June 28th - Lauren's B-day and Fireworks

What a day! We had a great time at Lauren's birthday party. I think she really enjoyed and ultimately made the right choice for her to just have family. She also invited her beloved Ms. Monteith and we feel so blessed that she joined us (though I am sure she sees us all in a different light now!!!)

We had great food, a couple of games, presents and Maggie Moo Cupcakes. It was all "American Girl Sized" Mini Burgers, Mini Dogs, Mini Taco Bowls and Mini Mac's - little fruits on sticks - etc. We ate too much!

Lauren got some great gifts from all those who love her. A couple highlights -
1. Kits Tree House
2. Shopping Spree in a Box (tons of gift cards to stores that she loves!!!)
3. Great Grandma Slingerlends old school books (from the early 1900's!!)
4. Tickets and backstage passes to HighSchool Musical the Play
5. Crafts! DOLL CRAFTS even! She is stoked!

Here are a couple of my favorite photos followed by a slide show of more great photos!


Seeing the Tree House for the first time!


Grandma Mary and Grandma Maria bought the SAME card!!!!


Blowing out that last candle!



After the party and the clean up...we had an evening of fireworks with neighbors in the cul-de-sac. The kids had a BLAST (so did the daddys!!!) We had Dave and his daughter Nicole (4) Nikki and George with sons Evan and Christian (5 and 2) and of course us!

Again - a couple favorite photos followed by the slideshow!!!


The girls waiting on the lawn


Lauren, Nicole and hailey!


The girls watching the show!


Nikki with Christian and Evan watching the show!



Well, that's all folks! Off to bed soon, tomorrow I turn 35 (not that anyone reads this blog to hear about me!) then off to Beaver Creek on Tuesday (Todd to follow on Thursday) - I am looking forward to the trip!!

Someday Story

Some of you know that Lauren dreams of fixing up the old mountain towns she sees on our drives to Beaver Creek. She has talked about for two years now. Her plans keep getting more detailed and more elaborate. She wants them to be beautiful and a place for poor people to live. While I have no idea where she dreamt this up I know it to be on her mind just about constantly.

Well, last week while at WellsFargo she picked up an entry form for a contest. at the time I did not know what it was but she was excited about it. In the car she read the whole packet, then told me about it. But she was bummed because you had to be 18 to enter. The contest is called "Someday Stories" and the goal is to write your "someday" story and the winner gets $100,000 towards their "Someday" goals. The story has to be under 250 words and words like I and a count! She was so excited and so bummed at the same time.

Well, that night she wrote a "someday" story in a tiny spiral notebook.

Tonight I added two sentences to the beginning and submitted the story. I don't think she has a chance of winning - might even be breaking the rules - not her best "story" but it what she has been talking about for sure. It is also hard to tell the separation between my 2 sentences and her story on the online entry (no way to add enters) but I did it anyway -

Here is Lauren's Someday Story:

My someday story comes from my 7 year old daughter and a dream she has had for two years. She really wanted to enter your contest.

Someday I will fix the old towns in the Rocky Mountains. I want to make them nicer than ever, and I will sell them to poor people for around twenty dollars. I will have to buy the land, tools, wood, paint, screws, nails, TV’s, Dishwashers etcetera. I’ll build stores, jobs, houses and banks. For the back yards I’ll do mini pools, sod, and porches. Indoors I’d like a casual family room and living room, a pretty and nice dining room, clean looking kitchen, a basement that’s full of space to have a guest bedroom and space to store stuff, a craft room that could be converted to an office, three decent bedrooms. In each house there will be all those things I just said. There will also be one big Welcome Home present and a note per month. Each house will be three dollars. When I said around Twenty Dollars I meant to sell it. In the present will be the note and some free DVD’s, CD’s and Books. The note will say: Your monthly fee is Three Dollars. I’ll give you three times each month; every time you can’t pay three dollars it takes one of your chances. If you lose all three chances you lose your house. Please choose me for your winner; I’m doing good things for poor people. Please.

Ms. Monteiths Fairy Party

What a woman! Not only did she teach our kids this year but invited them into her home for an afternoon of fairy fun too! Actually, as part of 3rd Grade classroom economics the children had a choice to save $400 of their earned money to purchase a ticket to the fairy party! 7 of the 13 children did! (others wanted to come but couldn't for personal reasons too) - Ms. Monteith had fairy houses for them to build and paint, then they got to design their fairy gardens, eat great food (Better than Brad Pitt Cake for one)The kids had a great time!

Dance Recital update

LONG DAY. Wow. The recitals were great. Though Hailey did not really dance in her dances - 2 she just stood there one toe pointed looking out into the wings - one she tried to dance and did some of it - she was intimidated!

LAUREN DID GREAT (so I hear) I had to be backstage for most of the day but got to watch her hip hop dance - who knew she had it in her? She was awesome! It was fun to see that one!

What a money maker though...3 shows - $10 per seat per show, 3 videos $30 each, 7 costumes, all the classes, only 1 program allowed per family...Holy Moly. and all so I could hang out back stage for quick changes and not see my girls! AHHHHHH!

Oh well, I did snap a couple before the show and back stage photos for your viewing pleasure...I am anxiously awaiting the professional photos from last weekend - but I am sure it will be weeks before I see those! Oh, and the videos (at $30 bucks each) take 6 weeks to arrive too.









TOMORROW - BIG FAIRY PARTY at Ms. Monteiths house, the girls are ECSTATIC! I am sure it will be great fun for all who attend (Myself included) hope I remember the camera!

