Finally, getting to share it all with this guy!
When we get home from school, Hayden immediately strips out of her uniform and takes her rubber bands out. Most days she immediately puts her pajamas on. She will sometimes try to hide them behind the couch cushions so she can get right to them when she gets home. On this particular day she actually opted for clothes. Matching her clothes is not a priority for her. Her homework method of choice is to do her entire homework packet for the week on Monday. That way she only has her reading to do on all the other nights. Her reading has just blossomed this year. She did fine last year, but never wanted to read out loud to me. That has all changed. She wants to start reading her book to me as soon as she gets in the car sometimes. I love to hear her read.
Apparently she got ahold of my camera one day. These made me smile when I discovered them.
Taylor was so excited to be part of it all. She kept saying she was OK if she didn't win, she just liked running for office, making posters, and asking people to vote for her. Here she is on Friday with one of her posters. I was surprised the balloons stayed inflated all week.
This was right after she made her speech and you can tell she has the biggest smile. The speech couldn't have gone any better. The speeches were given at an assembly of all the 2nd-5th graders, teachers, and parents. I figured there were at least 600 people there. Taylor had her speech memorized and she delivered it perfectly. Everyone else must have thought so to, because SHE WON!!! They didn't make the announcement until the following Monday morning. I think that was the longest weekend of Taylor's life. I have to admit, I was pretty anxious about it to. We had even talked about what she would do if she didn't hear her name called or if she felt like she might get upset. But, none of that was necessary. The following week, the classes held elections for their representatives. Payton was excited to be able to run for that since she is in 3rd grade. She was even more excited that she also won a position on the Student Council. They have already had their first meeting and their first event. The Student Council made signs and held them up along the route on National Walk to School Day. Payton stood on one of the routes holding her sign and Taylor walked all over taking pictures.
The cross country team is not affiliated with the school this year so they don't practice there anymore. The practices have been a little difficult for us to make as often as we would like, but the girls totally love it when they can go.
(You know what the out of uniform shirt means----Perfect attendance for the month including no tardies. Yay, me!)
While I am on the subject of thanking Lynne. Thank you for the pumpkin bread recipe. I made that Saturday. Thank you for showing me how to make rolls. I made those Sunday. Thank you for teaching me how to make cinnamon rolls. I made those Monday. I'll have to give you a recipe for the crumb cake I made Tuesday. Thank you for telling me about chocolate covered popcorn. I made that Wednesday. Thanks for the chocolate covered cinnamon bears that came in the mail today. I am sure those won't last long. Thanks for showing me how to make these brownies. I will probably make them tomorrow. Now I just need one more thing from you....
When I decided to make quilts for the girls I took them to Joanne's and let them pick out the fabric. Hayden saw this fabric and knew she had to have it. This picture was taken right before bed a couple of months ago when she had Bronchitis. With her allergies and "touch of asthma" as the doctor called it, she has become quite the pro at using the breathing machine. She doesn't have to use it all the time just for a week or so here and there. In this picture, you can also see right below her eye where she busted her face on kitchen table. This happened the week after she got her boot off from her broken ankle. Nothing a trip to the Immediate Care and some Dermabond can't fix.
Some of the things I have not taken pictures because I never remember to charge my camera are:
Hayden finally got her boot off on Monday. She has been hobbling around with that thing for six weeks and was not sad to see it go. The doctor said she healed like she should and she can return to normal activity now and sports in two weeks. I am not exactly sure what that means for a six year old. Her normal play is like a football game with no ball. She is always running around, jumping on stuff, tackling something, etc. The doctor said she should only be limited by her pain. Meaning, if her ankle starts to hurt, she should take a rest. Somehow I think cleaning her room or doing other chores might really make her ankle hurt. 
We had about half of the things in the car (sad, I know) and we went home for the rest of the stuff. We each picked something to we could get in the house and knew we had to be back in the car within 5 minutes. We found everything except for a 2009 coin. Who knew that would be so hard to come by? So I went to the place that has everything---Walmart. The ladies there went through two registers to find me a shiny 2009 quarter. We raced (not exceeding the speed limit) back to the church and proudly presented our bin of treasures.
We won! Nevermind that there weren't very many teams or that we didn't have any small children to tend to. We won! We had a great time. Who knew that something so simple could be so much fun for our family to do together? And a special thank you to our driver who got us there safely and even entertained us with a song or two.
My girls and Bryan know how to make me feel special. I sure am lucky!
It's that time again. The girls started back to school this past Monday. I was not terribly excited about it because I like having them home with me. However, I do like getting back to the routine that goes out the window during the summer time. Even though we were totally prepared for the first day of school and left the house in plenty of time, we managed to hit the dreaded first day of school traffic. The drive that normally takes us 10 minutes on a typical morning, took us 35 minutes. So, we were rushing in to school before the bell rang and I had to hurry them in to their classrooms with a quick kiss goodbye. They all seemed fine but I had a hard time holding it together. They were the most adorable kids at school that day, in my opinion. They were so excited to get started with the school year after having met their teachers the previous week. Hayden was the only one who was remotely hesitant, because she is tired of answering questions about what happened to her foot. (For the record, it is technically her ankle and she broke it on the fourth of July on a trampoline.) They all had a great first day at school. It is going to take some time to get used to not having them home. The summer was just too short.
