B.S.C.

celebrate!

This girl...

(taken at Lake Mayfield Sept 03, 2011)

I am so proud of this girl. 

Last year, we made her do swim team at my gym.  She wasn't interested in any other sports, so we told her..."you swim or we make you play soccer/softball."  

She quickly chose swimming. And we made her do it.  ALL. SCHOOL. YEAR. LONG.

I'd be lying if I told you that we actually started paying the girls $1.00 a day for going to the activities the last 3 months of the year.  Granted it was part of doing their homework and cleaning their rooms and doing helpful things around the house, but we didn't come through with $$$ if they didn't go to their activity.  It was Eric's idea, mainly because he is NEVER home when the girls have to go to their activities so I've got no back up to make them go.  Every day I'd be dreading the moment the bus pulled up because I knew there would be a battle.  

And, while she swam for the 45 minutes each session, there didn't seem to be a lot of effort and motivation in what she was doing.  (and I was like, who am i to judge?  I can't swim a lap with out almost passing out.)

So we started up with swimming last week.  Gracie was ready to go and seemed to be looking forward to it.  She had a new assistant coach who worked with her the first three sessions.  

Then yesterday, she had her old coach.  I didn't watch because I take that as my opportunity to work out. So when I went to pick her up, the coach came over and shared with me how Gracie is SOOOOOO much stronger, balanced and motivated.  She raved on and on.  

I almost cried. I am so proud of that kid. 

success

the first day of 1st and 4th grade was a success!

the girls woke up to a little morning first day celebration.

and then they were very patient while i took some pictures

and i fell in love with them all over again in this dreamy light

miss gracie wore a shirt from the nordy's sale, tractor shorts and purple converse

and how cool are her shoes?  i want a pair.  unfortunately she picked a scab right after she put her shoes on.  we had a little blood to deal with.  she was freaked out that it might get on her new shoes.

she was so cheerful and independent this morning.  it was a little bittersweet.  and i was very thankful that they were so excited to take pictures.  i think it was the sign.  she was so excited about it that she wants to save it for her scrapbook.  

once home, she reported having a great day.  her cheers at dinner time was to a great first day of school.  she, DID NOT, however want me going through her back pack.  she emptied it out on her own.  cleaned out her lunch bag and gave me the papers i needed.  i don't know how long that will last, but i sure liked it!

this one woke up first this morning.

she came out of her room dressed and went downstairs to look for me-i was drying my hair-when she saw me she said that she saw the decorations downstairs already, but she could pretend to be surprised when we went back downstairs.  ha!  i assured her it wasn't that serious.  i think she had flashbacks to the christmas morning the flip recorder wasn't on...

anyway, she was so excited this morning that she was practically bouncing off the walls. miss annie chose to wear a cute little plaid number from crazy 8 complete with a matching headband.  she had matching clogs but they are still a little big.  sadly, the cute pair of shoes from nordy's that she decided to wear turned out to be not very comfortable.  grrreeeeaaaat.  that's money well spent. 

3 things about that picture 1. there's that dreamy light again 2. when i see that sweet, happy scrunch face i want to cry 3.  what are we going to do when annie stops wearing headbands?

when annie got home, she reported having a great day, loving her teacher and making a new friend (her locker partner).  success!

this one was really giving me a some nice smiles today.  

the bus was a little wonky. it came from the other way and the kdis all scrambled to get to the other side of the road so all i got was this.

they had a great afternoon and evening playing with friends, going on a little bike ride (annie is finally motivated to ride her bike and realizes she's the only six year old in the world who still rides with training wheels), a nice dinner with mommy (that i have to report with joy...EVERYONE ate and i didn't cook anything extra...unabashed bragging here...my girls asked for seconds of broccoli. BROCCOLI.) one 1/2 hour show and then reading before bed. 

happy new school year!

first day

back to school today.  wishing these two a fabulous year.  i LOVE them so much!  

more photos to come tonight!

 

last day

i have three blog posts, but i don't think i have time to get them done before my bedtime in 10 minutes!!

post 1: the last day

before the bus came this morning

she's a little dramatic with her "cheese"

who looks excited to be done?

this is not a great shot but it's so "annie." 

this is too.

and that is what you get when the kids come running off the bus and you are rapid fire shooting.  i kind of close my eyes and cross my fingers.

and what's a photo op without funny faces?

annie completed kindergarten

 

and one last photo (taken on the way to see Cars 2)

other memories of today:  a great morning. girls super cooperative and ready to go without fuss. mama brought panera lunch a small godiva treat. cars 2 with the friedrichsen's. skinny dip yogurt (mama had to make good on her promise to annie. that will be my next post).  a stop at central market to buy ingredients for carameletos. shake and go for dinner (not the healthiest eating day for us!) and playing with the neighbor kids the rest of the evening. 

welcome summer!
 

father's day and this and that

**this morning annie looked in the mirror and said "i think i'm having a bad hair day"

to which gracie replied "it looks like THAT EVERY DAY."

and annie said "well, THANKS sissy."

all said with great sarcasm.  i laughed hysterically. the apples don't fall far from the trees sometimes.

