The past week or so....

We did an easter egg hunt with our mom's morning out group two weeks ago....it was a lot of fun! I'm really going to miss these mom's and kids, they've been such a blessing to me and my kids here in wauchula!
AJ painted a picture of our family...it's definitely a happy picture!

Josiah's best friend here is Rawson...he's come over to play a lot recently since both boys have sisters on the battle of the books team (and they practice after school)....another sad thing to think about with us leaving in two months.

Kylie won 2nd place in her age group (3rd to 5th grade) in a poetry contest that the library had going on this month. She got a 20 dollar giftcard to wal-mart...and spent it on post-it notes, index cards, a pencil sharpener and mechanical pencils! (shows a little of who she is in what she bought) :)

A friend in town has been giving us fresh eggs for several months now...she took a dozen of those eggs and put them in incubators for 3 weeks and ended up with eleven chicks!! We've had fun going to visit the chicks...they are so sweet! Kylie and Josiah have even named a few of them.

Kylie with wise-guy (who has a little owl-like face)

We went to Orlando this weekend to meet Mr. Bill (who was in florida for work)...we took the kids putt-putt golfing and went to Golden Corral for lunch...which was a lot of fun. At the putt-putt place there were live aligators that you could feed with a piece of hot dog speared onto the end of a fishing pole type of thing. The kids had a blast with that. You can imagine what it might've been like with 3 adults, 2 big kids, 1 little kid and 2 toddlers all with a golf club and ball. Needless to say, I was carrying 3 clubs and 5 balls by the end of the 5th hole (the lady had given us extra, anticipating that we'd lose one or two)...it was exhausting and fun! Thanks, Bill, for driving out to see us!! It's always nice to visit.

We got back from orlando just in time to get the twins set up with the babysitter and head off to our youth choir banquet at a restaurant in town. Here are the kids with "big momma" (Mary) who has worked so hard teaching them songs and is so patient with them. She had trophies for all the kids, it was a really nice time!

I cannot believe that May is this week!! It's such a crazy time of year with everything wrapping up and school ending...I was packing a few boxes today of things that we won't be using in the next two months and was amazed as I thought back to how faithful God has been to provide for our family....a great house, friends that we have only known for two years but love dearly, a chance to be in the midst of the saints here at Faith PCA...we're definitely going to miss it. But... I am excited about Trinity Fellowship and I am excited to see how God will work in us and through us in Sherwood. Please continue to pray for these next couple months...for our house to sell (we have an open house next saturday)...for the 7 of us as we begin to think about saying our goodbyes. Thanks for checking in!!

Arkansas bound!

Hi all! Just a quick note to let all my non-facebook friends know that Trinity Fellowship in Sherwood, Arkansas voted to call Tom as solo pastor of their church and we accepted their invitation! We will transition in early July from Wauchula to North Little Rock by way of Virginia. :) Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. Tom will go before the presbytery in late May to transfer his ordination....which will be the last detail before it's totally official! We are excited about how the Lord might use us and grow us in this next step. I'll try to keep you updated on these next few months as we say goodbye to sweet friends here and move on. It's a bittersweet time. :) :(

Spring Break (part 2)

We met up with the Patton's at siesta key beach for a few hours to play in the sand and visit. The Weaver's joined us a little bit later....it was a really nice time. Everytime we go to the beach I wonder why we don't go more often, the kids have such a great time....but it is a lot of work.

We had an Easter egg hunt at a friend's house on Saturday. I think it was the twins first real egg hunt, they got the hang of it pretty quickly!

Dying easter eggs on Saturday afternoon!

We spent the afternoon with the Landress's today. It was nice to combine our food efforts and just chill with the kids. We did another little easter egg hunt and watched "Bolt" together. All in all it has been a very full spring break....definitely not too relaxing, but we had a lot of fun! Kids head back to school tomorrow and hopefully we'll have a little bit of "normal" around here. (whatever that looks like) :)

Spring Break (part 1)

Josiah and some of his classmate buddies at field day

We had the firetruck come to mom's morning out last tuesday. The kids enjoyed getting a chance to sit on the driver's seat and see all the cool firetruck tools.

