Snow!

I'm going to copy part of the blog from Riley/Julia's blog as some of this will be redundant from it and it's easier to copy and paste :)

Annual Easter Egg Hunt at our neighborhood park this afternoon after church.  Was fabulous!  The girls brought their Easter baskets from last year and we got there just in time for the hunt.  Julia missed her group so she went in with the 3-5 year old group with Riley.  It was super cute watching the girls gather as many eggs as they could find.  Took Julia a little bit of time to watch the kids and realize that she should put her eggs in her basket.  Was so cute how she would pick each one up so gently and put it in.

Riley was very sweet to the kids near her and put her eggs in her basket.  At the end, the kids were told to go back to their parents.  Riley comes running to us, but Julia follows the other kids and runs through the taped off area far from us.  So we asked Riley to go get her.  Riley found her and Julia fell over and dropped the eggs out of her basket.  Riley picked them up and then ran to us with the basket - leaving Julia behind.  So then Julia followed Riley and Riley went back for her.  Parents weren't supposed to enter the area and it was still small enough we could see her, but couldn't reach her.  Guess that's what we get for pretending she was 3!

Madi's group came after the 6-8 year olds.  It was 9 and up.  She looked like she was ready to dash off at any second!  haha... she gathered as many eggs in the basket as she could and then ran back over to us to dump them at our feet so she could get more.  Repeated this a few times.  Was awesome! She got TONS of candy and was very proud of the number of eggs she gathered.  And it truly was a lot!!

I think they got as much candy inside of those eggs as they got at Halloween.  Which is interesting because we still have Halloween, Valentine's, Christmas and now Easter candy in their bags.

After the hunt, we went over to the hill at the park by the playground.  The HOA had real snow/ice brought in and created a sledding hill.  They provided sleds and had two tracks going.  Was awesome!!!  So the girls all got to go down the hill in the sleds.  They absolutely loved it!  I took Jules down and she giggled the whole way.  Madi and Riley went by themselves twice and together once.  Was so cute to watch them!  It was amazing that the snow stayed for two hours on that hill considering it was 91 degrees outside.  Truly the only thing this winter that was actually cold!  Possible it's the first time any of them had ever been sledding - especially in spring!

It was a really great day!  We're already starting to plan some summer activities as sign ups are starting.  We went to church this morning and they announced the date for Madi's church camp this summer.  Same camp as last year - Camp KidJam!  It'll be in July.  We're also going to a Pajamarama for K-5 girls.  Should be a fun event in three weeks.  VBS sign up will happen in the next month or so and I'll be helping with it so that Riley can participate too.  Plus Julia is older this year so it'll be easy to work around her nap time compared to last year.  We live just down the street from the LISD Aquatic Center and they are offering swim lessons so Riley and Madi will both be participating in that this summer too.  They'll be at different levels, but at the same time.  Sessions are held for two weeks and they'll go eight classes total over the two weeks.  Looking to be a fun summer already!!  Only eight and a half weeks left of school which is crazy!

Hunger Games

Madi, Jer and I went to see the movie "The Hunger Games."  We all loved it!  Now waiting for the second one to come out next year!  We're planning to go see the movie "Brave" with Riley as well since it is a cartoon.  Looks amazing.

Was a great Saturday!  We ate out at Buca Di Beppo with my family after the movie.  Girls love the fettuccini alfredo.

Overall a great Saturday!

STAAR

This week has been a really great one for Madi.  Not one thing in particular, but just everything overall.  She had STAAR testing the last two days and said she feels really confident about the tests.  I took her to get donuts before school yesterday as a treat for having to do testing and we also told her that she didn't have to do FasttMath the past two days as all she did most of the day was sit and take the test or sit and wait for others to finish.  I don't think she minded waiting for other kids to finish because it meant she could read.  :)

She has another book report coming up and is almost done reading the book for it.  It's the book "Legend."  Looks really cool.

I've had several teachers (Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. Fuller and her Zumba teacher) tell me what an awesome job she is doing and how much she has grown in her social skills and in other areas.  They always comment on how much taller she is - she only has probably four, maybe five??, inches before she is taller than me.  Getting to be so tall!  Long and lean!

Today Madi had Zumba after school and had a lot of fun.  So glad she enjoys it so much!  Only seven more classes for the year!

Tonight Jeremy is doing class at SMU so I have all three girls - dinner, bedtimes, prep for the next day.  They did very well despite the fact that Jules is fighting a sinus infection and getting her molars, Riley is running a fever of 100.3 and Madi complained of her stomach hurting.  Jules was super super cranky and there were about five minutes where I just wanted to go crazy from all of her whining and non-stop crying.  Nothing was working.  Finally we went upstairs for a change of pace and got her ready for bed.  Seemed to help.

