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.

Congratulations Madison for such a fantastic year!  I can't wait to see what you accomplish in 2nd grade!

It's the end of an era (sort of)

Madison played soccer for a second season this past spring.  She enjoyed it, but didn't love it so I told her that she could either play soccer again next season or do gymnastics instead.  She picked gymnastics (*gasp* shocking!) and so we said goodbye to her wonderful team after a great season.  She had such fantastic coaches and the girls were so sweet, and I actually liked the parents.  I would have loved to play with all of them again this season, but Madison put in 2 seasons and decided it wasn't for her.

Ryan and I were not sad at all.  In fact, we threw a party to celebrate not having a soccer player for 6 whole months!  Hunter will be old enough in the spring....and then my life, once again, will be taken over by soccer.

Here is a montage of Soccer 2011.  We got some fantastic pictures of Madison and we will remember soccer with fondness, but still jump for joy that she didn't love it.

Here are Presley and Hunter, hanging out during her games.  You know, just because they are so cute.

End of the year dance party

We had a really fun end of the year party for dance.  One of the families invited all of the dancers, their siblings and parents to come play, swim and BBQ.  I'm pretty sure they are crazy, but the kids had a blast!

Hunter was pretty excited to get to eat chips...we had to tell him to stop running several times.

And then he discovered the water guns and we couldn't get him out of the water.

So what, he's wearing a pink life jacket.....I'm to cheap to spend $30 dollars for something we already own.  Let's just say he's going for the "metro" look and leave it at that.  He's so stinkin' cute.

Hey, you, Mr. GQ man....you've got some brownie on your face! 

Yeah, he doesn't care. I've given up on trying to keep his face clean....he's always eating!

Poor Presley had to sit in the stroller the entire time.  I was so terrified I'd look away for a second and she'd fall in the pool.

Madison had so much fun swimming with friends that I'm pretty sure this was the only time I saw her the entire party.

We're looking forward to another fun swim party next year!

Dancin' the night away

Madison started dance with Ms. Brenda this past year and LOVED IT!  I moved her from the rec center for a few different reasons, but the biggest one being that I wanted her to have more opportunities to perform than the 2 times a year her rec center class set up.

With Ms. Brenda they do 3 or 4 parades, a Halloween show, a few different retirement homes, plus the Logandale (Clark County) fair and their end of the year extravaganza!  We stay really busy with her performances, but Madison absolutely loves them. 

This little girl adores dancing!  She dances around the house ALL. THE. TIME.  It gets a bit annoying, but I'm glad we found something that she enjoys so much.  This year I've put her in to the gymnastics class as well.  I'm getting extremely annoyed with the constant flipping, but again, she loves it so much and is really good at it.

Here's a montage of her dancing last year.  A few of the pictures came from a 2nd dance class she did last year with a neighbor that was a professional dancer (no, not that kind) before she had kids.  She focused more on technique and Madison really enjoyed getting more dance time in.

Can I just say, Madison is a born dancer, she has the sass and attitude down pat!  She has absolutely NO stage fright and seems to really love the crowds.  I may be biased, but she is for sure one of the best dancers up there!

Little stinker

Presley has discovered the drawers in Hunter's train table...every time I turn my back she crawls back up in to it. I'm a little worried she's going to break the whole thing.