Through the eyes of a [Child]

[Happy 4th of July]

Let freedom ring....and all that! :o)

Happy 4th of July!  This year we decided to not travel and just spend the holiday at home.  This morning our ward had a pancake breakfast and bike parade for the kids!  I guess it's a tradition for the ward, but it's the first one we've attended since moving here in June 2007.  The kids were excited to decorate their bikes/ride-ons and get dressed up!  They had fun picking out goofy 4th of July stuff to wear!! We had a really good time and are glad that we got up and got ready to be there by 8am this morning!  It started the holiday out right!  Here are some pictures:

We're planning on just having a little cook out this evening while waiting for the town fireworks to start.  We can see the whole Town of Parker firework show from our back porch!  Pretty convenient!! :o)
Hope everyone is having a good 4th of July! :o)

[good week ahead]

Well....I made it through the weekend I was dreading most!  Not that it wasn't a good weekend, it was just so packed non-stop that I wondered if it would ever end.  I came out of it mostly unscathed......

The day after Zoe's baptism, we had a lot on our plates!  My parents were still in town for a little bit that day, and they went with the kids to watch their last day of swimming lessons!  I love that my parents want to do anything and everything to be around their grand kids when they visit....even willing to sit in a hot and humid indoor pool to watch the kids for 1/2 hour of swim lessons!  They're just very devoted to them! :o) After that we went to my friend Sheri's baptism (I've know Sheri since we were young girls and we were good, good friends in high school.  I was able to re-connect with her through facebook about 6+ months ago, and came to find out she lived just a neighborhood over from me.  Anyway, she got baptized a member of the church this past Saturday afternoon!!)  It was a very nice baptism and I'm so happy for her, her husband and family!  **side story: on Sunday at church, the bishop called up Zoe, her friend Mckenna and Sheri to the stand to present them with pictures/plaques for being the newest members of the ward.  Afterwards, Sheri made the comment to me that as she was up on the stand, standing next to Zoe, she would have never imagined in a million years that she would be standing alongside my 8 year old daughter after having been baptized a day apart, all these years after growing up together her and I.  Made me smile!**  Anyway....couple hours after the baptism on Saturday afternoon we had profess. family pics with all of Jeff's family and then a bbq with them afterward.

Yesterday was father's day and we celebrated Jeff with some small gifts (he's always asking for nothing...but i can't just do nothing), and one of his favorite meals!  In the afternoon, we inflated a small pool for the kids and let them relax a bit for making it through the action packed days before, outside in the sunshine ....while it lasted....I mean, it is Colorado afterall which means the minute you make outdoor plans the black clouds start rolling in!  They didn't last long outside, but it was fun while they did and of course I took lots of photos.

So, like I was saying, now that that weekend is behind us, we're looking forward to a relaxin and hopefully fun-filled last 6 weeks of summer!!  I'm especially looking forward to the end of this week....it's my Girl's Scrapbooking Weekend (aka: the 10lb weekend) with my BFF's Alyson and Aimee!!! :o)  Yay...so bring on the week, Monday! ;o)

[zoe's baptism]

Last night was Zoe's baptism and it was very special!  She's been looking forward to this time in her life and everything went perfectly!  Not only was it her baptism day, but she was also able to share it with her best friend down the street, Mckenna Schmidt.  The girls are such great little friends and genuinely enjoyed sharing that day together!  My mom and dad were able to come this weekend to spend with Zoe, Olivia and Alex.  Jeff's mom, dad, brother and his wife all live here in town, but his two sisters and their husbands and families all came from Utah to support Zoe.  Grandpa Martin and Grandpa Child were the witnesses at the baptismal font.  I sat up front to watch and then quickly went back to wait for Zoe with a towel for when she got out of the water.  When she walked up out of the font and I wrapped the towel around her, words cannot describe the look on her face.  She was just beaming and her smile was so bright.  She kept saying, "Is this real?  Did this really happend?  Am I really baptized?"  And then she'd just giggle with such happiness!!  She was able to stand on the landing of the font and watch Mckenna get baptized too!  The girls were just so, so happy in the minutes following the baptism!  Both Mckenna's grandma and my mom gave the talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost.  They were beautiful talks!  My mom made the girls each a big, fluffy white comforter to represent the Holy Ghost.  Her talk went great and the girls loved the gift!  The girls were confirmed after that.  Zoe was so lucky to have a lot of family members in her confirmation circle.  She had her dad, of course, both her grandpa's, uncle Josh, uncle Brian, and uncle Dave, and our bishopric - Bishop Whitesides, Brother Bell, and Brother Nielsen.  Following the program we had lots of refreshments and a big cake celebrating the Zoe and Mckenna and the wonderful decisions they made to become baptized members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was a very special and very memorable day.  Here are some pictures I took last night:

Pictures of just us and Zoe and her and her siblings before we left for the church:

And here are pictures of Zoe with my mom & dad: Grandma & Grandpa Martin and all of Jeff's side of the family: Grandma & Grandpa Child; Uncle Josh & Aunt Jenn; The Reid's: Andrea, Brian, Skylar, Hayden & Piper; and The Petersen's: Ashley, Dave & Ellsie:

I'm sad that I missed out on getting a picture of Zoe and Jeff in their baptism clothes together, but I was able to get a couple of Zoe and Mckenna:

[Olivia's dress rehearsal]

I think this may be it and I'm caught up.  We'll see.....

Olivia had her dress rehearsal on Friday, June 12th.  They were the first on stage so the whole thing didn't last too long!  Her recital was the night of June 16th, and that was so much fun!  I was backstage mom with one of my BFF's Alyson!!  We had a blast and the group of kidlets were some of the easiest I've ever had for a backstage group.  I'm sure it helped that there wasn't a whole lot of downtime between their two numbers and curtain call!  Here's the pictures I took at rehearsal!  Enjoy!

[Zoe's dress rehearsal]

Moving on to get this all documented....

Zoe had her dress rehearsal for the recital on Tues, June 9th.  She was in four different numbers, so that mean four different costume changes for both the rehearsal and the actual show!  It all went off fine!  Rehearsals are the only time to take pictures since they're not allowed at the actual performances, so I did the best I could.  Even with a great camera (...though I'm still learning....), the lighting in the the theater was terrible and so the shots are got were incredibly bad.  But I'll post some of what I got for posterity sake!  I was able to take some pics of Zoe's jazz class practicing in the lobby of the high school before hitting the stage, which was much better lighting, but still!  Here they are:

So, there it is...for documentation's sake! ;o)  Anyway, the recital was fantastic too!  Not only did she do her jazz and ballet numbers, but both the competition numbers from the mini poms team.  I was really sad to see those dances live for the last time ever that day!  And I was sad to know that was her last performance with her team!  She had such a fabulous dance year for 08-09 and really made some great friends on the team!!  I know she'll stay close with me (as me with the moms), and that she'll have just as much fun next year on her new team and make lots of friends!!

[Zoe's last day of school]

I'm behind, but again, trying to do a little at a time. 

Zoe's last day of 2nd grade was June 5, 2009.  This year seems like it was at a pretty good pace for me.  I was her room mom again, so I was moderately involved.  I also was able to volunteer just about every Wednesday from Sept. thru Dec. so it was nice to get to know her classmates, classroom and especially her great teacher, Mrs. Ward.  We really, truly loved her and will miss her next year!  Zoe seemed particularly melancholy at the end of this year!  I think she really had made some good friends and just enjoyed her class/daily routine very much this year, and is going to miss it!  She did some fun things in 2nd grade, including being a part of a math group called Exemplars and doing her first 'project', which she chose Helen Keller.  She really soaked in a lot of good learning this year and made Wall of Fame all three trimesters for 2nd grade....which made it six trimesters in a row including 1st grade.  Here are some pictures of her the last day.  We'd gone a little bit early so I could get a picture of her and Mrs. Ward, but wish I would have stuck around a little longer that last morning so I could have gotten some pics of her and her classmates.  We'll miss 2nd grade and now we're on to 3rd...she's just growing up way too fast!

[last day of ballet]

I'm slacking again on the blogging and now I've got alot to update again!  I'm gonna try to take it day by day instead of updating everything in one post.  So, I may be going back a ways before getting caught up!