Madi helped by reading to Riley - without me even asking!  And Riley told her that she wasn't feeling well and asked Madi to please be nice to her tomorrow and that she would remind her to be nice to her if she forgot.  Madi just smiled and said "ok."  They've been doing very well lately.  In fact, they've been getting along really great.  Yesterday they even mooned each other for fun in the front living room.  It was hysterical to hear (I did NOT go in to witness it.  Just listened.  After all, I don't need to see both of their butts.)  What happened was that Riley changed clothes and forgot panties and shook her butt at Madi.  Madi was like "Ew.  She keeps showing me her butt.  Can I moon her?"  So I said "Sure!  Just make sure it's in the front room where I don't have to see it."  And so she did.  And they were all laughing about it.

Another short story is that my parents were over last weekend and Madi was trying to explain why she shouldn't have sugar.  And she kept saying things like "It makes me really pooped.  I get tired from sugar."  My dad was like "Huh??"  So she says "Sugar makes me poop."  We all had a good laugh at that one.

Madi got her progress report a few days ago as well.  Her grades are doing awesome!!  She has three subjects that are 100%!  One is 92% and then Math and Language Arts are 89%.  I told her that we were proud of how well she's doing and that I have no doubt that her 89% will get up to A's in the next three weeks before grades close.  So far she has had some B's on her progress report, but has gotten all A's on her report cards!!!  This is awesome.  Her goal is that she get all A's all year long and she really wants to get all 100% in all subjects in the last six weeks.  So far she's on her way!

Photo Shoot and WOW

Madi played quite a bit of WOW this weekend.  Overall was a great weekend.  We had my friend Jenny Harry take some family photos this morning.  Madi got some pics with us as well as solo shots and I had her model a few things for the Etsy store.

On Tuesday and Wednesday she will take the STAAR test - the new version of the TAKS test.  It is two days of writing.  I have no doubt she'll do well if she doesn't rush.  They have four hours for the test.

We have less than 10 weeks of school left to go until summer.  Can not wait!!!

Lots of People

I felt like today was in-out-in-out because we saw so many people today for short bursts of time.  Poppi and Grammy drove in to spend time with Madi for her birthday table lunch.  Traffic was bad and the line at Taco Bell was long so they got there as soon as they could.  They brought her food and she ate some of the food from school as well - even got a chocolate treat!  I got to see them for two minutes - literally - and then went back to teach first grade.

She got to play a few games on the stage since she was at the birthday tables.

This afternoon Julia and her family from the Philippines came over the house.  Madi didn't quite know what to say when she saw her and so her parents were like "Girls!  You can hug!  It's been so long!"  I was able to talk to her parents and they seem like very nice people.  They shared that they don't do sleepovers, but that we can meet up at the mall or parks or something.  They are here through June 13 so we'll make sure to see them a few times.

We were under the impression that Madi was doing a sleepover or Julia was doing one here so Madi was bummed.  And rightly so.  In her talks with Julia, it came across that it'd be fun to get together.  Not sure that a sleepover on their end was ever confirmed, but we were led to believe it was going that way.  Madi handled it well.

Madi spent much of her time with Julia in her bedroom.  Julia brought a backpack from you and an oversized card that the kids from her school had signed.  I wasn't in the room when it was all given to her, but when I found out they'd been given, I asked if she said thank you.  She said "No.  It was from my mom."  So we'll clarify why it's good manners to say thank you for whatever anyone gives you or does for you.  It was very, very thoughtful of them to make sure she got them.

Much of their time together was spent with Madi on her iPod and Julia watching.  They did talk, but I had to tell Madi to put it down.  She kept picking it up to play a game.  Even as they left, Madi had it in her hands.  They said "We're going now.  It's good to see you."  I had to tell Madi to put the iPod down and say goodbye.  She then looked up and said "bye" and tried to go back to it.  I had her put it down again and made sure she said goodbye properly.  Tried not to embarrass her, but at the same time, more respect should have been shown.

Overall was a good visit - though another short one!  Then a roofer came by - very short visit again.  We had a bunch of shingles blow off in a storm last week.

Then my parents came over to have dinner since it was Julia's birthday.  We planned it in the afternoon and it was a very simple affair.  Sweet and simple.  The girls all went to bed great!  So here's to a good weekend!!

Busy - can you tell?

No blogs lately due to being back at work.  Madi spent the weekend with Poppi, Grammy, Kat, Tripp and Ranny.  She had a great time with them!  She was able to go to church with Mamaw and was very excited about that.  Kat was sick the whole weekend so she didn't get much time with her, but hopefully we'll see her again soon.

School is going well.  Madi's done a great job getting her homework done - even finished all of her spelling in class without being asked to and did all three sections of it during class instead of reading.  This was awesome for many reasons - one being that her work was done and the other being that she had even more time after school to read than she would normally have because her work was done.

She's done a great job this week being prepared and has gotten up on time every single day.

Julia from the Philippines (that is her official title over here) called to see if they could get together this weekend.  So it's very likely that she'll be having a sleepover with her tomorrow night and spending some time with her on Saturday too.  We have photos on Sunday and Julia's (our Jules) turns 2 and Jeremy turns 37 - crazy!!  And Madi has birthday table at school tomorrow so Poppi and Grammy will be coming to eat with her.  That'll make it super special for her!!!

Beautiful Pictures of a Beautiful Girl

Took these pics in our backyard to use as one of my Etsy Shop items!