Leighton got sick right before we had to leave for AR....the doctor said it was some sort of asthmatic thing and put her on steroids and albuterol neb treatments....my little independent girl wouldn't let me hold the mask on for her, she had to do it herself.

Kylie got Top Cat (a citizenship award) and was given her award at the assembly the friday before spring break!

The PTO did a penny drive the week before spring break....each grade had a teacher volunteer to be the pie in the face person...and the 3 grades with the highest amount of money got to throw a pie in the 3 grades with the lowest amount of money. The vice-principal and principal also had goals for the whole school set and after raising over 2500 dollars they both got pies in their faces! The kids loved it.

I took my camera to Arkansas with us and this is the only picture that I took. I think after the craziness of getting there I was just so tired and overwhelmed...I really didn't even think once about taking a picture (which, if you know me...is not me at all!). Many of you have heard our crazy travel story......because of the assembly that we were at school for on friday noontime (and because we weren't fully ready to leave after the assembly) we missed our flight out of orlando that afternoon. The guy at the desk told us our only option was to fly out the next morning (saturday)...we had to pay the penalty for changing the ticket, but did it and ended up staying in a hotel in orlando for the night (and took the kids to see monsters vs. aliens, which was fun!). Did i mention that Kylie had thrown up friday morning and Josiah threw up in the car on the way to the airport? We arrived in AR on saturday afternoon...our time there was busy, but a lot of the time was just visiting with people and getting to know them and the area. We met with the search committee on saturday night, Tom met with the session on sunday night, we had a dinner with five or so families on monday night.... monday we spent most of the day driving around town looking at neighborhoods, getting tours of several schools in the area.....Sherwood is the city that the church is located in but it's looking like we might actually try to live in North Little Rock, which is another suburb of Little Rock....all three cities seem to run together a good bit. Anyways, the visit itself was very nice and we feel like this could be it! The congregation will be voting on us in a week...and we'll continue to process our time and pray about this being our next step.....please pray with us!! I'm getting more sad at the thought of our time in Wauchula coming to an end. I'm going to miss a lot of people here. But, I'm excited about the next step...and I know that God will provide for us wherever we end up next! Ok, so on tuesday we went to the airport to fly home and found out then that when we missed our flight on friday, the guy cancelled our roundtrip ticket, applied the penalty fee towards changing it to a ONE WAY ticket to little rock!....We didn't have a flight home on tuesday....instead of paying 1500 to fly out either later tuesday or early wednesday (since we only had 2 kids) we decided to rent a car, buy a bunch of dvd's at wal-mart and drive the 16 hours home....we got home with two hours to spend with rose marie before tom had to drive her to tampa to catch her flight back to VA. whew....we were sooo glad to get home!

The 3 big kids with grandma. Thanks, Rose Marie, for spending the week with the 3 littles!!

We've done some fun things this week since we've been back....I'll post more pics soon!

Day trip to Lowry Park Zoo!

We got a zoo pass last march when we were chaperones for kylie's class field trip....and finally made it back to the zoo yesterday before the pass expired! We were there from 10 to 2 and had a great time...the weather was perfect (not too hot, not too cold) all of the animals were out (except the skunks who were sleeping and a few more unimportant animals). The twins especially had a fun time seeing the animals that they are learning in their books. Leighton loved feeding the goats the leaves that she found on the ground. Matthias loved the "monkeys".

fyi: tom and i and the 2 big kids are flying (in just a little under two weeks) to arkansas to candidate at a church out there. My mother-in-law will be coming in to take care of the three little kids while we're gone. Please pray for us as we are apart...for safety for all of us, for grandma taking care of the kids, for Tom and i as we interview and meet the congregation out there....to know whether this church is where God wants us or not. Thanks!! We'll keep you updated!

Mirabella family photo shoot....

for my family and my non-facebook friends....here are several pics we had taken recently from a good friend in town.

strawberry picking and 2 year birthday party!

We went to Gardner farm with some friends from our preschool co-op. The kids had a blast picking (and eating) strawberries.

Matthias and Leighton turned 2 today!! We had a party with some church friends and some preschool co-op friends. It was fun....and I'm glad it's done with. :)

an attempt at a group shot.....only about half of the kids there, and the twins didn't want anything to do with it. oh well...i tried!