A little over a week ago, June 2nd, Olivia had her last day of ballet class!  I seriously got a little choked up because she's done so well this year!  She's totally overcome her fear and sadness of being away from me and really has become a cute little dancer!  And I was super proud that I didn't even have to remind her to listen to her teacher once on the last day!  I was free to watch, snap pictures and enjoy myself!  Oh, and her teacher....Miss Samantha!!! She is the best!  I'll miss not having her next year!  Here are some pictures of Lulu's last day:

[the motherload]

So...not much into the ol' blogging lately!  Not that I don't have plenty that has happened.  But once I'm behind on one thing, then it all goes to pot!  But I've found myself with a little down time right now, so I thought I'd make an attempt at it!!  It's gonna have to be 'random list' style:

*Zoe had her birthday on May 23rd!  She turned 8 years old!  She chose (...actually, we chose) not to have a birthday party this year.  It's just been outrageously expensive for the last few years, and decided that since our money tree isn't growing that we ought to cut back.  I did however allow her to invite two of her friends from her church primary class for an informal little birthday sleepover.  And though that deserves a blog post all it's own, I'll try to give ya the reader's digest version.  The girls had a lot of fun and very little sleep!  That about sums it up!  No, they did have lots of fun...pizza, cupcakes, pedicures by moi, made flip-flops, made pajamas (ironed on some rhinestone-y type decals on pink t-shirts), at lots of candy, watched HSM3....and got 4 hours of sleep!  Yep, you're reading it right!  Let's just say there was some gnashing of teeth in the morning that reaffirmed to me why we don't go to, or have sleepovers!  Here's a picture of the girls after getting their fancy pedicures and putting on their new jammies: (L-R: Mckenna, Alyssa, Zoe, Olivia)

On her actually birthday, instead of lots of presents, she said that she wanted to go shopping at Justice and pick out some things.  Well, we did give her camera for her birthday (one that actually takes decent pictures and works...opposed to the cheesey one we gave her Christmas....I'll spare you....) and I wrapped up $100 for her to spend at Justice.  (it's all about the money and g.c.'s at this age....) She also go some money from Gma & Gpa Martin and gift card to Target from the Reid's.  Later that night we went to dinner with Gma & Gpa Child and Aunt Jenn & Uncle Josh.  Zoe picked the Cheesecake Factory.  Yum!

*On May 19th, Zoe tried out for the Artistic Performance Teams (APT Teams) at her dance studio.  She's currently on Mini Poms team, which technically try out mid-summer.  Jeff and I (and Zoe too) wanted her to try out for the APT just for the experience and to see what to expect if she wanted to take it more seriously and try out in a year or two.  The audition ended up being two hours long.  There were, I think, 60+ kids trying out for 4 different APT teams.  They were taught a few different combinations involving ballet, tap, jazz, and lyrical (this are the primary dances for these teams) so that's why it was so long.  After Zoe was done, I asked her how she thought she did.  She said that she just knew that she did horrible in the tap part.  It was to be expected since she hadn't taken tap in over a year.  So I told her that it was fine and that she did her best and it was a good experience.  Well, we were to receive the letters from the team coaches on that Friday saying whether or not she made it and which team if she did.  Friday, came and went and no letter!  Come to find out that no one got their letters and the studio was late in sending them out.  So, we waited with baited breath again on Saturday (her birthday) for the letter.  When it came we were all anxious to see what it said.  To our utter surprise, the letter congratulated Zoe for making the Pearls APT team!! (the teams are named for Gems: Sapphire, Pearl, Ruby, Emeralds).  Woo Hoo!!  We were so very excited for her.  I thought that Zoe would say that was great but that she still wanted to do poms, but she immediately said she wanted to be a Pearl and couldn't believe she made it!!  We'll definitely miss poms and especially Miss Jo, her coach, but we look forward to this new adventure! :o)

*We had a very nice Memorial Day together as a family.  Early in the morning we went to Lowe's to pick up some soil and flowers because we wanted to make those planters in our backyard look pretty.  I mean, we've lived here for nearly 2 years now and haven't done much with our yard!  So anyway...after picking up the flowers, we headed to the movie theater to see Night at the Museum 2!!  Freaking hilare!!  I thought it was funnier than the first one, for sure!!  It rained off and on that day, so we didn't get a chance to plant the flowers until late afternoon!  You can imagine all the 'helping hands' we got that day!  The kids wanted to be involved!  I took some random pictures of them while were outside:

(a few explanations: No, Alex does not wear socks with his crocs -- but I got sick of putting his shoes on for him so I told him to grab some he could put on himself!  And yes, I know his nose is running in that second picture...he had just finished one of his famous 'Alex Child' tantrums!)

