Winter Activities

Here are a few pictures of the girls' winter activities.  Even though the weather has been cold and dreary, they have both kept moving.

Ashley played indoor soccer for the first time this year and loved it.  It's fast-paced and co-ed but she a great time, scored a bunch of goals and was pretty tough on defense as well.

These are horrible pictures.  Action shots with your camera phone, through netting and plexi-glass don't make for high quality photos.

Paige continues with hula.  She had another performance.  This time it was at an elementary school so there were kids her age in the audience, that made her a little nervous, but she got over it quickly!



Girl time

The girls had an extra day off from school over President's Day weekend, so we decided to start off the four day weekend by going bowling.  The girls invited some friends and we headed to a bowling alley.  We decided to go try out a bowling alley that we had not been to before.  It was a pretty nice place, clean, smoke-free, uncrowded, and cheap!  I took 5 girls bowling, including shoes and soda for just over $20, can't beat that.

The girls had lots of fun, bowling with the bumpers, eating nachos and cheese fries, and just goofing around with their friends.

On Monday, we continued our girl time.  The girls and I went to a little accessory and jewelry shop to stock up on clearance jewelry.  Then we made a quick stop at IKEA, before seeing the movie "Gnomo and Juliet."  After the movie, I convinced the girls to go with me while I did a little coupon shopping---even Ashley was surprised how, "cheap all that stuff was."  As a reward for their patience while shopping we went to Five Guys for dinner---pretty convenient that there happened to be a restaurant sharing a parking lot with Target.

It was nice to have a little fun with girls considering how busy I, we, our family has been lately.  It seems like I am always going to some kind of meeting or event, or else we are heading out the door to one of the girls' activities or working on a project.  Ahh, the joys of family life!

Women's Conference

One of my recent projects was being a committee member for our church's Women's Conference.  Whew, it was a pretty big project...sure makes me appreciate all the work that the ladies on previous committees have done.

Our theme was based around the "Wizard of Oz" and always having the power to find your way home.  I only got to attend one workshop because I was busy "working" the rest of the time but the workshop I went to was amazing!

Here are some pictures of our handiwork.  Had to share because it's just so colorful.  I was basically in charge of the luncheon.  The table decorations were my partly my idea, but fortunately I got out of making the centerpieces because I had to go buy all the food.

For dessert, we had a gourmet cupcake buffet, over 300 cupcakes!  It was pretty awesome...definitely not my idea, I was just the labor, as part of the cupcake making, filling, and decorating crew.

Our committee chairwoman was a very creative and hard working lady.  She basically made the whole cupcake thing happen, pretty impressive. 

Overall, it was a good experience, but I am glad to have it behind me.  Now onto the next project!

You Never Know

Half way through her first year of middle school and there have been some expected and unexpected outcomes for Ashley.  By far her best subjects are math and science.  She's been placed in AT (academically talented) math as well as accelerated science.  I would have guessed her strongest subject would have been English as she is such a good and avid reader, but you never know.  I'm very proud of her especially because girls excelling in math and science is an issue near and dear to my heart.

Another area that we didn't anticipate her success in is keyboarding.  Yeah, I know, who gives much thought to keyboarding?  Actually, this whole story has just made Dave and I smile and shake our heads.  In our school district they held an online keyboarding competition among the four junior high schools.  Every day for a couple weeks or so, all the kids in the school would log into a keyboarding program that would test their skills and record their scores.  At the end of the competition the school with the highest total score would win the "keyboarding trophy."

Anyway, the first week of the competition Ashley scored the highest in her school.  In fact, one day during the competition she stayed home sick and when the principal saw the day's score, she came to the keyboarding teacher and asked, "what happened?  Why is our score so low today?"  The teacher said, "it's because, Ashley, my best student is absent today."  Of course, as a result of this Ashley became a minor celebrity among the keyboarding students as everyone waited to see how high Ashley would score each day.

In the end, Ashley's school won the trophy.  Her computer teacher, searched the whole 6th grade lunchroom asking for Ashley so that she could show Ash the trophy!  So funny.

