Wrap ups

June. The time of year where everything comes to an end. Not really, it's a mixture of both - finishing up completed activities, and moving on to new ones! We've been a blur while jumping from one thing to another.

First thing to wrap up was Claire's gymnastics season. We filed in for the parent's observation and watcher her perform all her skills that she mastered during the semester. Gymnastics is Claire's love right now, and she practices nearly every day - even if it is just in the back yard.


Next to wrap was Kindergarten!! How exciting to see Claire graduate from kindergarten and now has become a rising First Grader. She's in summer camp with her friends, and having a great time with lots of activities and fun. But a week before Claire's final kindergarten walk was her class field trip to the Happy Cow Creamery that I chaperoned. Such a fun trip to see how Happy Cows make the best milk. And we sampled the ice cream just to prove it!

Author's Chair - Claire reading a story she wrote about a Clemson Football Game

Kindergarten Graduation

Chloe also wrapped up her first gymnastics season by finishing out her mommy and me class with a final performance. Now she is moving up to an independent class at the same gym that Claire trains in and is SO excited that her gal pal Lilly will be in her class. And to double the fun, Claire's pal - Lilly's older sister Ava - will be in Claire's class! I do feel a little sorry for the teachers having to manage the silliness that will be in these two classes.

Another catch up

Well... here I am again. Back to another 4 month catch up post since I have neglected the blog. Again. I can't say that I haven't blogged because we are boring and there isn't anything to write about. No, it is just because there HAS been plenty of stuff going on and I just haven't made time for it. Excuses behind us, and here we go.....

February:
OK, February really was boring and there was nothing to blog about. Let's move on.

March:
Spring soccer is back in full swing. Claire is now a seasoned veteran of the Under 6 league, but we still chase that elusive goal. This season got away from us without a score - unless you count the one where everyone kind of paused to let her have her shot at the end of the last game of the season. Oh, and that was in a game that Claire's team was winning about 15-0 and the coaches started "helping" the losing team by selectively diverting balls. That was all in good sportsmanship until the losing team coach took the ball away from Claire when she had an open goal in front of her during a breakaway. Here was the chance to break the whole season's scoring drought and the other coach strips the ball from her. I. Went. Nuts. Sorry to be the psycho parent, but that was just wrong. So, another chance came and she *kinda* managed to kick the ball in the goal, with help from a team mate after Claire stood there, open goal and all, frozen in place. Here's to next season!

April:
Finally! Winter was behind us and I was ready to plant my beloved new garden. The Clemson agricultural expert website recommended planting summer vegetables in this region during the month of April or early May. So on April 2nd, I was on my knees digging and planting and created the most perfect little garden: strawberries, 2 varieties of tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cantaloupe, squash, green pepper, jalapeno pepper and cucumber. I proudly snapped pictures and texted them to my mom.

48 hours later, a freak April frost strikes and slaughters my cucumber sprouts and stuns my squash and cantaloupe. In world record time, I managed to fail at my gardening attempt. I ended up having to replace the cucumber and my cantaloupe still today remains stunned. Everything else made a full recovery. I am almost ashamed to admit that the first thing I do each evening is run outside and say high to my crops. We've had several strawberry harvest and one large broccoli event. Everything else is really coming along.. except for the stunned cantaloupe and the cauliflower that never yielded anything but huge leaves. We are having so, so, so much fun with the garden!

Chloe turned 3 in the middle of April and had a ball at her gymnastics themed birthday party. As of her birthday, she is 36" tall and 30.1 lbs. She speaks very well, sleeps great, eats everything in sight and only is slightly getting into that "must exert my independence" stage. She is such a sweetie!

Another April event that I wish I had better results to share was on my half marathon that I trained and trained and trained for. Everything went perfect, except for race day itself. For whatever reason, probably the higher temps than I was used to training in, I ended up throwing up halfway through the race after taking one of those sugar/caffeine energy gels. Needless to say, the 2nd half of the race was slower than I would have liked. I did end up finishing (I had my doubts that I would make it after that!) and am proud that I did, but couldn't shake the disappointment. To ease my mind, I ended up doing a repeat of the 13.1 miles the following Sunday exactly as I wanted to during my race. Race number or not, the race was won. :)

Easter 2011

May:
We haven't been up to much in May so far, mostly because Jason has been out of town a lot and I have a significant work event going on. But we were able to spend the weekend down at the lake with my parents and soak up a little sun. We blew up Chloe's birthday present yesterday: one of those giant, inflatable water trampolines. The girls love it, and I love laying on it to get some sun. I can see that they will enjoy this for years to come!

