Lucky 7!

Happy Birthday to Audrey!  7 years old.  I'm in shock.  Wasn't she just a furry little newborn??  She lucked out and had a birthday on a Saturday so she got to wake up slowly and savor her special birthday breakfast!  After lunch we headed to the bowling alley with 8 little friends for GLOW bowling:  black light lit bowling lanes with a disco light and fun music.  She had a blast!

Happy 7 beautiful girl!

Girl Scouts Galore!!

Girl Scouts is a family affair around here.  Both girls love it and I still co-lead both of their troops. At this point I feel like an honorary Girl Scout!  From the start of cookie selling season in early February until bridging ceremonies and end of year parties in May and June, we are hopping all of spring at Girl Scouts events.

 Audrey became a Brownie after two years as a Daisy.  She'll be a Brownie for 2nd and 3rd grades and she's mostly excited about...gulp...camping with her troop!  Yikes!  Her troop is huge and there aren't a whole lot of, how shall I say it, "outdoor moms" in our group. Should be interesting.

The reason she's so excited to camp?  Because Natalie has had such a blast camping with Girl Scouts and did it again this year.  We lucked out with dry weather (last year we camped in cold rain) but it was so HOT!  It reached 100 degrees the next day and we were inhaling Otter Pops (and the moms were tucking them in our bra straps) to keep cool.  It was a two night event but we only stayed one.  Natalie was up for a second night but one night with 20 girls in the woods is enough for this mama.  Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to do two nights!

When we got home from camping, Natalie and her best friend, Brooklyn, hadn't had enough.  They set up camp in our backyard!

We ended the Girl Scouts year in Natalie's troop with a volunteer appreciation event that the girls organized.  It was very sweet.  Off to 5th grade and this troop is still going strong at almost 20 girls!

School Art Show!

One of our favorite events each year is the art show at school. Audrey had a few submissions and Natalie had her big California historical site project on Vikingsholm on display.

 

The school art show is also a spring open house so we get to tour the kids' classrooms and see what they've been up to.  Audrey's work was so sweet.  I love working again but I'm sad to not be volunteering regularly in the girls' classrooms anymore.  I loved helping with projects like this one.

Band Concert

Natalie started playing the saxophone this year.  We have Corey's old alto sax and she insisted on playing it even though it wasn't an instrument the school intended on offering to students.  She persisted, they agreed to let her as long as Corey agreed to help her practice at home, and away she went as the solo saxophone of the entire band.

She did a great job and the band teacher actually called her out by name at the end of year concert to congratulate her on her hard work.  She was suffering from a little band burn out toward the end of the year so hopefully those encouraging comments will help motivate her to keep at it.