Turning ten

This weekend marked a huge milestone in our home.

Kylie turned ten. 

 

Her actual birthday was on Saturday and she requested that I take her to her favorite restaurant. I told the waiter that it was her birthday so he and the other wait staff brought out a dessert for her and sang. And then much to her shock put a spoonful of whipped cream on her face. The look on her face was priceless.

Afterward we went and shopped a little (I might or might not have bought myself a little sumthin-sumthin). Since my husband works Saturdays we waited until Sunday to do the whole cake/ice cream/presents thing.

 

 Kylie has the little stuffed dog Coconut from American girl and she just adores it so naturally that was what she wanted on her cake.

Cake made by granny

Since she didn't ask for anything for her birthday I was a little stumped on what to get her. Judging by the look on her face I think I might have done okay.

Afterwards we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with new toys and then went bike riding through the neighborhood. 

I think year ten is going to be a great one.

Mommy and Me day

A few days ago Kylie and I had a much, much needed Mommy and Me day.  I try to do one on one things with the girls every so often, but lately it just hasn't worked out for me to be able to do so. I told my husband that I really wanted to do something with Kylie because she's going through that weird tweeny phase. You know the one where your child loves you to pieces one minute, but despises you the next? Well for a couple of weeks now we've been a one car family (long, stupid story) so that really put a dent into our plans, but finally my husband had a day off so we finally got to have our big day.
We went to her favorite restaurant for lunch and talked, talked, talked. It was really nice. Then we went to the mall where she *gasp* held my hand the entire time! Honestly, it was heaven! Then we went to the beauty salon where she got her hair cut into a cute little bob. She had been growing it out for awhile, but was getting sick of all the tangles and decided to get it whacked off. 

I tried to get a picture of her cute haircut, but it didn't come out that well.

 Afterward we went to Panera and treated ourselves to some frozen lemonade. All in all it was a really great day and I cannot wait until our next Mommy and me day comes up.

And the award goes to...........

Kylie!

Yes, I know it's a horrible picture, but it was the best I could do.

Last night Kylie received a medal and certificate for her literature entry into the countywide "Reflections" contest.  We live along the gulf coast so she wrote her paper on taking care of our beaches.

This is as close to a smile as it was going to get.

Unfortunately my eldest tends to get anxiety induced migraines. Not fun at all. She did pretty well though considering how bad she felt, but as you can tell that meant no smiling pictures. Ehh, I'll take what I can get. I'm so proud of my girl!

A proud mommy moment

Last night Kylie and Audrey both received awards at their schools P.T.A. meeting. 

Audrey won citizen of the month for December. 

Kylie won a trophy for an essay she wrote. It was submitted to a county wide competition and won and now is going to state.

Obviously I did not get pictures of them receiving their awards. My craptacular camera chose last night to not work. Awesome. Luckily my husband was able to fix whatever was wrong with it when he got home so I was to snap some pictures of the girls this morning. 

Happy birthday Kylie!

My "baby" is nine today. 

1 year

2 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 years

8 years

 9 years old

Happy birthday Kylie, we love you!

Thank goodness for Granny's!

About two weeks ago Kylie brought home a note from school that struck fear into my heart. It was from her PACE teacher informing us that the class would be having a holiday party. No big deal right? Well...... for some no. You see one of the things the class is studying this year is ancient Greece and Rome. So naturally the teacher thought it would be neat if the kids had an ancient Greek/Rome themed party. See where I'm going here? I tend to go for easy when I bake. If it's not break and bake freezer cookies then it generally comes out of a box. Hence the fear. The note did say that we could just send chips or cupcakes if we wanted to, but of course that wouldn't do for Ms. Kylie. Yes, I even tried to bribe her. I know, I know tsk tsk and all that. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I called my mommy. She and my father are both retired now and tend to get a little bored so she was more than happy to help. Thank goodness.

Yes my mom is wearing a sweater vest. 

 They decided on Baklava and it took hours to make. I haven't tried any because it makes my teeth ache just looking at something that sweet, but I think it looks pretty good.

 

This and that

Sorry to have been MIA, things are starting to get crazy around here with the holidays coming up. Here's a little taste of what's been going on around here..... 
Audrey came home from school the other day and calmly announced that her teacher has cancer. I kind of figured this out about two months ago, but I was trying to decide if I should say anything to her or not. I didn't want to scare her or have her act differently around her teacher, yet at the same time I wanted her to understand why she was missing school so often. Apparently I over thought things because she seemed to take it in stride. I'm not sure what kind she has, but it looks like it's in remission and she just finished up the last of her treatments. 
Kylie  had kind of a big week last week. On Tuesday she was in a Thanksgiving  program at school and she did fantastic. Before you think I'm bragging on her part in the program, I promise I'm not. This child has the worst anxiety you have ever seen. Usually when she has something like this we are both in tears by the end of the night. I'm crossing my fingers that she is finally starting to outgrow it somewhat. 
She also lost a tooth last week. She hasn't lost one in years and I was under the impression that she wasn't supposed to lose anymore until she was ten, but I guess I was wrong. The funny thing is that everyone always teases her about losing her teeth because when she says that she lost a tooth she means she really lost a tooth. As in she dropped it or swallowed it. She has probably only put about three teeth out of the eight (or is it nine?) she has lost under her pillow. When she was in kindergarten she would write the tooth fairy a letter explaining why she had no tooth and leave it under her pillow. Well guess what happened to this tooth? Yep, she was brushing her teeth and spit it out and it went down the drain. Luckily dad was home to save the day. 
And of course Sophie. I've been trying to really kick things into gear with her numbers and letters. For some reason we've been having a really tough time with her counting and that's been frustrating both of us. If anyone has any good suggestions I would love to hear them.
As for me I am one happy Mama. Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our eleventh year of marriage and Duke had their first basketball game. Could not ask for a better way to wrap up the weekend.

