Jacelyn lost her first tooth!!!!

Jacelyn lost her first tooth last night!!! She had been wiggling on it since lunch yesterday and then around 9:30 last night, she climbed into bed with me and asked me to pull it. She was a very big girl and just sat there and let me attempt to grab hold of the tooth and on the 3rd try, the tooth popped out. She was very worried that it would bleed badly but I’m happy to report that there was very little blood and ZERO tears!!! She was SO excited when it came out!!! The one next to it will probably be ready to come out in the next few weeks and the 2 on top are a little wiggly too!

Halloween!!!

We had an "Alice in Wonderland" theme for our Halloween costumes this year. It turned out so well and all the kids had TONS of fun!!!

Left to Right: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (Aimslee and Kerrigan), Alice (Carlie), White Rabbit (Trae), Mad Hatter (Blake), and the Cheshire Cat (Jacelyn)

The 4 oldest kids. The twins were NOT into getting their pictures taken

Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit. Note: Jacelyn is 20 months younger than Trae but about 4-6 inches taller! LOL!

Tweedle Dee (Kerrigan) making a funny face!

Kerrigan again (I couldn't get a good picture of Aimslee)

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for Carlie and Jacelyn! Carlie is going into the 3rd grade and Jacelyn is starting Kindergarten! They both did so well this morning! There was very little fighting to get dressed and they were both so eager to get to school. Jacelyn was so great! She didn't cry or act apprehensive at all for me to leave her there. Carlie refused to let me take a picture of her at her desk because there were so many of her friends in class already! Haha! I'm so excited to see what this year brings for both of my girls and I can't wait to hear about their first day!

I was so much less worried about Jacelyn starting school than I was when Carlie started. I don't know if it's because Carlie is there with her or if it's because I know what to expect since we've already gone through it? I'm sure the fact that Jacelyn was just so ready and excited helped ease my nerves a little too. The only thing I'm really sad about is the fact that Jacelyn is being split up from her friends from preschool. She's been with most of those kids for the last 2 1/2 years and was really close to them. I think it will be hard on her when she realizes that she doesn't get to see them all the time anymore.

Mommy and Carlie

Mommy and Jacelyn

My big kindergartener!!!

My big 3rd grader!!!

They weren't very excited to get their pictures taken (notice the fake smiles!)

Waiting for the bell to ring to go to class

Jacelyn sitting at her desk

All about CARLIE!

Carlie has been doing AMAZING lately! She has been doing so well in school, her behavior has improved so much, and she is just really growing into a little lady. Carlie struggled a little in school for the second half of kindergarten and first half of 1st grade. She wasn't put on ADHD medication until almost the end of the school year in 1st grade. She has always been an extremely intelligent child so I hated to see her grades being so poor. I think her problem was that she just could NOT focus. That led to her not finishing work and tests. The incomplete work then led to poor grades. This year however, the grades that will go into her permanent record are ALL A's!!! Her behavior "grades" are all E's (excellent) or G's (good) instead of S's (satisfactory) or N's (needs improvement). The only time that I received a call from her teacher about behavior were the days that we accidentally skipped her medicine. She actually likes and enjoys school now whereas before, she hated going. We made sure to make a huge deal out of her end of the year grades and Daddy even bought her a Wii as a reward!!!

She is also willing to help around the house more. Summer vacation started Tuesday and she was home with Rick all day yesterday. I had given her a pretty long list of chores to do and she did ALL of them *plus more* without complaining and then she told me that cleaning is actually kind of fun!

She's super excited today because I'm taking her to get a hair cut and a few of those hair tinsel extensions put in. *I'll update with before and after pictures later*

I joined her class for the end of the year field trip last week. We went to the bowling alley and then to a park for lunch and play time. The kids had SO much fun *even thought it was blistering hot* Here are a few pictures from the bowling alley..

Carlie bowling

This is Carlie and her bff Landon

Pictures from Easter

I know I'm a little late but here are some pictures from around Easter! We had an amazing Easter. The weather was nice for the most part. It was just a little chilly and it rained in the afternoon but we were still able to enjoy the day. Church was amazing as always and then we headed to my parents house for some yummy food and an egg hunt with all of the grandchildren. The girls had a blast and racked up from the money eggs! I'll try to edit this later with pictures from Easter day with their baskets the Easter Bunny left.

