Cedie's Garden 2008

We have added a multi-colored Rose garden to Cedie's memory garden this year. The roses are already starting to bloom!






Dylan and I bought her garden a butterfly as an early birthday present.

My Wonderful Son

On their way home this afternoon, Dylan informed Chris that he did not want a job when he grows up. He wants to do his art and build a house. This led to the following conversation about art:

Dylan: did you know that when someone tells me to draw something, I don't have to draw exactly what they say?
Chris: Explain.
Dylan: If someone tells me to draw a star, I can draw Cedie.
Chris: What if they tell you to draw a rose
Dylan: I can draw mom.
Chris: A tree?
Dylan: Grandpa
Chris: A flower?
Dylan: Cedie

Is he not the most thoughtful, sweet, seven year old ever???

We're still here... Sort of

We still do not have a computer at home (due to the lightening strike that hit our house graduation weekend)so I haven't been able to upload my pictures or keep up with the blogs much.

Here's some updates though:

Dylan has finished 1st grade! He made the honor roll all year and his reading/writing/spelling/math skills have all developed quite well. We are confident that he is ready to tackle 2nd grade at his new school in the fall. He is officially enrolled in a small (very very small) Christian Academy for the 2008-2009 school year and we are all three very excited about embarking on this new adventure come August.

Baseball season has kept us very busy this month. Unfortunately, quite a few games have been rained-delayed but the games we have played have all been intense and so much fun to watch! We had 4 games scheduled for this week. Tuesdays game was cancelled due to rain but they played last night and should play tonight and Saturday. After Saturday, they have one more game on 6/7 (G-daddy's birthday!) and then it will be tournament time! Dylan has had a blast playing this season and Chris has enjoyed coaching.

Chris helped out a BBQ Fest again this year. Dylan and I went down there to eat and hang out with him on Wednesday and Thursday. We all had a lot of fun. One year Chris hopes to have his own team. That would really be a blast!

Memorial Day weekend Dylan went on his first vacation without us (it was alot harder on me than it was on him). He went to Savannah, TN with his Godmother Rachel, his "Uncle" Tre, and their children Grant and Tatum. They had a blast all weekend riding their four wheelers, playing in the water, and making s'mores at a bon fire. Chris and I spent the weekend at Spring River on canoes. It was fun but we sure missed our boy. We couldn't wait to get him back Monday.

We have a busy summer planned. The 3 of us are going to spend a week in Florida in June. In July we are going to Hot Springs for a few days and we're having a big family reunion with all of Chris' side of the family. When we are at home, Dylan is going to the same "camp" (he doesn't like it to be called a "sitter") that he went to last summer and they have lots of fun activities planned.

Hopefully we will be able to get a new computer soon so I can download pics for you!

Dylan's Field Day Pictures

Mother's Day 2008

I hope all my Mother friends had a Teriffic Mother's Day! Dylan made mine very special!

Early Mother's Day Present

Eva's mom, Crystal, sent this to me today. It was so special, I just had to share.



(if you double-click on the image, it will get bigger and easier to read)
Thank you so much!

Some Graduation Pics

Final Grades

I got ll my grades for the Spring semester in today. All As! What a great way to end my college career!

Course Title Grade
ENGL 3401 Childrens Literature A
ENGL 4243 Studies/British Fiction A
ENGL 4322 Am Lit/Mjr Wrt Snc 1860 A
ENGL 3327 American Lit To 1890 A
ENGL 4900 Independent Study A
PHYS 1002 Astronomy Laboratory A
SOC 3700 Sociology Of Childhood A
SPAN 2020 Intermediate Spanish II A

I will post graduation day pictures later this afternoon. Friday night we had some bad weather hit. Lightning stuck our house and fried our modems and computer. Chris is working on all this calls this morning to get us back up and running.

I'M DONE!!

After 9 semesters, which spanned over 10 years, after 45 classes, 130 credits: I have finally finished my bachelor's degree (with honors, I might add)! I took my last exam yesterday and my graduation is tomorrow.

So many ask: "What are you going to do now?"

I plan to write a book, actually two. I want to write a book on Cedie's life. Using the blog entries from her blog, I hope to put into words her life's story(complete with tons of pictures, of course, because she was so beautiful!). I hope it will be as inspirational as she was.

I also plan to write my own "creative non-fiction narrative" on my experience of motherhood. I began research for this project this past semester for an independent study. My main goal is to get this story published so that other mothers who find themselves facing such difficult obstacles can find some comfort in knowing they are not alone and they can make it through things with the help of God, family, and friends.

Besides writing books, I also plan to keep my job as Office Manager for Delta Surveillance and spend more time with my wonderful son and husband, who have been so amazingly supportive as I put myself through school.

We also plan to get more serious in our adoption search, now that I will have more time. We are praying on one possibility right now and we should know more about that towards the middle of this month and can proceed from there.

The graduation ceremony is tomorrow and Chris has said he will take picture, so look for that post Sunday or so.

Thank you all for your support.