Girls Weekend/Dude Stuff

This weekend was Phoenix’s weekend to celebrate her birthday with her friends. Her very best friend from Fort Myers came up for the weekend, and her best friends here came to our house for a certified girls weekend. Daddy and Griffin went to the woods to do “dude stuff” as Griffin put it.

Phoenix choose to take her friends to a little girls boutique and get their hair and makeup done, she is such a good girl, she choose orange and blue hair spray for her finished doo, GO GATORS. We then came back to the house and the girls played while the mommies talked. We made cookies and pizza and had ice cream. Mommies indulged in some Irish Coffee ( I was painfully reminded why I do not drink after that experience).

Around 8:30 daddy called on his way home, apparently Griffin was a little cold and actually started having some breathing issues so they came home to be safe. So much for “dude stuff” we made them stay in the basement so we could finish our girls night.

The girls summoned Uncle Kevin via video chat and proceeded to act like little girls being silly, not sure if Uncle Kevin knew quite what to think, but the girls had fun doing it.

They settled into mommy’s bed in front of Disney Channel while the mommies settled down on the sofa bed watching a chick flick. I think we were all up until about 1 am…and had to be up at 7 to get to church in the morning. It was an awesome night.

None of us get to do those sorts of things very often anymore. It made me really appreciate my family and the awesome friends I am blessed with. They just love me for who I am and we enjoy each other. Those sorts of friends are harder to find and make as we get older, so when you find them you really, really appreciate them!

Enjoy the pictures!

Phoenix turns 7

My little girl turned 7 today, hard to believe. She decided she did not want a party but wanted to go with her friends next week to have brunch at the American Girl Place so we celebrated as a family today. We got started late because mom was up late making the cake (yeah I surprised myself with that cake, to quote someone who told me this week, I'm turning into a regular Martha Stewart). We decided to get her a computer, but I am not sure if she was more excited about the computer or the doll cake. To my surprise, she knew a lot about that computer, I guess they teach more than reading, writing and arithmetic in school today.

She is growing into a remarkable young lady, extremely sure of herself, knows what she wants, and quite bossy (she gets that honestly I think) and she loves, I mean adores, her little brother, and he adores her. We got lucky in that department.

Atlanta Math Fest 2008

Today was Pheonix's big day, it was the next level of Mathfest. Her along with 7 other first graders (and 45 other students from the other grade levels) from her school we made the trek to Atlanta for her to compete. We started this whole journey with absolutely no expectations, and as such we did nothing to prepare her for the competition except to tell her to have fun and do her best. I do not think she understood how big of a deal she could have made it. Chris and I were more nervous for her than she was for herself, which was good I hope.
So out of the eight first graders from her school participating, six of them (out of 200 total first graders) made it to the top 50 and moved on to the second round. Phoenix made it somewhere in the top 30 (between 20 and 30), they only gave medals to the top 16. I was very proud of her. There were kids coming out of the second round room (it felt like American Idol while we waited outside the door for the kids to come out when they were eliminated) bawling their eyes out, they were so crushed. Phoenix comes out looking a little worried, but she sits in my lap and says its ok because the rest of her friends were still in there and she was proud of them! I was truly impressed. So of course I asked her what kind of problems she was missing she tells me, I was astounded at the complexity of the problems they were giving first graders, and they were getting them right. She said she got the problem X + 41 = 185 what is x right but missed the 38 times 3 because she only had 5 seconds to answer the problem and could not write 38 down tree times to add them together in 5 seconds. Right before she was eliminated one of the proctors came out and told us these first graders are doing 3rd and 4th grade math.
The whole event was well organized, there was a a huge exhibition hall with games set up all over, games that encourage math of course. While waiting for their event the kids could play the games and earn tickets to redeem for prizes. That was a lot of fun.

Mother and Daughter

People always tell me my daughter looks like me, I just do not see it, but I ran across this picture of the two of us taken not so long ago and boy it just jumped out at me. she is her mothers daughter.

Easter

Another year, in a few short days Phoenix will be 7 (count them 7) years old. Unbelievable how fast time goes. We spent our weekend doing the usual Easter Activities, we had an Easter Egg hunt and egg toss at church..check out daddy and daughter nailing those tosses. I think they make a great team, they did not win, daddy overthrew one time and the egg went rolling into the parking lot where it met it's demise. After the Easter Egg Hunt Phoenix performed in a dinner theater production of Fish Tales, very cute! Let me tell you , she had to make her statement. She was very upset she was not chosen for a solo and She told me that they picked girls you could barely hear, so she protested by singing at the top of her voice for all the songs. You could hear her above everyone! Somehow we ended up going home with four more additions to the family, two Mickey's, a Minnie and a Pluto ( I think they are lobbying for a Disney Vacation). Yep, every kid went home with two goldfish, lucky us. Thats her and Griffin with their two best friends Savannah and Montana.




We spent Easter Morning hunting Easter Baskets, at church, and having our own little hunt in the front yard. Sometimes I long for the day when we do not have to do so much for Easter and/or Christmas, but I know that means they have to grow up so I will cherish this as long as I can.






It's been the first Easter we have not had a house full here in Georgia and I kind of missed the hubbub. Never thought I would say that, as much as I like my quiet and like to be a homebody I missed having people around. Guess I get that from my mom.

Hope everyone had an awesome Easter!

For Stacie

My cousin wanted pictures so here are pictures.

Reminiscing

So, Club Scrap started the Pro Scrapbooking League a few weeks ago and I eagerly was drafted onto the red team. There are weekly challenges that are very specific and this weeks challenge is mix and match, that is to create scrapbook pages using elements from at least three different Club Scrap kits. Well, I thought it would be fun to go through some old photos and get some of those on those pages. OMG, not such a good idea. I have spent the entire week going through photos and reminiscing (weepy eyed of course) and not finished (well lets be honest, I have not even started) a page. But I ran across something interesting...almost telling...maybe a little too telling. I have no idea when I wrote it...sometime before I got married..anyway it was a list of the 100 things I want to accomplish in my lifetime. I only got to 54 things at that point in my life. Now there are some of the predictable goals like:

Get Married (done)
Become a Mom (done)
Celebrate my 5th anniversarry (done)
Celebrate my 10th anniversary
Go to NYC
See the Grand Canyon
Own a home (Done)
Run a 5 K (Done)
Have a garden (did that in Florida)
Spend New Years Eve in New York
Hike the Appalachian Trail
Earn my Professional Engineering Liscense (done)

I can say of all those above I have not done, I'd still like to do. Then there were things that very obviously had to do what I was involved with at that time in my life like:

Site see at Florida Southern (not sure why thats there)
Visit Arcadia Catholic Charities (again..I am at a loss here)
Earn my Advance Toastmaster Bronze Award (yeah...I was very involved in toastmasters back then..not so much now)

And then there are the ones I probably thought I would never accomplish back then but decided to put them on there like:

Make all my Christmas Gifts (Done...did that this year..go figure!)
Teach Sunday School (did that this year too)
Leave Florida (did that too)

Out of 54 I listed I am sadly reporting I have only accomplished 10.

I think it is time to update this list, and hang it on the bulletin board so I can get busy learning how to paint, buying a motorcycle, seeing Mt Rushmoor, travelling to Australia, going to Africa, buying Gator Football Season Tickets, buying a sailboat, helping a soup kitchen, riding a train cross country, etc, etc, etc....