School play,Awards and Graduation

Hello. Remember me? Facebook has really killed my blogging mojo. Here's a few of the most recent activities in our family.
Braden's first grade class wrote an original play "Ms Chicken and the Strawberry Milkshake". It was really cute and I'm glad I was able to go and watch. Braden got this new patches at the last Cub Scout meeting. Now I just have to figure out where they are suppose to go.

At the first grade award ceremony, Braden got the class clown award. That's not really what the award was called. I think it was called the funniest in class but if the red nose fits....

My baby is a preschool graduate! Their ceremony was really cute. There was so many kids that I couldn't see Ashlyn during the program but she gave us our own private graduation performance.

She's going to kindergarten. Kindergarten here she comes. She might take a train. She might take a plane. She might take a yellow bus. She's going just the same. Going to kindergarten. Kindergarten here she comes.

Christmas Traditions

We have a few family traditions that we look forward to every year. One is going to Macy's and mailing our letters to Santa. Another is picking out our stocking ornaments. Every year we buy a new ornament for our tree. We started doing it a few years ago because if I picked out all the ornaments we would have a tree full of red balls and clay Santas.

Ashlyn, in true princess fashion, picked an Ariel the Little Mermaid snow glob ornament for her stocking.

Big surprise that I picked another clay Santa for my stocking ornament.

Last year Mike's cousin bought him this LT ornament. So he was very happy to use it this year on his stocking.

We wanted to get a dog or puppy ornament for Ariel's stocking but the two stores we went to didn't have any. Of course now I see them everywhere. So the kids settled with a reindeer to decorate her stocking.

Braden has quite the nutcracker collection going. We already have a couple ornaments on the tree and he has his nutcrackers in his room year around. This years nutcracker is covered with glitter. It looks pretty at night when the Christmas lights shine on it.

Another Christmas tradition for us is gingerbread ornaments. They are super easy to make. The dough is made of applesauce, ground cinnamon, and a tiny touch of good ole' fashion white glue. Super simple and the kids love lOVE LOVE making it. I pour all the stuff in the ziplock bag and let them mush it around until a ball of yummy smelling dough forms.

fa la la la

With Christmas comes Christmas programs and concerts. Ashlyn's class sang "Must Be Santa" but I think that most of the audience would agree that Ashlyn sang the song while the rest of the class chimed in as back up. She nearly fell of the stage a few times because she was so animated. Silly girl.

Braden's class sang "Jingle Bells" and " Jolly Old Santa Nick" at his concert. I had a hard time seeing him. The bad part about being the tallest kid in your grade is that you always get stuck in the back. He didn't care. He was just happy to wear something other than his school uniform for a day.

ummmmmm.

Sometimes there are no words to explain......

Star Athletes

Baseball is offically over! I think the whole family was ready for it end. Braden had games 3 nights a week and Ashlyn had a practice one night a week and a game on Saturdays. That's a lot of baseball.

Braden got his trophy at a team pizza party Thursday night and then Ashlyn got her's Saturday a league picnic. They both are very proud of their trophies and I'm very proud of them for playing.

More Halloween

This year Ashlyn decided very early that she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of oz. We bought her costume early in September at Wal-Mart.

Braden took a little longer to decide. He briefly wanted to be a zombie, a vampire, and a few other things. Finally I convinced him to be a mummy but in true Braden style he had to put a twist on it. So he asked for a pharoh hat to go with it.

The mummy part was easy- an old tee shirt and shorts, an off white bed sheet, and big bottle of tacky glue! The hat took me a little longer to figure out and I didn't actually make it until the night before but it must have turned out ok because Braden was happy with it. I just cut up a stretchy blue shirt and glued it onto a piece of cardboard and added some gold glitter.

All in all Braden's costume took me about $6 and 10 hours to make. Ten hours to make and he wore it for a wopping 3 hours. Oh well, he looked cute.

Halloween time

Braden was able to dress up at school this year BUT they had to dress as a favorite storybook character. Braden wanted to be Peter pan but the costume i made looked a little more like a Robin Hood so we went with that.

Ashlyn didn't get to go to school on Halloween because we were fighting head lice. She missed out on her first school party and she was really cute in her Dorthy costume.

Happy Birthday Braden

Braden's 7. I hate it. Seven sounds so "big" boyish. It's sad that he has grown up so fast. This year's theme was robots. I decided to make the cake and it was quite the task. It took me all day but Braden loved it so it was all worth it. It was dark chocolate cake with banana buttercream icing.

It's always stressful wondering if any kids will come but we had a good turn out. Two kids from his class, 1 girl from tutoring, and 2 boys from boy scouts came. After adding in little brothers and sisters we had a house full--10 kids not counting those who live here. We had kids in every room of the house. It was GREAT.

Cub Scout

Braden is a cub scout. Other than washing the uniform, I'm clueless about the whole thing. Mike has taken full responsibility for this activity. They have already had their first camp out and from the pictures and the stories Braden had a great time.

He earned his archery and target belt loop. It's probably a good thing that I didn't go because I don't know if my nerves would have let me arm Braden with a bb gun or a bow and arrow. That just has ER written all over it. He did it without medical attention need so I guess he wasn't half bad.

Swing Batter

We have our first week of baseball game under our belts. Ashlyn only likes to bat. She is really cute too. The batting helmet is so big that she looks like a bobble head at bat.

She's not that in to fielding but there is only one boy on her team that is into it. I think at one time every player had a parent on the field with them herding them out of the outfield or tearing them away from their sandcastle masterpieces. It was really fun to watch them play. You never know what a 4 year is going to do.

Braden had a blast at his first game. I was worried but he jumped in and enjoyed himself. He spent some time on the pitchers mound and behind the plate. We are living baseball right now. Braden has games on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and practice on Wednesday night. So four days a week he's busy and Ashlyn has practice on Tuesday and games on Saturdays.

We don't even like baseball.

Hey batter batter...

swing batter. We signed Braden up to play tee-ball this fall but when we arrived for his practice Saturday we found out that he was playing coach pitch baseball. The league had to combine the tee-ball team and the machine pitch team into one coach pitch team because they didn't have enough players signed up.


The only problem with that is Braden has never played before so he is completely lost. Mike took him outside to work on swinging. We have been practicing on a tee so when they started pitching to him Saturday, he was clueless. But Mike said that by the end of their little practice session tonight he was making contact so I guess that whole timing thing is coming.

Razorback at heart.

I don't think there is anything to really say about this one.

Play Ball

We (meaning Mike) decided that Braden and Ashlyn should play baseball this fall. So we looked around and Braden will be playing tee ball and Ashlyn will be playing wiffle ball. It will be interesting to see how we will manage being at two different parks each week.

Before we dropped the $150 in fees we ran to Dick's and bought a few things to see how interested the kids were. So far so good. They have fun out in the yard playing. I just hope it continues after practice and games start.

Back To School

First he goes to 1st grade and in just a few months he will be 7! I hate the way those two things sound. They both sound to...to...to big boyish. Braden's first day of school was Monday. He's in Ms. Bennett's class. She seems very stern and after 3 days, I think Braden is a little scared of her. She is an older lady with long gray hair that she wears in a bun and nothing on her face but a pair of old school glasses. Everything about her reads Pentecostal grandmother. I don't know for sure that she's goes to a Pentecostal church or that she's even a Christian but that's the vibe I get from her. I would give her the motto...."this is right, that is wrong, do the right NOW and then give me a hug."