Jacelyn with the Easter Bunny

Carlie waiting for her turn to hunt eggs at my mother in laws church Easter Celebration


Jacelyn's face painting from the Easter Celebration

Aimslee and Kerrigan sharing their eggs

Jacelyn and Carlie with the Easter Bunny!

Jacelyn, Kerrigan, Aimslee, and Carlie with EB

My new tennis pro, Carlie!

Carlie started tennis lessons last week! She's been begging me to sign her up since she was in kindergarten and her school had a few instructors come to show the kids how to play one day. That was 2 years ago and she hasn't let up. She kept telling me "PLEASE put me in tennis lessons! I'm really good!". I finally gave in. I found a college student that plays on the local university's teams. Her name is Simona and she is from Bulgaria. The sad part is that she will be going back home in about a month when school lets out for the summer. She will be back in August but Carlie will have 3 months without any lessons :( Simona is very patient with Carlie and is very complimentary. She told me that she started playing tennis when she was 6 and that it took her 3 months to even be able to hit the ball. She was very impressed with the fact that Carlie was not only able to hit the ball, but she was able to run up to the ball and hit it, dribble the ball into the air on the racket, dribble the ball onto the ground with the racket, and she was able to do many other fun exercises that they practiced. Simona told me that Carlie holds the racket very naturally and doesn't have to keep being reminded to hold it properly. She seemed genuinely impressed with how quickly Carlie was learning the game! Carlie was just beaming with excitement and couldn't keep the smile off of her face. She's never been into soccer or tumbling/gymnastics near as much as this. Hopefully she will stay enthused with it!

Beginning of practice: Miss Simona first showing Carlie how to hold the racket

Hitting the balls back and forth over the net!

Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

We have been having TONS of earthquakes lately. There was a 4.7 magnitude at 11pm last night. The epicenter was about 15 miles north east from my house! I was asleep and never felt anything but just about everyone else I've spoken with felt it. I think my dog, Cooper, felt it because he woke up and started barking around that same time. They said it's the biggest earthquake Arkansas has had since 1969. Luckily, there were no reports of major damage or injuries! We were also under a tornado watch and had some bad storms rolling through the state. I woke up around 3am and there was a tornado warning one county over from me. We also had tornado weather this past Friday afternoon and are expecting more this coming up Friday. There has definitely been some weird things going on in Arkansas lately!

From a child's eyes

I was just going through my camera and came across a few very interesting pictures that I don't remember taking. I'm not sure who the culprit on all of them were but I have a good guess at a few of them! This is just a few of the ones I found today, I had already deleted some bofore I had the idea to make them into a blog post!

This is a view of the back of my head from the back seat...
Carlie's hand, probably taken the same time of the previous photo...

Wonder who took this one???
Maybe the same person that took this one???

Sorry to all of the people who have a foot phobia (Me included) but this one just cracked me up! These are Rick's feet!

More feet! (These are Jacelyn's tootsies)

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Where I live, we usually get one, MAYBE two good snow days every winter. We difine a good snow day as a day that it snows and sticks to the ground, whether it's 1 inch or 3 inches. This winter we have had this happen 4 or 5 times already and about 4 other days where we've had snow fall but nothing that stuck. They are calling for a HUGE snow storm to come rolling in on Tuesday night into Wednesday and we are expected to get 8 INCHES! WHAT IS THAT??? This is just rediculous to us! Most people are sick and tired of it, NOT ME! I love love love snow and winter weather (as long as our power doesn't go out) Jacelyn definitely gets it from me. Carlie is so over the snow and doesn't even want to play in it anymore. Thankfully most of the snow days has started on a Thursday or Friday and then cleared out by school on Monday so they have only had maybe 3 snow days. This past Friday they closed the school at noon and then they had a 2 hour delay today. Here are some pictures from the snow day this past Friday. I'll post more after our blizzard Wednesday!!!

Here is Jacelyn and Mia playing in the snow.

