First day of First Grade

My Julietta started first grade today! I can't believe the time is already here and I can not believe she is so old already! Where does time go?
Here are some things about Julietta:
What she wants to be when she gets older: Marine Biologist
Favorite Color: Still loves Pink, Purple, and White. Her new favorite is Blue
Favorite thing to do: She loves to sing, dance, be a rock star. She still loves to color and draw. She loves Barbie, Hello Kitty, and still Disney Princess
She loves all things Dolphins and Peace signs!
She is still doing Gymnastics and she has recently started to love swimming.
She has a heart of Gold.
She loves her family and she loves Jesus. She prays every night that he will take away her sins.

I will ask her some more questions tomorrow about 1st grade and update any other information :)

Done with Kindergarten????

Yes that is correct, my sweet little baby girl is done with Kindergarten. Can that be correct? She just started. Literally I think it was last week that she just started. While that's not serious it is what it feels like. Julietta has grown up so much this year, but not in the ways that I feared. She has remained who she is and has stayed the sweet innocent little girl that she was on her first day. She has had some heartache dealing with other girls that are not as sweet and innocent as she is, but she stayed a good friend and has learned so much. She has learned that God made her to have a sweet spirit and gave her the gift of loving others. She said that is why he put a heart birthmark on her, because she loves! Julietta also made it through the entire year of getting green owls everyday! I am so proud of her. She loves school and loves to learn.
Here are some pictures from their end of the year party!

 Julietta getting her certificate saying that she completed Kindergarten.

 Julietta's teacher Mrs. Fields. The best teacher we could've asked for! She was wonderful :)

 Her friend Madison.

 This is her BFF Alexia. They found out today that they are in the same class next year! Yay!

 The teachers aid Mrs. Skiscim. She was wonderful too. They just loved on Julietta!

 Etta reading her end of the year writing about everything she learned in K and what she liked.

Julietta, Alexia, and Marley. They had so much fun this year!

We were very happy with our year, and after having so much worry about sending her to public school had a wonderful experience. We will be off for 4 weeks and then Julietta will start 1ST GRADE, on July 30th :)

this week

So, this blog is slowly just becoming about my struggle with my weight, but trying to not make it that! I did lose 3 pounds this week, so that's at least in the right direction :) 32 until my ultimate goal.... lol. That's gonna take forever at the rates I am going!

Anyway, the kiddos have been sick this week. Last night they all had fevers and were just yucky. I am praying that they get over it fast. Also I have stopped on the potty training Ender for the moment. It just wasn't going smooth, so I am waiting until I get back from my intensive to re-start. Next week I am leaving from Sunday until Friday to go to Liberty and do one of my three intensives. I can not say I am looking forward to it. Part of me is really excited to actually be doing some practical classroom stuff for counseling. The other part of me is hating leaving my family for that long, and missing 4th of July. But since money is tight I am sharing a room with 3 other girls in a hotel to keep cost down. While it's awesome to keep cost down, I do not know these girls. So the idea of sharing a bed with someone I do not know is making me a little nervous. Pray for Randy too during this week. He will be alone with the kids the whole time. He has never done this and while he will do great, it can be quite stressful and no fun. My mom and brother and sister are going to be out of town that week too, so he will have no help what so ever.

I will try and post a video soon, but Julietta is getting really close to swimming on her own. While this may seem late to some, this is the girl who hated getting her hair washed because she does not like water on her face. So for her to be swimming without a life vest and willingly putting her head under the water (even for 2 seconds) is a VERY BIG milestone!!!!

day one of raw

Today has been pretty good considering! This morning I had a banana with about a tablespoon of peanut butter. For a snack I had an apple. For lunch I had carrots and celery with hummus. I then got hungry again about an hour later and had another apple with another tablespoon of peanut butter. For dinner I had a big salad made of romaine, carrots, celery, avocado, and I had one hard boiled egg, with Goddess dressing. I know the egg is not vegan or raw. When reading about Raw and Vegan the most important thing is 90% coming from plants. Obviously with raw that needs to be raw plants. I needed some more protein today so I decided it was ok. My goal is to have 90% be raw vegan. I also must confess that I had my coffee with alittle cream and stevia in it. I am not ready to give up coffee or creamer. I have been in a little fog and a little cranky. I also have a headache now at the end of the day. I'm sure this is the sugar withdraw. However, it might be that time and it was raining today so we were all inside. That might be why I'm cranky ;)
I have not had the big detox effects yet that everyone talks about. From what I've read though this sometimes doesn't happen until around day 3. Praying for big results this week! I have done goo with water. I am one water bottle away from a gallon and it's only 7:30. I will get that in! I read somewhere that you should have the gallon in  by 4 so I will work on that tomorrow :)

End of 30 days

So I did 30 days of vegan. I gotta say I liked it. I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted. Almost 3 pounds which is really nothing. So, I'm taking this weekend off and then starting Monday, I am going Raw.... :) Hoping this does the trick!

Pullen Park

 Ender loves the train. It's such a fun part of the park.

 Big kids on the boat. There was no way Kyleigh would get on that!

 So she watched along with Nana

The girls riding the train! 

There is this awesome park here in Raleigh that has little boats, a merry go round, train, and playground. It also is on a lake. Mom and I took the kids one Sunday morning. And I'm pretty sure that is the best time to go. The park is always slammed. It re-opened recently and we went for the grand-opening and it was heart attack central. I was so stressed when I got home because I just felt like I could not keep an eye on my children. It wasn't crowed at all on Sunday morning. Raleigh is a fairly religious area so I'm assuming that is what it's about. We left around 2 and it was starting to pick up. We will be going tons in the fall but I'm hoping to get one more chance to go in before it gets too hot.
The kids had a blast. Kyleigh did not like the merry-go-round. I'm not sure why except it was kind of fast. Next time I'll try sitting with her in my lap.

pool days

This weekend we went to our pool and then to my moms pool. I say we and it was me and the big kids. Kyleigh is still deathly afraid of any and all water since the beach so she stayed home with Randy. However, he wants to go so she is going to have to get over it because we plan on spending LOTS of time at the pool this summer. It was so nice. I got a tan and felt wonderful to soak up the Vitamin D and the kids just had a blast! Ender had an accident at mom's pool and thankfully he was wearing a pool diaper, but it was still pretty sketchy. I felt bad since it was a neighborhood pool..... so we are potty training as we speak. It may be hard and long but he's almost 3 and it's time!

These are just two pictures from Saturday at our pool. I'm sure I will have a ton more as the summer goes along. Etta is doing really good swimming. She is finally putting her face in the water and we are trying to teach her out to tread water. I'd love to put her in swimming lessons but right now that's not an option. But she is doing wonderful without them!