Cheer Camp

February 5, 2010

The first week of February, the girls participated in a Cheer Camp hosted by the high school cheer leaders. They were so excited and had a ball doing it. At first I was not planning on Care Bear attending the camp because I thought she was too young. A friend who also had a daughter in the camp said they didn't care how old the girls were, they just wanted our money! Sure enough, Care Bear was plenty old to participate.


Care Bear and La-La attended 3 evening rehearsals and then performed on a Friday night at a Girls Basketball game. (Daddy was not happy when he found out it was not Boy's Basketball.) The song they danced to was Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" Each girl got a red t-shirt and a friend and I made our daughter's blue skirts to match the big girl cheer leaders. Red, white, and blue hair bows and blue face tattoos (that didn't wash off for close to a week!) finished the look and La-La & Care Bear were ready for their debut as cheerleaders!

Not sure I want the girls to be real cheerleaders someday but it was fun to see them so excited and they really did have a ton of fun. I just want to keep my girls sweet, young, and innocent!

St Patricks Day

Jaco and Grandpa Max March 2000

This will be a St Paddy's day I will never forget. I laughed and I cried. The reason for the tears is Justin's Grandpa Max passed away today. Grandpa Max was an amazing man. When I met him, he was so giving and playful. He loved to play with the grand-babies and would not hesitate to get down on his hands and knees to play cars, tickle, and play with them. Then all too soon, a terrible disease took Grandpa away from us long before his body was ready to go. Alzheimer's robbed him of his memories and loved ones names. As hard as it is to say good-bye, there is peace and comfort in knowing he is no longer in pain, mentally and physically. We love you Grandpa Max!Grandpa Max and Grandma Ann with Justin and I at our wedding reception June 12, 1998


I laughed today as my kids discovered the green toilet water and green milk a Leprechaun left behind from his midnight visit.

Miss La-La was especially excited because a mischievous Leprechaun had been visiting her classroom at school leaving green foot prints and other evidence of his visitations. She was thrilled that he made an appearance at our house too! The Leprechaun almost turned the water blue because he was a little sleepy when he grabbed the food coloring. Thank goodness blue and yellow make green! Yes, he used yellow food coloring not another source of yellow...

For breakfast green pancakes were on the menu and for lunch some ghastly looking but tasty green mac n cheese with green apples on the side.

And then for dinner we had to have the traditional corned beef and cabbage with red potatoes. For dessert I tried a new recipe called Grasshopper Fudge Cake. YUM!!!
Happy St Patrick's Day! I hope everyone had a fun day. I know I will never forget today...for both the good and the sad.

My crafty side!

I love doing crafty things but don't do it very often and I am not very good at coming up with my own ideas but I am able to copy other peoples ideas. I bought a cute headband for the girls and decided to attempt to copy it and make other colors. I wasn't sure how to do it but with some instruction from a friend I figured it out!

Here are the instructions on how to make this cute headband!

What you need: plain headband, 1" wide ribbon, needle, thread, scissors, felt, hot glue gun.
Cover the headband with the ribbon. Start with gluing one end of ribbon to one end of the headband.
Wrap it all the way around completely covering the headband. Securely glue the ribbon to the other end of headband.

Cut two small circles from the felt.
Glue the circles together with the headband in between them.


Stitch the ribbon loosely along one edge and pull the thread to gather the ribbon.

Stitch until you have a 6-8 inch gathered section of ribbon. Knot the thread and trim the ribbon.

Take one end of ribbon and apply glue to stitched edge.

Circle the ribbon around itself applying more glue as necessary.
Top side of glued flower.

Underneath side.

Glue the flower to the felt on headband.
Sit back and enjoy your handiwork!

Jaco!

For Jaco's 8Th birthday I got him a Rubik's Cube to try to keep his busy mind busy and quiet! He loved it but became frustrated when he was not able to figure it out. Over the past 2 1/2 years he has picked it up now and then to try to match up the colors but with no success. Then came along a friend who can do it in under 2 minutes. Nothing like a little friendly competition to light the fire of motivation! Last Saturday this friend came over and for about 2 hours those boys had their heads bent over their cubes. With some coaching and help, Jaco finally has figured out the cube! He does it over and over hoping to get as fast as his friend. I guess when it comes down to it, to master the Rubik's Cube, you memorize a bunch of algorithms. Jaco has them all written down and still uses them a little but he is trying to get them memorized which will speed it all up. It is funny because now to get Jaco moving or to listen to me all I have to do is threaten to take away the cube and he gets his rear in gear!

Our school just had a presentation of "Happily Ever After" a play about Cinderella using the 4th and 5th graders. Jaco had the part of Court Herald. His job was to announce the royalty as they entered the ball. He did a great job. I think he had the best costume! He called it his "man dress". He joked that his teacher made his hat extra high so his staff didn't seem so tall next to his own body. The poor kid is so short! For height he is in the 7th percentile and weight he is in the whopping 11th percentile! It doesn't help that he is one of the youngest in his class since he has a late summer birthday. Hopefully someday soon he will have a major growth spurt. Preferably before middle school this fall!

Field Trip

I was able to go on a field trip with Miss La-La Friday the 5th. We went on a bus stuffed full of first graders, their teachers, and some parents to a science museum. La-La was so excited to go and was thrilled I could go too! We left bright and early and headed south. While at the museum we played with bubbles, watched sound waves, took shadow snapshots, built an arch, used pulley systems, and did experiments plus many other fun things!

La-La is short but being small is not always a bad thing! Very few of her classmates could go in this height restricted area. She thought it was pretty cool! The funny thing is, she is the oldest in her class but one of the smallest!

A shadow frozen in time!

Concentrate on those colors!

When La-La heard she could go inside a bubble she was so excited! It was the first place we checked out!

Bubble wall!

Pulley system!