End of School

Dan and the girls had a day off for Easter Monday, and he took them to Bergey's Farm to visit the baby animals.

They always have baby bunnies you can hold.

These are Hallie's favorites at the farm.

Emma loves playing with and holding the baby goats.

Bunny hats - ha!

Emma (standing at the microphone) is in chorus this year and they had a spring concert featuring traditional hymns sung to contemporary music.

Hallie's (top middle) class led a chapel service at school near the end of the year.

It got warm quickly in May, and we came home to an 85-degree house one evening. Dan worked for hours cleaning the coils in our A/C unit to see if it helped. Unfortunately it was the capacitor, and we had to wait a couple of days to get a professional over to fix it. We slept with fans on and windows open, which helped a little bit, but Hallie decided to sleep at Nana and Papa's house to get out of the heat one night. She wanted to stay there a second night, but she was too homesick and she reluctantly joined us in our misery the second night.  We are so spoiled and so thankful for air conditioning!

Emma participated in field day with the middle and high school kids. She's taking a swing break with some friends in between games. 

There were fun, silly games all day - like this contest where they had to put an Oreo cookie on their forehead and get it into their mouth without using their hands.  I'm not sure if anyone managed it.

Our nephew, Nathan, finished his semester and moved out of his Regent University dorm. Dan and I went to help him and Dan's brother, Tim, pack and move everything out.

That evening, we had a belated celebration for all the April birthdays in the family. Left to right: Miriam, Emma, Dan's mom, and my dad. I guess Hallie is standing in for Dan's dad, who also has an April birthday.

Hallie and I had gone to yard sales that morning and her big find was a cotton candy machine!  We served cotton candy during the April birthday party.

Hallie did a book report and presentation on Milton Hershey for her final 3rd grade project. She is very inspired by chocolate!

Hallie's been asking me to braid her hair at night sometimes because it makes her hair wavy and fabulous the next morning! 

Hallie's class did a nice job singing and playing their recorders during the elementary Spring Concert.

We celebrated Mother's Day with lunch at our house so we could avoid the crowded restaurants. Dan and I had chosen Costco entrees that could be heated and served, and the guys did all the food preparations for me, my mom, and Dan's mom.

My mom and I 

Dan with his mom. 

 I'm grateful that I'm mom to these funny, smart, beautiful girls!

On the last day of school, the StoneBridge teachers give each student a character award and pray over them. Emma's homeroom teacher was Mrs. Hardin, who asked the class what traits they saw in Emma. They yelled out funny, artistic, and friendly.  Mrs. Hardin chose the character trait of "Loyalty" for Emma, because she's fiercely loyal to her friends and family. Very true!

Hallie's teacher, Mrs. Edwards, chose "Obedience" as Hallie's character trait for the year.  That means so much to her teachers, and we hope that she'll always be a student that can be counted on to do the right things.  Hallie also received an award for memorizing 100% of her Bible verses this year.

We're very thankful for StoneBridge and their focus on Christ and character development in their teaching.