end-of-year floor party 2012

I wanted to do something special to celebrate the end of the year and honor the seniors on our floor. They've all been with us for two years and have become like daughters, sisters, and friends. This year I themed the party after the schools the girls had chosen. We have one going to Dartmouth, one to Vanderbilt, one to Baylor (Sic em Bears!), and seven going to OU. I used the school colors for tableware and even found some music from each of the schools.

I printed out these for notes to each of the seniors.

Our buffet for the evening. The menu consisted of foods that represented each school. We had "Vanderbilt" hot chicken (fried chicken, sprinkled with cayenne pepper and eaten with a piece of white bread and pickles), "OU" wheat salad (made with Waugh wheat, so I guess you could say it was really OSU wheat, but we won't tell them), "Dartmouth" corn chowder (it actually worked out that this was for the girl who's vegetarian, so I just left out the bacon), and "Baylor" Dr. Pepper products to drink.

Thanks to pintrest, for dessert we had "class rings" (ring pops) and "diplomas" (rolled wafer cookies with pull-apart twizzlers tied around the middle).

After dinner we played Pictionary using graduation, college, and Western Civ terms.

senior swim party 2012

We got invited to the senior swim party again this year. One of the supporters of OSSM generously hosts a swim party at her house for the seniors each year. It was perfect weather, delicious food, fun music, and we had a blast! The kids are also incredibly sweet to share their fun time with us.

this year we got there early before the kids arrived so Elle could get used to it before 60 teenagers jumped in

she warmed up pretty fast and loved jumping off the side (although you wouldn't know she likes to do this if you watched swim lessons, but that's a whole other story)

how Toddy spent most of the party

but later he was happy to get the girls' attention

Elle and Chris chicken-fighting

she thought she was something after she "won" and all the kids cheered for her

volleyball and dance

The next several posts will be about finishing up the school year. A tradition at OSSM is the faculty/student volleyball game. There are 2 truths to this game: Dr. Manning always refs and the faculty always win. But, we play anyway. I actually got to play for about 5 minutes.

 This same night we had the ballroom dance competition. Todd wasn't to thrilled about the music so Elle and I got to go watch by ourselves. All the couples did awesome! They had to do several dances, swing, salsa, waltz, etc. and it was tough!

Here's two of our girls, Nadya and Maria, with their dance partners. 

2nd place couple

3rd place couple

The professional dancers who performed for all of us!

The audience also got to try to move like Jagger! Here's one of our girls, Brianna and her sister Jordan getting with it!

medals in may

Elle finished up gymnastics for the year last week. Here's a recap of the day we got to go in and participate. This experience has let us get to know more about Elle's personality. We know she's a hardcore introvert. She takes forever to warm up to something. This day in particular, really showcased how difficult it will be to push her into anything. First, they do warm-ups, but Elle never really does it. You can see in the first picture how she walks around, but actually refuses to do what she's supposed to do with the teachers. Once she gets into the small groups she's usually fine. We determined she was nervous and easily embarrassed about everyone watching, which is not a shock since she's my daughter, but we were not prepared for how these emotions played out (e.g. fits, crying, gnashing of teeth). We're puzzled about how to help her deal with these feelings. We're still learning. I'm sure Todd might be totally different. We want to respect Elle's personality, but not let her be afraid to try things she could be good at or that could be good for her. We're taking a break for the summer to see if she really wants to continue. The other day she watched a video of old gymnastic events at the olympics and said she wanted to do the flips they were doing. So maybe she'll get back into it in the fall.

high bar action

Daddy did the pit with her this day, helping her jump or somersault in, and even did a few jumps himself!

 Here's some slow motion shots of Elle's somersault:

 

She also got a medal for her hard work. They were each supposed go up get their medal and to a "ta-da" for pics. Here's how Elle's turn went:

Once it was over and just us she did it perfectly and willingly. She just didn't want an audience.

where you'll find us this summer

We went to the arts festival a few weeks back and got to try out Elle's new swimsuit and the new splashpad at the Myriad Gardens. It was great... except when Elle slipped and got a goose egg on her forehead. We're so excited this is so close to OSSM so we can go play a lot this summer! It officially opens this weekend so we'll probably be frequenting the splashpad, the play area, the dog park, and the Crystal Bridge with our groupon membership we scored!

The splashpad simulates a thunderstorm so there's lots of different water areas.

Todd was not a fan...yet

summing up 8 years together

1 dog

+

2 kids

+

3 moves

+

4 graduate degrees

+

5 states with new zoos

+

6  summers at the cabin

+

7(ish) Disney parks

=

8 years of marriage

We had a different kind of anniversary this year--full of babies and schedules. After Elle's swim lessons we went to Sara Sara Cupcakes for a little family celebration. It was our first time to go there, and we'll definitely go back! We sat out on the porch and it was a beautiful evening. Elle chose blueberry honey, Chris got cappuccino, and I got strawberry shortcake in honor of our wedding cake. All very yummy!

i miss you house... except when you drop limbs

We've been trying to find new renters for our house in Waco and in the process we needed photos of the house. Looking through the pics it makes me miss living on Huaco in Waco. Here's where we used to live:

These shots were all taken after we'd packed A LOT of stuff and needed photos for selling.

living room

living room 2nd view

dining area in kitchen

kitchen

elle's room

guest bed

full bath

half bath

our bedroom

look how little Elle was when we left!

Monday night Waco had some pretty bad storms and one of our trees dropped a limb on the neighbor's house. At first we thought it was worse than it's actually turned out to be, but still worrisome. The foliage has probably been the part I miss the least about our house. Apparently, a limb fell on the neighbor's house another time, but she didn't tell us, and a while back a limb fell on our house. Since we bought the house we've probably cleaned out a billion trees and bushes, but apparently it still needs work. I'm thankful no one was hurt or no other damage was caused.