Dance Recital

Busy busy day ahead! 3 shows, 2 girls, 7 dances and costumes!!! Can't wait!

I will update about how it went tonight or tomorrow!

In the meantime. I took the camera to Tennis on Thursday. I did not get as many pictures as I wanted because the battery was low but I did some good ones and wanted to share! Coach said Lauren is doing great at keeping her racket level etc - needs to work on reaction times, but she is really doing quite well! The kids are having a blast and really getting a work out too, as he is doing some conditioning with them as well as teaching tennis basics!

Enjoy!

Water Balloons with Cailey

What fun! Cailey came over for a little while today and we threw water balloons! The girls had a BLAST! I filled them all last night (136) it was great watching them!

The slideshow has 50 pictures (SORRY) but I did narrow it down from 102!

Hope you enjoy!

Golf and Tennis...

Golf and Tennis start this week for Lauren. She does golf on Monday and Wed mornings and Tennis on Tuesday and Thur mornings! Both with her Coach from school. She is really slowing down and paying attention to her golf, and doing quite well! We are really proud of her.

We bought Hailey a small tennis racket so she could play around too! She already likes to hit golf balls with Lauren...so I kind of felt it was a must to get her a racket. She is so happy and she loves it.

We took it to the park today and I got some video of her hitting the ball while Paige threw the ball at her racket (litterally aiming for the racket so Hailey could hit it). I must say Paige is quite good at that, I sort of stunk at it! The first clip is about 2 minutes long and the second is about 1 minute.

***You can Hit PAUSE on the MP3 Player if the song interferes with the video Sound***

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I will get some video of Lauren doing golf and tennis too, I am just waiting till next week when she has had some time to practice a little without me filming her and making her nervous!

Summer Time

BUSY BUSY- We have had a great week! We got to the pool 3 times and the girls were great! Lauren swimming and playing somewhat independantly, Hailey going all the way under water over and over and even blowing bubbles! We got to take our friends Cailey and Alicia (Cailey is Lauren's age and Alicia is her mom) to the pool with us on Friday and that was great! Good for the girls and the moms!

Yesterday and Today we spent virtually living at the dance studio getting pictures done! WOW. We made 5 trips for pictures in various costumes. the Girls did great! I took some photos at home before left (I left out a costume or two) but here are some cute shots of the girls!













SUPER FUN! The professional pictures were amazing! I had so much fun looking at them and picking some out (though it was VERY difficult to choose!)

Earlier this week Hailey insisted on wearing a BUN like Lauren. She looked so sweet. I could not resisit putting this photo up:




Lauren tried out for the Performing Company at The Academy of Colorado Ballet on Thursday night. We will get an email soon letting us know how that went. Dual Star has asked that Lauren remain "exclusive" in order to compete with them and her response to that was "that's just mean" she really loves the Ballet at the Academy and does not want to leave. so....Cross your fingers.

Late last week Nicole and Heather came over to play with the girls. They all had fun!!



Big Birthday coming up (Lauren's!!!) not mine. We will pretend that one is not happening! Lauren is having a small Family party plus her wonderful teacher Ms. Monteith (Lauren is so SO excited she is coming) and we plan to do an American Girl Doll Sized party/theme. Should be sweet! Then after her birthday we are going to take her to see the new AG movie - KIT because Kit was her first doll and the movie starts just a few days after her birthday!

I will try to keep up with more in the coming weeks, been a bit under the weather lately thus making it tough to motivate!

Last Day of School

It is finally here! What a long wait this week has been. Such a waste of time to be at school. Monday they cleaned, Tuesday Field Day, Wednesday Class Party at bowling alley (we played hooky) Thursday more cleaning and a movie (skipped the movie) and today - finally - the awards ceremony!

We are meeting her teacher for breakfast this morning at 7:30! Then off to school for a little while. The rest of us will go to school at 1:00 for the awards ceremony then it is finally summer break! YAHOO!

Just wait till August when I am blogging " Is school ever going to start???"

I will post pictures from today later this evening!

A full week since my last post

So sad. It was a tough week though. With Hailey sick and back at the Dr on Friday then mom got her turn on Sunday and I just have not had the motivation to post! I do have a fair amount to post! I plan to edit this post later this evening and get a bunch of stuff up so check back tonight or tomorrow morning!

UPDATE!!::

Ok first...Hailey is still a bit under the weather. She has a few more days on her antibiotic and I am holding out hope! I got the thrill of antibiotics too...but am feeling pretty decent overall at this point!

First I want to post two drawings from our beautiful girls. Explanation: Lauren used a step by step to draw a Garfield in Uncle Brad's Birthday Card on Saturday! It was great. Mom threw away the instructions and she drew this one free hand on Sunday in spite of me!



Then I asked Hailey to draw me a ballerina. Why you ask? Because she was driving me batty on Monday and I wanted her to "do" something...this is what I got (look closely and you can her eyes and nose and mouth and her curly little legs are in first position according to Hailey)


It is a stretch I know. But she was proud of it!

Next:
Grandpa helped the girls plant these pansie pots on the 24th of June (just over a week ago) they were supposed to take 2 weeks to sprout...well - Laurens are Huge - took these pictures on Monday and not hers are a good 3 inches taller. Need to repot hers. Have a black thumb so going to take them to the nursery tomorrow and let them do it! Hailey's are in the purple pot and Lauren's in the red!





I have more to post but it is time for me to check out...find a good book and curl up for the night. I will try to post more tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by!