**we're watching true grit right now.  i feel like we're doing something illegal.  we hardly ever watch a movie let alone on a "school night." fortunately i have busy work to do while watching like, folding laundry, blogging, cutting out box tops (joy) and cutting out letters for VBS decorations.  

let me just tell you that if you think helping on the vbs decoration committee gets you out of actually teaching at VBS...well...you thought wrong.  

i'm in charge of a 2nd grade class.  not a helper, not doing crafts.  in charge.  now who thought that was a good idea?

**i did something crazy and unlike me.  i got in the bod pod at the club this evening.  it's this pod thing that measures weight and percentage of lean muscle mass.  it told me i needed to lose 6 pounds.

i promptly came home and ate a gallon of ice cream to drown my sorrows (not really, we didn't have any in the house). 

**i've been thinking a lot about my run last friday and why it was so, so bad.  i felt like there had to be other reasons, aside from my shoes, that were part of my demise.  

do you think that, maybe just maybe, eating a theo dark chocolate bar with almond and cranberries in place of lunch or half of your child's chocolate easter bunny in place of dinner is not proper nutrition?

**we spent father's day weekend at the townhome. had a nice lazy saturday and invited some  new friends over for dinner since eric said i was cooking enough for 10. 

on the menu:  grilled new york and filet mignon, grilled garlic shrimp, grilled asparagus, homemade mac and cheese (you can find it here. it made a ton but we ate most of it.  it was so good and the kids liked it too. it will become a townhome side dish staple) cilantro butter for the corn on the cob the neighbors brought, a corn, tomato and cilantro salad

and cheesecake bars with chocolate ganache.  uh yeah, will be making these again. and again and again and again.  and surprisingly, 3 out of the 4 kids ate them.  once guess as to who wouldn't eat the rest of hers.  apparently it was "too chocolatey."  turd.

we ate our dessert at the neighbors and the kids made s'mores around their cool little fire pit.

and while making their s'mores, they got an education in what happens when crazy aunt sally drinks too much at the wedding that was being held at the club house-dances off on to the golf course by herself and then trots around the corner to secretly suck on a lug rocket.  so you know, we also got in a lesson about the deadliness of cancer sticks.  

always valuable. 

and us adults had a great evening entertainment with the fine selection of music being played by the dj. i guess there were some famous pro football players there. 

we didn't get the kids to bed until 10:30 that night.  

the next morning annie gave eric a special father's day treat by waking up at 5:30. fortunately she sandwiched her way in between us and managed to successfully hog the king sized bed for the next two hours. 

sunday brought beautiful blue sky and some pool time.  and all of us counting the days until we head back. 

 

gracie is nine!

we celebrated two things today...teacher appreciation AND gracie's 9th birthday!

saturday we had her friends party.  a little bingo and ice cream never hurt anyone, right?

i wish these pictures weren't so dark but honestly i'm too lazy to edit.  i'd rather just get the picture up and journaled.  

i did not make those. aren't they cute?

bingo prizes and let me just tell you i had a hell of a time finding ice cream themed prizes. owls and cupcakes are WAY more popular right now.

pin the cherry on the ice cream cone

i made that! toot-toot

after having a total sugar crap fest i was feeling a little guilty sending the girls home on sugar high as kites highs, eric hooked up the kinect and they all did a little dancing.

these were super dark cause the lighting was so poor and the girls were moving so fast!

the next one cracks me up.  jen-look at your daughter. :)

 

today gracie shared yummy central market snickerdoodles  (made in a nut free bakery, yay!) with her classmates and we celebrated at the spaghetti factory with family.  and once we got home, she was able to buy the american girl doll, kit, with her allowance and birthday money.  happy birthday miss gracie. we love you!!

bad bad blogger

sometimes i forget i have a blog other times i'm too pooped out by the end of the day to think about documenting.  

made some new dishes this week:

tex mex calzones- these were actually really good. because i used the whole package of turkey burger, we ate it for two nights and still have enough left over to use in an egg dish for breakfast this weekend. the second night i used queso.  much better. 

shrimp- this was pretty good too and super easy.

made some Easter cookies this week. improving with the frosting.  not good at adding another frosting on top of the base frosting. guess i'll just need to make more!

tuesday when i went to help in gracie's class, she was so excited to read her essay to me.  her thesis statement:  "everyone should have a sister like mine." LOVE those two together.  they are so, so lucky to have each other. 

we had a great weekend last weekend.  saturday morning started with a trip to the children's museum and then lunch on the water in everett.  the evening ended with a fabulous dinner with friends and two extremely pooped children. 

