Belated Birthday wishes!

May is a VERY busy month for birthdays around here, and I did not get around to posting this as promptly as I should have, but I wanted to wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to some of my most favorite people who celebrated their special day over the weekend!!

First of all, my most bosom friend (I can hear you snickering! It's a most honorable title, I tell you! For you Anne of Green Gables fans, that is what Anne called Diana!!)...Michelle turned 41! I know that's hard to believe...she looks like a teenager.......how does she do that?

My most favorite brother in the whole world turned 49 and unfortunately, he's MUCH too far away to celebrate with him properly, but here's lots of XOXOXOX from your favorite sister (sshh, I won't tell the others that, your secret is safe!)....

And the dread pirate Silas, my scurvy scalliwag of a nephew, turned 6! Here's a picture of him with some of his cousins at his very festive pirate party over the weekend....

"SCHOOOOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!"

We had a fantastic final week of school, with lots of ceremonies, awards and parties. But boy, oh boy, were we ever ready for it all just to be OVER with!! Nothing beats sleeping in on that first morning!! The kids first day at home was spent catching frogs and tadpoles....a perfect way to start summer break! Here are a few highlights of the past week....

Our baby has graduated....from kindergarten, that is! It goes by WAY too fast....I'm sure all you moms out there know how that feels! Isaac had a great kindergarten year and loves school, his new friends and math! Go figure - must get that from the Stinson genes...it sure doesn't come from his momma!

Here is Sophie and her third grade class and....

... Sophie receiving an award for maintaining the highest spelling average in her class.

Here she is with her good friend, Caroline.

Here is Mary Rose with her "besties"....Abigail, Emily and James....

Here is Mary Rose receiving an award for the highest overall grade-point average in her class...

And she also received the "Outstanding Character" award for the 5th grade.

We were also very proud of Jacob, who won the "Blue & Gold" Award for 7th grade at the middle school award ceremonies last week. The Blue & Gold Award is a peer-voted award that recognizes exemplary character. I don't have a picture of that award ceremony yet...I will post it soon! In the meantime, I will just share this special picture of him.....

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to our wonderful mothers!!! As the saying goes "All that I am or ever hope to be...I owe to my mother." Cheesy, but true! We love you both so much and are so grateful for you!!! We can't say "thank-you" enough for the examples you both are as wives and mothers as we try to raise our own children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord."

God is good in so many ways....and not least of all in this - He has blessed us with godly mothers!

My own sweet husband and kids were good to me today! Lunch at my most favorite Mexican place....Garcia's fish tacos are out of this world-YUM.....breakfast made before I was out of bed, beautiful hand made cards from the kids.....and Jacob bought me tickets to the Hendersonville Garden Tour - his idea, with his own money- how sweet is that!? AND, my thoughtful hubby got me the best gift ever........a new GUITAR! I had been hinting at that for months...ever since Isaac started taking his lessons back in February. I couldn't stand sitting in on his lessons and not having my own guitar to strum along; I've wanted to learn for a long time before that even, so anyway, now I can!! I LOVE IT!!

Happy Birthday, Sophie!

Our sweet and sassy Sophie turned 9 this past week!!!

Sophie celebrated her birthday in style with a pink & black themed party at our local pottery studio with some friends. They had an fun time painting, partying and pigging out on some massive cupcakes!

I was trying to get a shot of her blowing out the candle; but ever the drama queen, she had to display some theatrics when we lit the sparkler candle.....

This pose was accompanied by loud screams and greatly exaggerated trembling...if you know Sophie, I'm sure you can imagine! Oh, puh-leeeeeze!!!!!!

Our fun-loving, people-loving, and attention-loving Sophie brings much excitement into our lives and keeps us entertained with her antics!!! She is a special girl in so many ways!

Happy Birthday, Bubbles!

Mary Rose Spring Recital

We are so happy to have found such a wonderful music program for Mary Rose at Belmont University. It is quite a drive for us, but so worth it! She just performed in her spring recital this past weekend. This has been her toughest piece yet and she worked MANY hours to get it ready...we are proud of her hard work!

Sophie's new look

She's been counting down for weeks and the big day finally arrived....SOPHIE GOT HER BRACES OFF!! And she's been eating all the popcorn, hard candy, bubblegum and cheetos(which are all strictly prohibited with braces) that she can handle ever since. Poor deprived child....no cheetos for 9 months!

Hoppy Easter!

Here are a few pictures from our Easter Sunday...hope your Easter was egg-cellent, too! (No, I didn't make the bunny cake!)

Spring Break Adventures: Yahtzee in a Wigman

Well, this was a memorable Spring Break! We stayed fairly close to home this year and just headed into Kentucky for a few days of cheap thrills! First and foremost was our excursion into Indian territory...actually, it was just Cave City, KY, and there are no actual reservations there. BUT there is the infamous WIGWAM VILLAGE!!!! http://www.wigwamvillage.com/

Wigmam Villages were built in the 1930's as tourist attractions, mostly along Route 66 out west (you may have seen one in the Disney "Cars" movie.) The are only 3 still in existence and we are "lucky" enough to live just a couple of hours away from one!! Yee-haw! It is definitely not what I would call "4 star accommodations" but it was just one of those things that I thought would make for some lasting memories for the kids...some pleasant and some not so pleasant, but definitely a trip worth remembering!! The interior of our Wigwam #9 was all of about 250 sq.ft....not much room for lounging. But after a big buffet dinner at the local watering hole, we all piled on the beds, watched American Idol (they did have cable TV!) and then stayed up playing Yahtzee 'til bedtime. What a night!

