What to be thankful for...

Yesterday the Shockley's had a very nice, very quiet thanksgiving day. Dad and I checked in with mum, memaw and grandaddy, and g-daddy Dave and nana Hazel - giving thanks to them for all they have done and still do for us and our children, we are so very blessed to have such great parents/grandparents.
We had fun visiting with our pastor and his family for dinner. Robert and Paige and their kids are the best and they are great fun to hang out with and they share our sense of humor ( good thing as we see what may have come to pass).
David told me on our way home that if during the blessing before dinner he asked everyone to share one thing they were "thankful" for, he had it all ready, he was going to say and I don't doubt he would have, " I am thankful that I don't have to stay and clean up all this crap after dinner and we get to just go home! ". Kinda says it all doesn't it?
We missed Rachel yesterday - it's our first thanksgiving without her for the last 8 years and it sucks because I really miss having her here. I can't wait till Newyears and we get her on our trip to Savannah.

What a Monday

It's Monday of a short week and to make up for that today had more than it's fair share of stuff going on. Emma's school had their thanksgiving feast today for lunch and big daddio got to go to her school and visit ( he packed though, how lame ) it was report card day for Emma too! Once again she achieved completed for all tasks assigned this past 6 weeks and two of her "good" scores for behavior and whatnot got bumped up to "outstandings" !!! Emma also brought home the results for her testing earlier this year for SOL's ( standard of learning tests ) and our of a possible 102 points and only needing 28 to pass ( yes, this is kindergarten ) Emma scored 95. I told David right away and he asked what kind of punishment we were going to give her for leaving those 7 points on the table. Wow! Guess we don't have to worry about holding her back to summer school or anything.
Sinking Spring preschool had their thanksgiving feast today as well, we held class until 11 am then filed downstairs to the fellowship hall for lunch. We have just over 50 kids including the babies I take care of and parents, we had almost 100 people down there feasting on lots of good stuff! The noise level there was the equivalent of the last rock concert I attended, with 50 kids there was laughing, crying, and lots of spilling but that's ok, it was a fun morning. Hope fell asleep on the way home from school so that can be a compliment in itself.
Tonite we are laying low - saying a prayer at dinner for the Maryland Terrapin basketball team who play UCLA at 7pm. We are having a work buddy of david's over to watch them keep their head above water and drink a beer and share some wings.....
and yes, it's only Monday.

Jump rope kind of weekend

Retro picture

To make up for no new pictures here some old.

Where does it go... ?

Time that is... we don't have any new pictures of this week, and last week Hope was puking so we decided not to put any of those on the blog.
Hope has recovered, someone still please knock on some wood, and life got back to crazy normal.
Dad is working away crunching numbers, Emma is learning the letters Qq and Rr and grouping numbers up to 10, Hope learned about native american indians and teepees, and today in bible study the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, Rachel is working hard at 6th grade - I am sure another stellar report will be forth coming next week, and I have been taking care of the babies at church and making jewelry for the crap er.. craft show this weekend.
Tonite we are cleaning up a bit, getting ready for the weekend, this is one of the good weekends... ergo - Rachel weekend and she is bringing a buddy with her Alicia... did I mention the craft show? i'll be working it friday, saturday and sunday from 9 am to 5pm... go big Daddio - he can handle 4 girls with his arms tied around his back i'm sure ( and it being the ratio of 4:1 they just may tie him up and leave him on the porch ).
We promise lots of good pictures to come this weekend so tune in next week and see.

Current once again...

The blog is now current for all to look upon and read... sorry we ( I ) fell off the wagon yet again, but Hope got the same bug Emma had before Halloween last Sunday night, and tuesday night and friday morning.... so not much was accomplished. Every time we tried to do something she puked so it was a week for us to lay low and throw our arms in the air and say we will try again this week.

Gotta love kids...

I was driving home tonite with Emma and Hope and looked off to the mountains behind us and told them to check out the beautiful sunset. Emma responded "AWESOME" ( her word of the month ) and Hope said " I wish when we get home... I could pet a kitty, a soft one. "
How do you respond to that?

Leaves...

Not much needed to say here except, we sure do have some beautiful kids!

Trick or Treat

I think Halloween day was one of the fastest day's of my life! Emma had school, no parites, no candy no dressing up... what's up with that? Hope and I had preschool, which entailed, parties and candy. Hope came home somehow with a shopping bag full of treats, there are only 11 kids in her class...?? at least with the babies we just had baked apples and left it at that. We ran home, had some lunch, then I gathered what was needed for the afternoon program at church, then headed to school to get the kids there and bring them to Sinking Spring. We had our "fall festival" at church, the girls and I decorated the day before with ewwwy webbing and spiders and balloons.... we played games, did crafts, had a cake walk ( its a southern thing, that I am just now finding out about after 20 or so years of living down here )... filled them with cupcakes and juice and turned them loose outside for the last 15 minutes to kill some of the sugar rush they all had. We then raced home, put on costumes, hit our neighbors across the street and next door, they are always so good to the girls and we don't have any other kids on the street we had to say hello and show costumes. Then... we went over to the Tolar's house for dinner then trick/treating in their neighborhood. I had bought some of those snap and glow bracelets so we knew where our brood of 9 ghoulies were on our walk around. We hit the road about 8:15pm and Hope fell asleep in the car before we made it to the end of the road. A great day was had by the kiddo's.