sunday was church and a long, hilly run (ran a really good time-patting myself on the back here) and then an evening of patty melts (one food that we all like) wine and an episode of wipe out-it's a real bonding experience for daddy and his girls. 

tonight miss annie has her kindergarten concert.  she's so excited.  she laid out her clothes last night so they'd be all ready to go when she gets home this afternoon. 

poor gracie has been battling a uncomfortable tummy for quite awhile now. honestly, it's really hard to know when it really hurts and when it's just uncomfortable.   after two consecutive bouts of two days of not having a bowel movement, i threw in the towel, waved the white flag and took her to the doc last night.  two hours and an x-ray later we learned she was full of poo and full of gas.  and i felt so bad for being so hard on her.  it's so hard to know what's going on in there.  i wish i could see into her tummy every day so i could know exactly what to give her. 

in july we'll be heading into our 6th year of dealing with this.  it got old approximately 4 years ago. i used to have hope that it would go away.  now, i'm not so sure. 

and now to go vacuum out my car.  i dropped something on the side of my seat today and when i went to retrieve it i gagged at the sight of the food stuck in the crevices.  ew.

 

annie finally got to use this tonight

sweet girl lost her first tooth! this morning while she was brushing her teeth.

she left the tooth fairy a note.

it says "take the tooth"

we'll be continuing our work on phonemes "th", "sh" and "ch"

and the tooth fairy had to text daddy this afternoon to make sure he got some ones at the airport because big sis lost another tooth today too.

other anecdotes from my day

work made me chuckle quite a bit.

several funny things happened.  my students are so great!

and then i come home to 

"I DON'T KNOW WHY I AM CRYING BUT I JUST CAN'T STOP!!!!!"

that would be gracie. i guess it's the beginning of the end.  

later in the evening we had a talk about how us ladies have days where we do that and that's just a fact of life and it's ok. she seemed to be ok with that. 

annie wrote a book for uncle todd that he's going to get via snail mail as soon as i send it.  very cute.

annie fell off the swing while i was taking a shower this evening and gracie brought her inside, got her an ice pack and comforted her. 

gracie had swim team tonight.  i saw her last lap and that kid screamed down the pool-they were supposed to swim their fastest and boy, did she ever.  i seriously didn't know that she had it in her!! she was trying to pass other kids but lanes were too crowded.

anxiously awaiting eric to get home from his work trip.

nighty-night.

 

we made it

through a ski season.  

here's to hoping that next year goes a bit more smoothly.  

after her comedy show, annie lit in to how she didn't want to ski.  to be fair, she really hasn't felt good for a few weeks now (i'm feeling another trip to the doc is in order).

we got to the mountain and she absolutely refused to ski.  lori, her instructor was so disappointed. annie went to daycare and we went to the rental shop. 

i had told annie that i'd check on her twice to see if she'd changed her mind. so i checked on her right before we headed up the lift for the first time.  

nope.  but as i was taking gracie to her lesson, lori was heading to daycare to see if she could coerce annie into a lesson.  i gave her carte blanche to do whatever it took to get her on that rope tow.  

eric and i took off with joe and gracie.  after two runs we headed to the bottom of the mountain to check on annie and lo and behold lori had convinced her to ski!!!!  i waved my arms and lori saw us and waved back.  eric and i were elated. 

eric and i were able to take the most runs that we've ever been able to take together and had a great time.  he did great. 

when we finally caught up with gracie and joe at the end of the lesson we learned that she had done very well too!  she was proud that she hadn't fallen once. 

so we went to the lodge to celebrate with hot cocoa and french fries.

it was well received.

good bye mountain, we'll see you next year. ok getting a little teary.  it was hard to say goodbye to joe,  lori, dave and company.

now we're home and eating the dinner of champions.  wine and cheese and crackers.  so good.

nighty-night.

 

a fune cmebin!

we were woken up at approximately 7:23 this morning by annie, who had brought us handmade tickets to her private comedy show "a fune cmebin" (read: a funny comedian--yes, we're still working on those tricky b's and d's).

after i ate my favorite breakfast (2 egg omelette with herbed goat cheese and roasted red pepper) and then had my own personal battle with the hill (she was unbelievably windy and cold-my favorite omelette almost became one with the hill), she put on a comedy show for us.

4 skits.  eric and i laughed our heads off.  not that her material was necessarily funny, SHE was just funny.  she used lots of props too. the first skit involved a coffee shop and choosing between a poop coffee or a latte.  the next an apple that didn't talk but only sneezed. the third involved a volunteer from the audience (daddy-who had to wear a mask) and i can't remember the 4th even though it was the grand finale. 

she kills me.

we're heading out to ski in 5 minutes.  annie started in about not wanting to ski approximately an hour ago.  gracie doesn't want to ski without joe, which is fine for now.  but really, we can't afford to pay joe to ski with us every time we go up to the mountain next year. 

wish us luck.