Wordless Wednesday

Best Friends

Linking up with Angry Julie Monday.

Mommy's got some more bragging to do!

Sorry guys, but mommy has got to brag on her kids some.
Yesterday Audrey brought home her AR folder and she had all 100's in it. I'm so excited because she wasn't doing so hot on her AR tests when school began and I know that she has been working really hard on her reading. She tends to compare herself to Kylie a lot and even though she is just as smart as Kylie she doesn't see it and gets down on herself a lot. Typical middle child behaviour I suppose. 
Kylie is also doing really well on her AR tests. She set a goal for herself at the beginning of the school year, she wants to make the 100 book club by Christmas. Currently she is at 81. I think she'll make it. She's testing on books in the upper fifth grade level (she's in third) so I was a bit worried about her getting in over her head, but she seems to be doing fine. She also won second place in a writing contest between the third, fourth and fifth grades. She's a little embarrassed because now her essay is being submitted for competition among the other schools in the county. She hates extra attention so this is killing her. 
Sophie? Well she had kind of a rough night last night so I'm going to have to dig deep here. Hmm..... oh she helped me make this cake yesterday and didn't even try to eat any of the chocolate. she's a huge chocoholic so that's saying a lot.

Don't laugh at my pitiful jack-o-lantern. Well okay, go ahead and laugh, I know it's kind of sad. I've been told that it tastes really, really good though. I wouldn't know because I've haven't had any since I'm trying to be good and all. Anyway, I'll quit bragging on my awesome kids now. I hope all of you have a fantastic day today!

Wordless Wednesday

Fun at the park.

Linking up with Angry Julie Monday.

Proud mommy moment

Allow me to brag for a moment on my eldest child if you will. 

 Last night at the PTA meeting Kylie was awarded citizen of the month. Again. Fourth year in a row. She takes after me ya know. Okay maybe not. My husband and I are thinking that this kind of thing must skip a generation. Regardless I am very proud of my baby. She works so hard in school and even though she rolls her eyes and acts like this is all no big deal I know she's proud of herself too.

I think we are done!

I think we are done with Kylie's room for now.  We are going to replace the carpeting with wood, but are going to wait a little while before doing it. Now before you look at the pictures some disclaimers, lol. First, I just have a really basic camera and the pictures look kind of umm, hazy I guess? Of course I'm sure they would look the same if I had a very good, fancy shmancy camera too since I'm not a photographer, but I think you can get the general feel of things. Second, the room is really small, 11x11 so there isn't a lot of room so it may look kind of crowded, but it works for us. Third, there are some things that I would still like to do, but for the most part (other than the flooring) they are nit picky. So here we go:

I'm going to buy a rug to go in front of the bed, but am waiting until we put the new flooring down. Kylie is intent on getting a round one, but we'll see. Just got the vinyl initial today. I wanted to get the larger size that was 22 inches, but Kylie wanted the smaller 12 inch one. She informed me that the other one would be far too big. It's kind of hard to see since it's white, but it has really pretty scalloped edges.

 By the way, how does the awning look? I was going to get husband to make it out of wood, but he said it would be too heavy. I went to hobby lobby in search of some foam board and they were having a sale on project boards. You know the things that fold in three sections that kids use in social studies and science fairs? I bought that, folded it into a triangle and covered it with fabric. We already had the window box, I picked up some potted plants from the dollar tree and added them. 

The pictures are 11x14. The frames have plastic, not glass so if they fall they won't break. To the right is our Eiffel tower vinyl. Kylie calls it the leaning tower of Eiffel. What can I say? The thing was taller than me and I had kind of a hard time getting it straight. 

We got rid of the of the useless armoire and I picked up the little table with the intentions of putting the television and dvd player on it. Her majesty wanted it on the dresser instead so there it is. The ooh la la letters came with the Eiffel tower so we put them above the mirror. I know you can't really see the lamp well, but I bought a shade and covered it with green and white damask fabric and trimmed the top and bottom of it with pink beads. It had a pull on it that had a moon and I cut it off and replaced it with a pink poodle one. 

 The mirror was on the closet door. I was going to buy a pretty one to go over the dresser, but thought I would try this out instead. I covered it with marabou boa because apparently I am a glutton for punishment and enjoy getting glue burns. 

 Desk and bookshelf. Nothing fancy. I bought the clock from someone, but it was black so I painted it to lighten it up some. 

 And Kylie sitting in her pretty pink chair. Please pretend you don't notice that she isn't wearing shoes. She nearly died when she saw this picture and said, "Mom, I hope you don't have a lot of people that look at your blog because I am barefoot and that is so embarrassing." Anyway, that is it for now. The paint is a lot lighter in actuality, almost an aqua color. It's called weather glass from the Eddie Bauer collection by Valspar.