The Annual Daddy Daughter Dance

Few things warm my heart like the Daddy Daughter Dance.  

What little girl wouldn't LOVE to get dressed up and be taken to a 

fancy date by the man in her life - Daddy?

We raced out of school to get home to start getting ready as soon as possible.

Really, it takes Victoria about 10 minutes to transform from a gym clothes wearing second grader to looking this adorable.

Gosh, sometimes she stops me in my tracks just looking at her.

She's so beautiful, inside and out.

I am so lucky to be her mommy.

While we were waiting for Daddy to finish getting ready we headed outside for some pictures. 

Our little dude was running all over the yard.

Uncle Guy and Emilee arrived.

When I was taking these pictures I had tears in my eyes.

It seems like just the other day (ok - not really just the other day but not nearly 30 years ago)

that Chrissy and I were in our Easter dresses posing in Grandma's yard.  

Gosh, I'd love to get my hands on one of those pictures!

 They are just adorable!

This little guy kept photobombing and I didn't mind one bit:-)

Daddy with his little girl!

Guy with his little girl.

Two proud daddies.

I don't have my good camera out often enough.

So I chased him around.

This kid is so damn cute it's ridiculous!

He's sporting his new shoes.

He's gone up a size each month for the last few.

Size SEVEN on a one year old!!

If it's like the paws of a puppy, he may be the biggest Humphrey yet!

Hard to believe this little girl was our baby toddling around this same yard...

now she's nearly 8!

During all the fanciness, these two were cruising around.

Having a ball!

One last look at these little ladies before they headed to Olive Garden for a fancy dinner.

Why not run down a driveway sucking on his thumb?

Pretty sure he's thinking, "Catch me if you can!"

What a wonderful night it was!!

**A text just came in - Victoria won the Hula Hoop contest.

Considering she tried to convince me to let her wear pants so she could hula hoop better

this is biiiiig news!

This night just keeps getting better!

How Times Change

My how times change.....

13 years ago tonight it was a Sunday.  I was out and about with my college roommate.  Way too late.

Good thing we were though.  I met my husband.  That night we were pretty much care free.

Tonight we are tired parents of three, including a sick baby.  (Yes, he's a baby when he's sick.)

Instead of uploading the 13 year old pic of us I had planned,  I've been worried about getting a sub for tomorrow.  Worrying about trying to get everything done for conferences with missing the day before conferences begin.

However, when I picked Brecken up from daycare and his nose was running and he was hacking with his head on Kris' shoulder I felt embarrassing guilt.  He shouldn't have gone today.  Tonight, he's even worse.  He needs to be home tomorrow with his mommy.

I know I will get everything done for school, one way or another.

It is amazing what a difference 13 years makes.  I wouldn't change a thing.

Brecken's First Birthday

Brecken's first real birthday happened two weeks ago.

March 17 fell on a Monday, following Spring Break.

It just about broke my heart to drop him off at daycare that morning. 

But we made the best out of the time we were together.

Victoria and Christian were SOOOO excited for his birthday.

He had him dressed and opening present about 2.5 minutes after he finally woke up at 7:00.

Christian got him baby friendly art supplies.

He enjoyed eating the paper!

After searching several stores for the most perfect gift ever...

Victoria finally found BLUE cleaning supplies fit for the baby who loves cleaning the most!

Here he is with his very own mop and broom.

Since then, there's been many mornings I give in and let him 

hold his broom in the car on the way to daycare.

He loves them!!

And how much do you love his shirt?

He has quite the birthday gear wardrobe!

We had to make the annual It's My Birthday trip to McDonald's.

He climbed in the Playland for the first time that morning.

He loves their hotcakes!

I've come to realize it's almost impossible to get a good picture of all three kids looking at once.

When my class was at music at the end of the day 

I went and snatched him up from daycare and took him to Christian's class.

It was choice time in K and Christian was so excited to show him off.

Clearly Brecken just wanted to fit in and not be held back.

One of C's little friends touched Brecken's arm and kept saying how C had a soft baby.

C said, "You think his arm is soft, you should touch his cheeks!"

Then we strolled into V's 2nd grade class.

Brecken sat in her chair like he was there to learn.

He was a hit.

Here's my empty classroom.

Birthday Boy is rocking his shamrock headband, my badge and my car keys.

When I left school half an hour later is was running.

Little dude loves my keys;-)

I had many ideas for the evening of his birthday.

However, since he goes to bed at 5:30 and Monday is the start of the week I decided to keep it immediate family only and not even go out to dinner.

St. Patrick's Day night out seemed like a lot for a baby one year old when he likes to go to bed so early.

We picked up Chinese food on our way home and couldn't wait to let him at his birthday cake.

We kept him far away from the flames.

One kid starting on fire at her birthday was plenty for us.

As you can see there's a lot of thumb action.

This was about 5:00 and he was fading fast.

Then he started enjoying his cake and the frosting!

He started really waking up and partying in his high chair!

Looking as cute as ever.