This is what Carlie did the whole time. She was watching "Let's Make a Deal" and eating cookies-n-cream kisses!

Reminiscing...

I just went back through all of my posts since starting this blog. I laughed and I cried. I'm so so so happy that I started it, even though I don't post that often anymore. My girls have grown up so much. This blog has gone through potty training, family sicknesses, babies being born, temper tantrums, hilarious kid isms, birthday's, holidays, family vacations, and so much more. I'm really going to make an effort to post more from now on, even if no one but myself reads it. I started this blog more for myself to be able to look back on one day. I recommend all 2 of you that read this to look back through the last few years of your own blog and reminisce a little. It will make your heart smile!

First Cheer Competition 12/11/10

Here is the first cheer competition. Again, Jacelyn is on the far left. Her coach told her that the mascot would come out during the awards assembly. She didn't know what the awards assembly was so she thought he was going to come out during their peformance. She is terrified of people dressed up as mascots, which is the reason she was turned around looking at the curtain the whole time! LOL.

CAC Tiny Performance 2

I uploaded this last night from my phone and it wouldn't let me put any text on it.

This is the cheer competition from January 16th. It was only their 2nd competition and there was so much improvement from the last one on December 11th. We were all so proud of how well they did. I was especially proud of Jacelyn since she is the youngest of the group and has only been doing tumbling for about 8-9 months and cheer for 5 months! We were also very shocked that none of them seemed nervous about performing for a huge crowd. I will try to post a comparison video later.

FYI: Jacelyn is the one on the far left and the second one to do a cartwheel.

PICTURES!

I've been a really bad slacker when it comes to taking pictures lately. Here are just a few from the last few months.

New Year...New Blog Post

Wow, I can't believe it's already 2011. This past year has flown by faster than any other year of my life. So many wonderful things happened in 2010.

We finally got Carlie tested for ADHD and began treating it with medication. I am so proud of how well she has been doing and how much happier she has become. She is doing pretty well at school and she loves her teacher! He asked She played soccer again this year and is just such a great athlete. I would love for her to stick with it but she has decided to move on to other interests. Right now she's trying to figure out whether she wants to do karate, piano, gymastics, or another season of soccer. She just had her 8th birthday on January 2nd. We had her party at the brand new movie theater that just opened in December. We saw "Yogi Bear in 3D". It was a really cute movie and all of the kids loved it! She also thinks she is going to marry Justin Bieber. My dad asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said "Justin Bieber". He bought her a shirt that says "Future Mrs. Bieber"!

Jacelyn is learning more and more every day. She is such a quick witted child. I'm constantly laughing at the things she says and does, although some things get her in trouble! The other day she was mad at Carlie for not sharing her fake nails and she yelled "UGHHH I HATE EVERTHING EXCEPT JESUS, GOD, AND THE PRESIDENT!!!" I got on to her for saying she hates everything but I had to laugh. Another instance was when we were at lunch with Rick's parents at a Mexican restaurant. It also happened to be the same week that Carlie was learning about Mexico. Carlie was telling me that red in Spanish was rojo, blue was azul, etc. Jacelyn was at the end of the table not paying any attention (or so I thought) eating her cheese dip. I asked Carlie what green was and she couldn't think of it. Jacelyn, without even looking up from her cheese dip, said "verde" to herself in a way that made me think that in her mind, everyone should know that verde meant green in Spanish! I didn't even know she knew ANY colors! One last story, Christmas morning she was opening presents. She opened a box that had a shirt in it and asked "Is this a sassy shirt?" I just looked at her and she said "This is a sassy shirt, because I'm a sassy girl!" LOL. She has also been doing competitive cheer for the last few months. She had her first competition on December 11th and then another this past weekend. She is having such a blast doing it. Both girls definitely keep me entertained all the time!

The biggest news of 2010 is that Rick officially adopted Carlie! It's been something that we've wanted to do for the last several years but it just wasn't ever the right time. Rick has been in Carlie's life since she was 20 months old. Her bio dad basically said that Rick is more her father than he is and she deserves to have his last name. I'll spare the rest of the details and just say that we are all so excited about it!

I'll be back to update this post with pictures from the last few months!