Stepper Photos

Football season is here, and it's time to take Jr. Stepper photos!  It was Cille's first year to be a Jr. Stepper.  She has been dreaming of being a Stepper since kindergarten, when I bought her the cheer outfit instead of the Stepper outfit because it was half the price...

Cousin Claire was hanging in the courtyard and got to be a part of the photo op...

I liked the background of last year's photo more, but Stella is still beautiful, whatever the background...

Best friends and Steppers...

Times two...

The girls humored me and took a sibling photo.  I mean, how often do siblings get to be on the same team together? 

Pretty girls everywhere...

 

Planting Trees and Roofing Stands

Ahhhh, hunting season.  My least favorite of the seasons.  I have always viewed his lack of a desire to hunt or fish as one of Damon's finest qualities.  Unfortunately, neither my father in law nor my son share this admirable trait, which means that each fall, several weekends are spent "getting the stands ready."  In the past I have been lucky enough to avoid being involved in this project, but this year there were hundreds of trees to plant, so the entire family and our side-by-side got drafted into the woods...

Child labor at its finest...

At least all this sweating and struggling brought them together...

Deep Woods Off was a necessity...

Even kindergarteners did not escape the job...

Teamwork makes the dream work! 

Double unfortunately for me, it was time for two of the stands to be re-roofed.  This involved hijinks in the bucket of the tractor that would make an OSHA inspector shudder and SO. MANY. ROACHES.  You may not know this about me, but roaches are my kryptonite.  Imagine me stuck in the bucket of a tractor under the roof of a deer stand with multiple roaches crawling all over it and no escape route.  The horror was extreme.  The next time a stand needs to be re-roofed, I may fake Covid...

Did I mention we also saw a bear?!?!?!

These faces pretty much sum up the joy of the entire project...

Don't let the smiles fool you, we all hope those new roofs last forever! 
 

Flag Football

Flag football is so much fun!  Damon and I both played on intramural teams in college (we even went to the state tournament) and even when he was in law school, although by then it was an experience that ended in crippling soreness.  Watts has always had a great time playing at Istrouma.  This year Damon got to coach with a friend and our team name was the Dragons...

Every once in a while you find a family where the parents click, the big kids click, and the baby brothers click also.  When you find that family, you don't let them get away! 

Sweet buddies! 

 

Corinne's First Day of Kindergarten

You may have noticed a special someone not having a sign in the last post, and that's because the early childhood division does a staggered start schedule and Corinne's first day was a couple of days after the big kids.  To get ready the night before, we had a special bedtime story...

Then we had a whole family photo op the next morning...

Corinne's class has a Toy Story theme and they got to make Forky on their first day to be their friend...

Corinne made some new friends on her first day of school, but she already knew some of her classmates from church or siblings...

Corinne chose a very viable career goal...

I am not sure who was more nervous in the carpool line, me or Corinne.  Corinne was my child in preschool who had to have an elaborate ritual of washing her hands and hugging and kissing multiple times in a specific order in order to be dropped off without tears.  To be honest, I was afraid she had pretty severe OCD, it was that over the top.  Then we were together in a house for 6 months thanks to a pandemic, and thanks also to that pandemic, parents weren't allowed inside the school building for the first drop off.  My terror alert was on orange and I did not know how this was gonna pan out.  Can I tell you that when we pulled up to the front of the line Corinne hopped out and waved at me like a pro?  No tears from this kid, not even a look back! There were tears in the car afterward, but they were mine...

My last kindergartener...

And here's a comparison shot of all four of our little Eagles on their first day of kindergarten at Parkview Baptist School...

 And although Corinne is actually in T1, we are still calling it Kindergarten for her because it is her kindergarten year, even though she got bumped up a little bit.