Getting everything covered in a nice layer of frosting:-)

 Again, hard to get everyone looking at once!

After his bath he went right back to his favorite gift.

Mopping and sweeping is so fun!

Just ask him!

The night wouldn't be complete without a game or twenty of hide n seek.

This is currently is most favorite past time.

It's the best when he leaves a foot or leg hanging out and totally thinking he's hiding.

Sweetest thing ever.

It was a great day to kick off celebrating his birthday.

Looking forward to celebrating with all of our families and friends this weekend!

Her First "Job"

We tried something new as a fundraiser this year.

We delivered the food to the tables at Culver's for two hours one Tuesday evening for 10% of the sales.

I'm totally into fun school things like this, so we headed straight home, picked up Mark and headed right over.  V had been looking forward to working for weeks!

We got there right away, ordered our food and chowed it down because it was time to work!

Christian was so sad he couldn't work.

But a kindergartner carrying food in the school lunch room is a nightmare, 

can you imagine in a public restaurant?!

Turns out you have to be in third grade to "work."

OMG!  What a nightmare, but it is what it is.

Until a teacher (who shall remain nameless, unless Jeanne figures it out;-) tells V to tell them she's in third grade.  That one grade doesn't seem like a stretch unless you saw the other kids working.  They were no less than 8 inches taller than her 

(I don't want to put their pics on here but it's hilarious with all of the standing together!).

The Culver's guy had her following the big kids as they were delivery the food.

She didn't want to lie.

And I did not want her to either.

Long story short:

She got to do a couple deliveries.

How happy is she?

We stole a hat for lil' bro' and he was happy too.

He's looking forward to working next year.

Little does he know.....

World's Largest Sundae (Maybe?)

Last summer all five of us, plus Mama Jeanne, headed down to Marketfest on a Thursday night 

when the Wold's Largest Ice Cream Sundae was going to be put together and measured and then entered into the Guinness Book of World Records.  

I'm not one who loves crowds, especially with a small baby, but this was a chance of a lifetime!

We headed down.

It was frickin' packed to the gills sidewalk to sidewalk.

It was "Stand where you are and don't move" kind of positioning so we didn't lose out to the curb spot.

However, this event didn't start for nearly an hour after it was supposed to.  It was about 90 degrees and literally shoulder to shoulder.   It was close to unbearable, except it was so cool (like awesome cool - not cool like degrees because it was super hot!).  To witness something going to be in the Guinness was amazing.  We toughed it out and ultimately ate the ice cream from the Guinness book professed World's Largest Ice Cream Sundae.

Each scooped touched. Arnie Carlson was there.  The WBL Mayor Jo Emmerson was there.

It was pretty cool.

We've been waiting for the 2014 book to come out.

It did.  We went to but it at Barnes and Noble the first weekend it was available and looked it up in the glossary only to see WBL was NOT in the book.  I texted the pic of the city who WAS in the book to my friend who knows the Mayor who assured me she had the actual award in the office.

The Mayor was one of our Mystery Readers in Feb. and I asked her if she could bring the award.

Since our family is so into this, the Mayor thought all of my questions were funny.

The entire second grade came to listen to her read.

Then V became super sick (turns out pulled muscle gone wrong!) in the middle of it and missed the end which included the award. 

On the way walking the Mayor out, V was coming out of the nurse's office and I happen (thank goodness) to have my phone in my pocket from taking pics of the Mayor) to have my phone in my pocket and got this pic of them.

It looks legit.  However, the Guinness Book "People" spelled dessert wrong.

So we're not in the book for some unexplained reason but we have the 

World's Longest Ice Cream Sundae Desert.

Sounds like this should include cactus or something.

Either way, tons of fun!

The Big Winner of I Love to Read Month

February is I Love to Read month.

Our school does so much for this month to pump kids up about reading, 

it's crazy. We have Mystery Readers everyday.

We had Read for the Gold Olympics style - keeping track of our daily minutes.

Our Media Specialist had her own Owl Always Love to Read contest.

Each 20 minutes read the student filled out a little slip of paper.

Victoria reads A LOT in any given month.

This month was no different.

At first she was pretty excited and filled out the slips.

Soon, it wasn't so exciting and she slacked on filling out the slips.

Personally, I'm not huge into the contests.

Kids should read because it's good for them.

And it's awesome.

The kids who don't want to are most likely going to cheat and bring in fists full of tickets anyway.

Victoria's name ended up getting pulled and although she wasn't the first name to get drawn she got the BEST PRIZE EVER!!

The media specialist MADE a reading quilt over our snow days (how's that for dedication??)!

Not only did, V win it she was so proud we made two stops on the way home to show it off!

It now covers her each night first with all her other favorite blankies on top of it.

When V came to my room at the end of the day with this quilt I was about to cry.

I held off until I saw her.

She stood there and showed Victoria the parts she did first and how each part went together.

Victoria listened intently.

If she wished that quilt would go to a student 

who loves to read and appreciated it to the fullest, 

she got it!