Kicking Off Dad's Birthday Month

Saturday we went to Eupora to visit with the Cummings side of the family and to start the celebrations of Dad's 80th birthday.  May is a month of memorials in Webster County and Dad's family gets together and goes around to the cemeteries to place flowers on family graves.  This year Mom decided to add a little birthday celebration to the gathering since Dad will be turning 80 on May 19th.  We had a good time visiting and eating!  Here are some pictures.....

Dad's sisters brought some old pictures for everyone to look at and reminisce.

Matt and Caleb found a way to get some ball playing in.

The Cummings men.  Aren't we handsome!!!

McKenzie and my aunt, Sallie.

Andy and Matt, or Abomination vs. Iron Man.

Happy Birthday to you!  Matt had to help!

The ladies facing the camera on the left are Dad's sisters, Sallie and Louise.

Home Run Hitter and Home Improvements

Tonight Matt had his first t-ball game of the season. We are the Bulldogs and David is coaching his team again. We were glad that the storms held off, so that we could play our game in the Frankie Bailey tournament that raises money for St. Jude. Matt had a lot of fun. He hit one to the fence and got a home run. He got a few people out on defense, too. During the month of May he will play 15 games! David and Matt love every minute of it, though. It is entertaining to watch these little kids, so McKenzie and I have fun, too.

In other news...more home improvements. We are slowly but surely making this house our own. I love putting my touch on it and making it more "us". It's fun to cross projects of my list! I have found a great contractor thanks to Betty and Ward. He doesn't mind coming and doing small projects. He is also the guy who built my mantle and added moldings to improve the large bookcase.

I know this may sound weird, but I wanted a new back door for Christmas. The one I had was ugly,broken and looked a little shabby. So David gave me the door and we are just now getting around to having it installed. I decided on another steel french door because of rain blowing in on it and thought that might be more practical. We had it painted a neutral color called milk paint.  I also found some pretty door handles at Lowes that match my light fixture. I have wanted this project done since the day we moved in so I am happy that it is completed!

The next project our contractor completed today was our foyer. I am very pleased with how it turned out. It looks completely different. It use to be a cranberry red and I had it painted a color called morning fog. We also had crown molding put up and that was the finishing touch it needed. The color is a shade lighter than what we had painted behind our bookshelves back in the fall. I like the way the color wraps around from the bookcase into the foyer. Here are a few pics...

Easter Snapshots

We have had a great laid back Easter weekend. We started our weekend off Thursday night going to see the movie Hop. It was a really cute movie and we all enjoyed it. David and the kids were home on Friday. Friday night we met all the Cummings clan to celebrate Cassie's 19th birthday. I can't believe she is 19! She was only 7 months old when David and I started dating. Cassie's request was Woody's in Winona. We had a great time. Jan brought a cute cake for us to eat for dessert.

Sunday we enjoyed Sunday school and a great service at church. David, Andy and Lauren sang It Is Finished and it was awesome! After church we went to Mexicana for our "non-traditional " Easter meal. It was delicious. After lunch we decided to take some pictures of the kids in their Easter outfits. Here are a few and also a few pics of Matt at our church's Easter egg hunt last weekend.

Yard Stuff and Easter Decorating

I have been taking advantage of the pretty weather and getting some things done in the yard. My plants made it through that terrible summer drought. Thank goodness, I didn't want to have to replace any this year. However my azaleas to the left of the driveway that have been here for years are not blooming well.  I didn't feed them last year so maybe a little Miracle Gro will help them bloom next year. Here are a couple of  pictures that I took after putting out pine straw a few weekends ago.

 Last year

 This year

 Last year

 This year

Easter will be here soon, so it is time to do a little spring decorating. I am so pleased with McKenzie and Matt's eggs this year. Matt's has a school house on it to represent his year in 4 yr. old preschool and McKenzie's has a pageant bunny on it to represent the two pageants she won last year. They are so cute...

I did something different for the front door this year. I used this cute bunny that was in McKenzie's nursery. I had a big bow made for it to make it look like he is sitting on it. Then I hot glued a few Easter eggs to the bow. Around by the back door, I used my Easter egg wreath.

April and May are turning out to be very busy months for the Cummings household. School is almost out so that means t-ball, preschool graduation, church musicals and dance recital. My head is spinning just thinking about it all but we will enjoy this season of life that we are in right now. McKenzie and Matt are growing up fast!

School News

Last Saturday Matt's school, Miss Mary's, had a 20th year celebration open house.  Matt was so excited about it and talked about it all week leading up to it.  We got to see Matt's room and some of the work that he's done and he showed us what he does and what he plays with every day.  They had a fun jump, snow cones, and popcorn.

In other school news, McKenzie will be going to the Superintendent's Breakfast Thursday morning.  All students who have all A's for the year up to this point are invited to join the Superintendent for breakfast at the high school cafeteria.  McKenzie will get to ride the bus from her school to the high school.  She is very excited and we are very proud of her!