Ainge family: First Grade Rocks!

Madison had a wonderful year in 1st grade, she learned so much and made some good friends. We absolutely LOVED her teacher, Mrs. Jett. She was fantastic and you could tell she loved her kids to pieces. It makes such a difference as a parent to know you are sending your kid off to someone who will love and respect your child as they learn. I kept wishing Mrs. Jett would move up to 2nd grade with Madison (not that I don't love her 2nd grade teacher, I do. She's fantastic.)

One of the most special things Madison got to do this year was to anchor Good Morning Smalley with another classmate. See, the 5th graders typically get to anchor the show but I guess they weren't taking it seriously so the teacher in charge decided to teach them a lesson and let 4 1st graders anchor it for a week, and Madison was one of the 4 selected! How random is that !?! So, she and her classmate did M,W,F and another class got to do T, TH. Here is the show for the Friday she anchored. It's about 6:30 minutes long and they do have some news during it, but watch it until the end, the kids get to be silly. It is so fun! We were so proud of her!

Look, so this is the thing.....it took me 5 hours to upload this dang video, so please be nice and watch it.

The other thing that Madison got to do this year was participate in the Smalley 5k and 1 mile Fun Run (or walk). She convinced me to do it with her (because Riley was doing it with his mom--thanks a lot Lindsay) so one Saturday in April we ran for her school. I did the entire 1 mile with her, practically dragging her the entire way....she wanted to walk but ~~I was embarrassed to be walking~~ it was supposed to be a run, so we'd walk and then we'd run. I had to MAKE her run across the finish line. My rule is, you either run or crawl across the finish line, anything else is unacceptable. Once the 1 mile run was over I did the 5K with some friends (who SMOKED me...it was a terrible run for me, but whatever, I'd been sick the week before and that is my excuse. Plus I suck as a runner, but I did RUN across the finish line.)

And here's a picture with my girls....Congrats to Lindsay for her 1st place in the Women's division (she was 3rd overall and ALMOST beat the guy in front of her) and to Julie for her 2nd place in the Women's division. See why I can't run with anyone???? They are way too fast for me! My only accomplishment was finishing before the stroller brigade overtook me.