A Time for "Firsts"

 Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings...  Psa 17:8

Some of you know how much we struggled with whether or not we should start Owen in Kindergarten this year. We prayed about it for months but once we made the decision to start him we felt such a peace about the decision. Now, having seen him go for a full week we are so confident we made the right choice. He LOVES school and we are so happy for him. The adjustment has gone very well for him. He has the same Kindergarten teacher Noah had, which we considered an answer to prayer because we just love her. Noah started FIRST grade! He really likes his teacher, Mrs. Gilly. He and his kindergarten class all moved up to first grade together so he is with the same group of kids. This is a great thing as all the kids in that class are super. I was talking to Noah and Owen one day last week asking about recess and what they played. Noah said to me that he was looking for Owen at recess because he really wanted to play with him but couldn't find him. Owen says, "you were looking for ME? You wanted to play with ME?" and then, after Noah shakes his head yes, he turns to reveal a huge grin on his face. You just can't beat a moment like that when you see the friendship your kids have developed and see how much they love each other. I pray they never lose that!                                                                                                   

Ben was on vacation this week and we were able to get a lot of projects around the house completed. I've been wanting the shutters put up all summer but we had to paint them first. Of course you can't do that without cleaning them and apparently you can't clean them without a pressure washer so Ben went out and bought his FIRST one so we could do this. We also had to paint the front door cranberry to match since it was blue.

Shutters are up, gravel is down
so I could start planting!

Ben preparing our house for the "death
angel", haha! (if you're confused
read Exodus 12)

And finally Will got to go apple picking for the FIRST time. This was the first year we go that he is old enough to do it himself. All the boys had a great time. We have gone different places but this year found a cute place in Berwick called, "Pine Hill Orchards". The people were very friendly and allowed us to lay a blanket down in the middle of the orchard and have a picnic while we picked apples. It was a beautiful day for this and we all enjoyed being able to take our time and relax.