can tell, he was a little unsure at first.  He did a lot of watching, but his teacher said he just kept playing and had a great "day".  When I came to get him he said "I'm not done playing yet, mama!" so I think that's a good sign he likes it!  

Getting his name tag all set!

With his friend Baileigh from church..just taking it all in....

Before we went in, I grabbed a couple pics of my "big boy" all ready for his first day of school.  Talk about pullin' a Mama's heartstrings!!!!!!  He has been my little buddy all day- every day.  Ella is so independent and likes doing things on her own, but Noah is always close by me.  Not going to lie, it was hard to leave him, but I'm so happy to watch him grow and learn to be on his own some.  

and he was definitely ready to go!!

Noah and his big sissy, Ella.  

We are so excited to watch Noey grow and learn so much in his first year at school!!! Yay Noah!!