The next morning, we hit some of the other "touristy" destinations in the Mammoth Cave area and had a blast on go-carts, alpine slides, etc... (actually, i was not a participant on the "Yes..i DO want to die today!" alpine slides. R U Kidding me??? You could not pay me enough money to get on those death traps. It's not the slides that bother me, it's the ride up on the ancient ski-lift thingy. I secretly think that these alpine slide places scour the countryside watching for ski resorts to go bankrupt and shutdown and liquidate their inventory so they can get a ridiculous deal on a ski lift....all the while knowing that the reason that the ski resort went bankrupt was because people had DIED on their malfuntioning sub-standard ski-lift. Just a theory, but still valid, IMHO. I watched from a distance and prayed for my children and husband to be spared from the obvious impending deathly danger that they did not take seriously AT ALL! They were actually smiling and laughing while hanging 30 ft above the ground on that tiny piece of rusty skinny metal, oblivious or uncaring that the were so close to Death!!!!) then we headed to West Kentucky to spend a couple of days with Kevin's parents.

We took the scenic, back-road route to make the trip more interesting....here is the ferry we had to get on to cross some river...don't remember the name. It was a little scary, but the kids thought it was the coolest!

A March full of events....

Whew! We have had a full month's worth of activities already, and it's only the 16th! Guess I can take off for the rest of the month....HA!

First of all, I'd like to wish a happy 40th to my friend, Dana, who just celebrated the BIG ONE last weekend! We had a great "girls' night out" at Carrabba's and, as usual, ate way too much! Hope the evening was special for you, Dana...you deserve it! Dana is one of the hardest working, most organized and "together" friends I have....and I hope to be as clean as she is one day!

Michelle, Dana and Shannon

Earlier this month, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' Birthday in the elementary library and the kids got to dress like their favorite Seuss characters. Sophie won a prize for her "Star-bellied Sneetch" costume....
She's on the left in the yellow shirt with a star on her belly ('cuz she's a star-bellied sneetch, get it?)

The kids performed at their school's talent show a couple of weeks ago. They did their blue-grass-y version of "You Are My Sunshine"....it's the same one they did at Kevin's bday party, for those of you who saw that. They were the closing act and their final chorus was a sing-along this time with the whole crowd chiming in, as well as all the performers from the whole show joining them on stage. Very sweet!




Jacob had his winter sports banquet to close out basketball season. He had a great time playing for the middle school team and the team posted it's winningest (is that a word?) season ever! Here he is with his friends, Alex and Andrew, at the banquet.


And for Presidents' day, Isaac's kindergarten class dressed up as their favorite presidents and sang the "President's Song" at the school PTO meeting last week. Isaac was George Washington and sported a gi-normous wig made out of posterboard...not the most comfortable creation his mom has ever forced him to wear!
He's on the far right, in case you don't recognize him under those stiff, yet stylish curls.

ALSO, this month (I told you we were busy!!) the kids were asked to sing at the annual "Top Ten" banquet, which honors the top ten graduating seniors at our school each year. Our four kids, along with the Bresnahan children (who also have 4 kids at our school), sang the school's alma mater at the banquet held at a local country club. It was fun, and we were honored to be asked!

This week, Mary Rose had to dress up to present a book report in front of the "upper" students (the higher grades who are upstairs) and for the camera crews (see explanation below), so we created some very unflattering concentration camp couture for her report on "The Boy In the Striped Pajamas." For those of you who haven't heard of this book, we highly recommend this account of the Holocaust through the eyes of a German child. They also just released movie version, but I haven't seen it, so don't know whether it is recommendable. Spoiler alert!!! --Keep Kleenex handy for the ending of the book! Here she is with cameras rolling! (She hated every minute of it! How sad that our talented child absolutely HATES attention!)

And finally, I've been busy working on a library project for the past few days. The local NBC news crew came to film our school as part of their special "Cool Schools" segment this week, so we wanted to spiff the place up a bit. For our story pit area, we made a whole scene out of book jackets, using children's books that are in the elementary library...it turned out colorful, at least!! Thanks to our favorite and best librarian in the whole world, Mrs. Scotti Harris, for displacing your classes all day to give us room to work! Hope you like the finished product!

Happy Birthday, Mary Rose!

Our very merry Mary Rose is 11! Our bookworm, with her sweet nature, mature disposition, infectious laugh and many talents, is a blessing to us in every way. I know this quote is over-used, but I can't help but think of my sweet Rosie when I read it:

"Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."-JM Barrie

Here are a couple of shots from her most recent portrait session ("thank-you" to her talented Aunt Shawna, for taking these!)

We have been celebrating Rosie's birthday for days...first with a sleepover with her best friends from school,

...then with a family party Monday night while Papa & Mimi and some of her cousins were in town. Eli & Cooper (my nephews) also had a birthday this past week, so my parents couldn't stay away with 3 of Nashville grandkids all having birthdays!!

We had a "real" cake for her sleepover party, but for the family party, I made two of Mary Rose's favorite desserts.....peanut butter pie and chocolate-chip-cookiedough cheesecake. It was my first attempt at real cheesecake from scratch....it turned out better than I thought it would, but still not quite up to Cheesecake Factory status yet!