I'm back... I hope

A friend of mine recently said that she had taken a leave of absence from her blog. It sounded all too familiar and I realized how long it has been since I've found the time to post.

When things get so busy that I can't even get phone calls or quality time with my kids in, blogging has to take a back seat. However, since this is my way of documenting memories, it's important to me that I stay more current than I have lately. I needed to get back on the wagon. So, here I am, on the blogging wagon. :-)

It seems like I blinked and summer was gone. So, as hard as it might be, I'm going to attempt to re-cap some of the highlights in my next few posts. These will include the 4th of July, Cameron's 2nd birthday, our trip to Colorado and visit with family there, Austin's 9th birthday, the beginning of school. . . see how fast it goes??

We had a lot of nice family time this summer. We played, we swam, we ate yogurt a few times :-) and we enjoyed the break from the schedule. Now we're back in the swing of things and fall is upon us. We're excited for this fabulous time of year and all that comes with it.

Here's to crisp mornings and playing outside on cool afternoons, scarecrows, changing leaves, pumpkin carving and trick or treating. Here's to fall! We love fall!

Face Painting fun...

I am soooooo far behind with my blogging! The updates will follow, slowly but surely, I hope. But for today, here are some cute pictures of the kids all painted up by our talented friend Michelle. The kids had a good time, and were very sad when they had to come home and shower away all their lovely paint!

You can check out more of what Michelle does at: www.onthespotbodyart.com

Milestones

It's bitter sweet, how kids grow up.

Here we are cheering them on every step of the way and then one day we look at them and discover how much they've grown up.

This week was a week of milestones for Brooke, in particular. . .

After MUCH anticipation and eager wiggling, she lost her first tooth!!

Luckily we got some great pictures because, much to her dismay, she somehow "misplaced" (aka Lost) her tooth before we could even

get it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

The house has been scoured but, sadly, the tooth is nowhere to be found.

Brooke is convinced that the tooth fairy came and collected it,

since that is the only reasonable explanation, of course.

She didn't get to leave it under her pillow, so if we don't find it soon, we've decided that Brooke will leave a note and a picture under her pillow instead of her tooth, and hope for a prize. I'm sure she'll get something special. :-)

Her other milestones this week went hand in hand . . .

Anyone who knows Brooke well knows that she has been an avid thumb sucker all her young life. It made her a very happy, content baby and always a sweet quiet toddler. However, as she's gotten older, the addiction has gotten harder and harder for her to shake. ( and believe me, we've tried.)

Kindergarten came and went and she was still struggling with giving it up. I sucked my thumb until kindergarten, so I had hoped that she would stop after starting school, like my Mom says I did. But no. (although she never did it at school)

She really wanted to stop, but our attempts had been unsuccessful.

Well, about a month ago, at the beginning of summer, she began begging to get her ears pierced. After some thought and discussion, we decided that we would let her get her ears pierced if she was able to stop sucking her thumb. We helped her make up a cute little calendar and she began keeping track of the days that she went without sucking her thumb.

It was a real challenge for her and it took about a month, but she was bound and determined to do it this time and she has been very successful.

There have been a few slip ups here and there, but this whole week she hasn't even sucked it at night to go to sleep.

That is a HUGE accomplishment, and of course, needed to be rewarded.

So . . .

After much begging and pleading and then begging and pleading some more, I finally followed through with the promise of getting her ears pierced tonight.

She had plenty of support from special girlfriends who've been cheering her on and encouraging her to reach her goal.

There were some tears, a few more than I expected, actually, which broke my heart. She recovered quickly though and was

off to shopping, playing and dessert in no time.

So, it's official, she's a big girl.

My little Brookie is growing up.

No more sucking her thumb, got some birthstones in her ears and grown up teeth are making their way into her pretty little smile.

I sure do love that girl.

As much as I'll miss my "baby" girl, I am certainly enjoying my little girlfriend.

