Benton High School Sophomore Cheerleaders 2012-2013

I was given the opportunity to photograph the Sophomore Cheerleaders for the Panther Football Program.  My favorite hobby is photography.  I am not a licensed professional or anything, so it is all for fun!

These girls are beautiful and I wish them the best of luck. I hope they enjoy their first year in high school.  GO PANTHERS!

Summer Reading

It's been a few weeks since I have been able to blog. (We do not have internet at our house) I will eventually be posting pictures from Jenny's Graduation party and some of my photography.  Life has just been so busy.

I know the saying is that teacher's get their summers off, but in reality they do not between workshops and preparing for the next year. Well, at least not first year teachers who are extremely excited! I last blogged that I was going to be teaching third grade in the fall, well I will be moving down to second and I am beyond excited!  I have been in second 3/4 of this past school year and now I get to officially teach it!

I've been browsing a lot of teachers blogs this summer and they have given me so many ideas and motivation for the fall. I came upon a few blogs that talk about summer reading for teachers and I have tons of books that have been recommended and given to me, so I have decided to challenge myself to read 30 books in 30 days! Crazy- right?! Well a few of the 30 are not educational but I haven been meaning to read for awhile. For instance, The Hunger Games, which I haven't had the time to read yet.

I have always loved reading, and I am the type of person that I start a book and will be up until 3:00 am to finish it...it could be an interesting 30 days! I'm blogging about this to keep myself accountable. I'm on day 5 and so far I'm on track! So my question for you all is what are you reading right now and what books do you recommend?

Jenny- Senior 2012

Today is a sad but exciting day for our family.  My little sister is graduating from high school.  It has been a blessing growing up as her big sister and I love her so much.  She has an exciting journey ahead of her at Mississippi State University.  Go Bulldogs!

I love you Jen Pen!

Good Times with Great Friends

I got a bright idea about 3 years ago that I was going to scrapbook Jenny and Keeleigh's high school career, primarily cheerleading events, but fun events as well.  It started out slow but then I started saving everything and this is what all I came up with.  I love scrapbooking but after this I decided I will have to take a long break.  Haha! It was so much fun getting together tonight and seeing the girls open their scrapbooks.  They loved them and I was so excited to see their faces.

I loved their faces! Priceless!

Life passes us by so fast...enjoy every minute of it. The best is yet to come.

April and Part of May

Well these past two months have been exciting and have flown by! We have had many adventures and we have realized that we are so blessed with wonderful family and friends. We moved out of our first home (the apartment) and into our new home.  It was a little sad leaving, but we were excited for our new adventure. We signed at the end of April for the house and quickly moved in. We had so many kitchen boxes to unpack and we still have chandeliers to change out, organizing, and yard work to do.  I hear it never stops once you own a house! We are loving every minute of being homeowners and we are loving make the house our home.

Closing the apartment door for the last time!

Some of our 25 kitchen boxes

An interesting DIY we completed was painting a white refridgerator chalk board, so now we can write the grocery list and reminders on the fridge! Seth's parents stained our deck (we were so thankful!) and we planted some flowers and repainted used patio furniture and added some cushions and it looks like new. We have spent majority of our time so far out on the back deck. This past weekend we replanted bushed in the front and I cannot wait until they get bigger because they look funny at first!

Annabelle in "Her" chair

 

There has also been many other things going on besides moving into the new house. My sister Jenny had her Senior Prom. She looked absolutely amazing! Hannah and I had a great time doing her hair and makeup. It is so sad that this is her last one. 

My little Jen-Pen has grown up too fast!

Seth and I took a weekend away to Springfield and Branson to relax and get away from the craziness of the house. We went to a luncheon at Drury University where I received the Wanda Gray Award for Leadership and Academics in Elementary Education. It was fun to see my professors and education friends again. Then we headed to the Branson Landing for dinner at Cantina, shopping and ice cream on the Landing, and then a movie. 

I went to Disney on Ice with the girls in Seth's family.

It was so neat, and Jaden and Ava Reese loved it!

More blogging coming tomorrow!