This past week, Claire came home from school and decided she wanted to learn how to ride her bike with no training wheels. Jason popped them off, and in no time she was whizzing around on her bike with no assistance! She is really excited and loves how fast she can now go. How fast they grow up!

How about I summarize....

I don't have an excuse for being away for so long, so I decided to just give a summary of what we've been up to over the past few months. :)

November:

Claire's first ever soccer season wrapped up with the highlight of the season.... the Parent - Kid soccer game! Naturally, I was the chosen parent to play (or chose myself to play is more like it.) Claire was VERY excited about her mom suiting up to play against the kids. The game went well and the kids were racking up lots of scores - with help from their 3 high-school age coaches. Near the end, one of the mom's had a breakaway... she dribbled up the left sideline and nailed a shot right past the high school goalie. SCORE! Guess who's mom scored? You got it... and we saw more elation out of Claire related to soccer then any other time this season, including the time that Claire actually scored a goal. The season was a little rough - some of the boys on the team were pretty tough and fast, and Claire come down with a couple "stomach aches" before games and other reasons why it wasn't a good idea to go to the game that day. She stuck it out and learned an important lesson about being part of the team. Besides the goal that her mom scored, she enjoyed the thrill of getting her first trophy - and beamed the whole way home, saying she couldn't wait to play again in the spring. So we start again in February!

Claire was in her kindergarten Thanksgiving play. She played a Indian Woman and had a "Welcome, Friends" line that she and the other Indian Women said every time the story narrator referred to them. The group was well rehearsed and the play went off with no hitches. Our hi-light was the opening line when Claire walked out on to the stage to open the play carrying a large picture she drew showing two little girls swinging side by side on swings. She walked up to a microphone and confidently said "I'm thankful for my little sister because she plays with me on my swing set." Queue up all the awwwwww's that resonated from the crowd and a proud mom and dad who wiped tears away. We love our girls, and the love that they have for each other!

December:

Santa came to visit us at our annual "Breakfast with Santa" at the Holly Tree Clubhouse. Claire was pretty pumped about it this year and jumped on Santa's lap to tell him her one true wish: A Rudolph. The perplexed Santa explained that Rudolph needs a pretty big yard to graze in and is a lot of work to take care of. Claire knew that and explained that she wanted a stuffed Rudolph. And that was it. Miss I-am-afraid-of-everything Chloe gingerly walked up to Santa and gave him a cordial handshake before she let him pull her up to her lap and requested "Dora" for Christmas. No other details were offered. We were able to snap a few pictures before Chloe realized she was sitting on a strange man's lap.

We had just a wonderful Christmas. Jason's parents joined us on Christmas Eve for our church service and dinner at home, before Claire wrote a super nice letter to leave for Santa beside the cookies. We tucked the girls in bed and assured Chloe's fears about a stranger coming into her house while we were all sleeping. Both Claire and Chloe heeding the warning - if you get up too early before Santa has a chance to leave the presents (and Santa has a LOT of houses to visit, so he may be there even in the morning) then he takes all the presents and leaves. The kids both stayed in bed until 7:30 and then we got the wrapping paper flying.

After brunch, we hopped in the car to head to Florida for a few days. The drive down was OK (if you consider two over-stimulated kids and no eateries, including McDonald's, open as OK) and we made it to my parent's house around 10:30 that night. The week was a lot of fun, despite the epic cold temps in Florida, with Claire and Chloe getting to spend some time with their cousins, Hailey and Hannah.

January:

A time to celebrate.... 10 years of marriage for Jason and me. Except he was going to be out of town for work during our anniversary and for an entire week. I was so disappointed.... until dad sends me a text saying he and my mom want to come and hang with me for that week! So they flew in and met Jason in the airport as he was leaving. The exchanged car keys, and drove to my house in Jason's car but not before picking up my kids and groceries to cook dinner. We had a great week - even when Snowmageddon 2011 hit which delayed their flight and put the kids out of school for a week. The Floridians remembered their New England roots and shoveled my driveway and got my fireplace going. What lifesavers they were!

And now today, I celebrate a birthday with my family that started with chocolate chip pancakes and coffee, a nice lunch out and an afternoon with the kids. Here's to many more years together!

(stickers courtesy of Claire's label maker)