Last day of school

I know it's been a month since we got out of school for the summer, but I haven't had a chance to write a little note about the kids fun last day.

We enjoyed a very cute program and Kindergarten graduation with Brooke's class. She had such a great first year of school. She has grown into such a mature little girl from the fragile pre-schooler I sent into class last fall. I couldn't have asked for a better group of kids for her to form friendships and learn with. Her teacher was wonderful too and we're definitely hoping to go through her class again, because she's moving up to 2nd grade! Hooray for kindergarten and Brookie's successful year!

Austin's class had a sweet ice cream sundae party and awards ceremony. Everyone enjoyed the little movie I made of the kids throughout the year, which was fun for me. I made the movie put to music that the kids had been singing in music class all year and it was so cute to see them all sing a long. We presented our teacher with a great big class rug that we'll use in our class room next year. Lucky for us, we get to loop up with our fabulous teacher into 3rd grade! Almost the entire class is going to stay together, so it'll be a nice smooth transition / reunion in the fall. The class presented me with a cool gift basket full of games and treats to enjoy with the family. It was very thoughtful and we've been enjoying all the prizes that were inside. I'm still trying to recruit a new home room mom though, I'm not so sure I'm up for doing it again next year! :-)

The last day of school was fun, fun fun, as it should have been.
Most of all, it was awesome because it was THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!
We're so happy to be enjoying summer together!

Out with a Bang!

We had our last swim meet of the season this past weekend. It was a quad meet, which meant that we were one of 4 teams competing against one another, compared to our usual 2. There were lots of swimmers in each age group, since there were so many teams. Both kids did well and we were so proud of Brooke for completing her first season. She loved it and really had a fabulous time. Her strokes improved a lot and she gained a lot of confidence in the water. Her favorite is backstroke and she won her heat 3 meets in a row with her backstoke. She has loved every bit of being onswim team and I know she'll continue to improve and love it more each season.

It was Austin's 4th season on the summer swim team and he enjoys it more each year. He really blossomed this season and at this last meet he was at the top of his game. We were so very happy for his success. So, in a nut shell, there were about 50 7 &8 year old boys at this meet and Austin got first place in 3 of his 5 events!! He got a 2^nd and a 3^rd in his other two, which are fabulous as well. He had an awesome meet and we were so proud of him. He loves to swim and it's so fun to see him develop his skill while having a great time. He really ended the season with a bang! Now he's just trying to talk us into signing him up for the year round team. J

He swam 5 races and below are the results:

Event 2 Boys 8 Year Olds 100 Yard IM (individual medley =one length of the pool doing each stroke-backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle)

Name Team Finals Time

Estrada, Austin- Lakeway Lakers- 2:00.41

Event 14 Boys 7-8 100 Yard Freestyle Relay

Team Finals Time

1 Lakeway Lakers- 1:23.19

1. Piercy, TJ 8 2) Sandlin, Gray 7 3) Estrada, Austin 8 4) Linn, Reilly 8
   

26 Boys 8 Year Olds 25 Yard Freestyle

Name Team Finals Time

1 Estrada, Austin Lakeway Lakers - 19.59 10

Event 50 Boys 8 Year Olds 25 Yard Breaststroke

Name Age Team Finals Time

1 Govind, Keshav 8 Waac Rec Swim Team 27.05

2 Lasseter, Luke 8 Waac Rec Swim Team 27.73

3 Estrada, Austin 8 Lakeway Lakers-ST 28.69

Event 72 Boys 7-8 100 Yard Medley Relay (4 boys each swim one of the strokes in a relay – Austin was breaststroke)

Team Relay Seed Time Finals Time Points

1 Lakeway Lakers- 1:39.50

1) Piercy, TJ 8 2) Sandlin, Gray 7 3) Linn, Reilly 8 4) Hansen, Jake 7

2 Lakeway Lakers- 2:01.65

1. Conway-Malott, Kyle 8 2) Estrada, Austin 8 3) Bernick, Ethan 8 4) Burr, Weston 8