Of course, not everything has come easy.  Sewing for example has involved a lot of picking stitches, re-threading the needle, and being frustrated.  Now, that is a little more expected.  Of course, Ashley is just beginning her sewing class so hopefully by the end it will be a lot easier.  She is also doing an after school cooking and sewing club so that will give her extra practice---because it's not like her mom is going to be much help with sewing homework.

Valentine's Day

Last year, the days before Valentine's Day were hectic with making cards, boxes, cookies, etc.  This year it was very different everything was relatively peaceful.  We only had to do one set of Valentine's cards as Ashley is too old now.  On top of that, Paige's teacher planned for the kids to make a collection bag in class, which meant no laborious crafting at home...YA!!!

So as Valentine's Day approached I thought I had everything under control, but I was wrong!!  I still don't really know how the day got away from me, but I ended running around like a crazy lady, delivering fudge, making pie, stopping at the store, etc.  I barely squeezed a shower in at 1:30 about 15 minutes before I was supposed to be at Paige's school for her class Valentine's party. 

We also had planned to have a "fancy family" dinner at home which did turn out very nice, but man was I dead tired by the time it was all over.  Whew! 

But overall, it was a great day.  Paige's party was lots of fun.  I was in charge of the ice cream sundaes, which were a big hit.  One of the little boys in Paige's class came up to me and with a sweet little face said, "thank you, I never had ice cream at school before."  Awww.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Dave and I got little love presents for the girls:

Ashley in her new, red "Chuck Taylor's"

 

Paige in her frilly, pink dress


I also got a present from Dave.  It was a big surprise, I didn't realize he knew I wanted these:


New shoes!  Nike Free to be exact.  So comfy, love them!

 Later that evening after everyone was home.  Dave went out to the grill and cooked sea scallops and New York steaks.  I made pie---fresh strawberry and almond peanut butter chocolate chip cookie pie.  It was all very yummy.

Our table was adorned with the carnations that Ashley got from some boys! at school.  Oh my.

Then I gave everyone my Valentine's cards.  (I had to sneak off to sign them because I literally had not had a free moment to do it all day.)  The girls got cards and teddy bears.  Dave got a gift certificate to the movie theater.





The girls were so surprised by their bears.  For some reason they both love stuffed animals. 
(Don't tell them that I got these bears for free as part of my couponing exploits!)

We also had mailbox full of cards and Valentines from the grandparents and our cousins.  It was so sweet, thanks for thinking of us.





"It's not a tu-mah!"

No one can say it better than Arnold, but in my case, surprise, it was a tumor!  A little fatty one on the side of my head that was pretending to be cyst.  It's gone now, a short outpatient surgery took care of that.  And Paige isn't scared of me anymore.  Let's just say that when you have surgery on your head, you can't wash your hair for over 24 hours and a little girl with sensitive sensitivities doesn't like to see her mom's matted hair chunky with blood, surgical goo, and other really gross stuff. 

Honestly, if I was going to have fat surgically removed from my body, I wouldn't have chosen 0.1 ounces off my right temporal lobe, but I am happy to be tumor-free!

A Tale of Two Cities

It was my turn to host Book Group.  Our book selection for this month was "A Tale of Two Cities."  I read this in high school and did remember the story, but really appreciated Dickens more this time.  It was harder reading than I remembered, but once I settled into the rhythm and style of the book it was easy to finish.  I love the imagery and symbolism in this book, it's so powerful. 

Oh, Sydney!

We had some very good discussion about revolution, oppression, poverty, redemption, etc.

We also had some thematic treats:  French (Parisian) bread with assorted cheeses and spreads and red wine (okay, sparkling grape juice.)  Sorry, but red wine was one of the main symbols in the book---had to have it! 

(Also thanks to Dave who worked from home, but who basically was my "right-hand" on this super busy day taking the girls to the dentist appts., soccer games, school activities, etc. and then made himself scarce during book group!  Love ya!)