And finally a few pictures I took around the yard.  The flowers are from some hanging planters we bought at Lowe's that morning too -- petunias and double petunias:

Gosh, I think hope that's all for now!! :o) 

[preschool graduation]

Today Olivia graduated from preschool.  I'll go ahead and say it.......that went by really fast.  Really, it did.  She was all smiles today.  Not only was so excited to sing her songs and say goodbye, she was overly thrilled to be wearing her new green dress!  At let's face it folks, that's what's really important here....the attire! ;o)  No, really, she had such a great year and wonderful, wonderful teachers!  Miss Julie was so sweet and got so emotional about this class, which in turn made me cry...but then again, when don't I cry!?  I'm sure it hasn't quite hit Olivia that she won't be seeing most of these little friends she's made over the past year again.  Almost all the kids in her class are all going to different elementary schools from each other!  Isn't that bizarre, in and of itself?!  I guess there's that many schools here!!  She learned so much and we're so proud of her.  Her teachers told us how kind and smart she is and we think those are two very awesome qualities for our little Olivia to possess!!  Now it's on to Kindergarten in a couple months.  Please.....time.....just slow down!!

Earlier this morning, before heading off for one last day of preschool:

Olivia doing the graduation march, Looking cute in her little grad cap, and some of her classmates:

Singing & signing, getting her diploma from Miss Nancy, and a picture with Miss Julie:

Group hug for the teachers, hammin' it up, and an ice cream sandwich to finish of the ceremony:

Olivia and her BFF, Mia Weaver, and her and another little friend, Megan:

And, that's how we roll with Preschool Graduation! :o)

[proud]

So, I know I've been posting on here a lot lately about Zoe and her poms team.  It's just that the dance year is winding down, and the team is winding down and they've just done so great this year, that I can't help it!

Tonight was no different.
About a week ago, we received a letter from her dance studio telling us that Zoe had been nominated for Student of the Year.  That was a pretty proud moment for us and considered it quite an honor and accomplishment for her to even be nominated.  So the awards ceremony was tonight and we were excited to see Zoe receive a medal for being a nominee.  It was also special because two of her friends, Segren and Sierra were nominated as well in the Primary division (K-2nd grade).  So, I'm snapping away at pictures of her standing up front with all the nominees and clapping for her.  When it came time for them to announce the winner from the group of nominees for Student of the Year, I would have never dreamed that they would have said Zoe's name.....but they did!!!! :o)  Zoe Child, Primary Student of the Year at Colorado School of Dance!! Woo-hoo!!!!  Of course, tears came to my eyes, and Zoe didn't quite know what to do! haha!  She sort just stood there, with a shocked look on her face, not quite sure what had just gone down!!  Man, Jeff and I are so proud of her!!  In order to have won the title, you had to have been nominated by at least 2 teachers....and I'm pretty sure that she was nominated by all of them! ;o) (at least I'd like to think so...hee hee).  She was just beaming when she came back to her seat!  After that award, she still had team awards to receive!  It was just an awesome night!!  We're so proud and Zoe's on cloud nine! :o)

Here she is before heading to the ceremony:

Here she is standing with the other nominees and then accepting the award:

Here she is just beaming after getting the trophy and then with 3 of her 4 teachers -- Miss Jodi, Miss Jo, Miss Heather, and then Miss Christine who is another teacher at the school:

With her friends, Segren and Grace (who are on a different team, same age group) and getting her team awards with the rest of her cute, cute mini poms team:

Again, I'm so proud of Zoe and the great girl she is and is becoming!  She really truly exceeds all my expectations!
We love you Zoe!