Halle's First Homecoming

I CANNOT believe my kid is old enough to be in high school, let alone going to homecoming.
Here are a few pictures of her homecoming weekend.

this was our first time to make a garter.  Mums in Texas are crazy big so this is tiny.

See what I mean!!!  Nowadays mums are like dresses- Cinderella on crack dresses.  And the boy garters are the size of our girl mums back  in the 90s.

Halle and her date at the homecoming game.

Brian's face after meeting Halle's first boyfriend.  lol

The marching band and drill team

Halle's festive nails

the kids and I watching the Panthers smoke the other team

Her first homecoming dress

This is my favorite picture of  Halle and her friends before the dance.

Since I last blogged

We went on a cruise.  It was for 7 days and was fabulous.  I made a scrap book of our cruise so if you're ever at our house you can check it out!

Jack decided he wants to be a police officer when he grows up.  Every Sunday he gets a sticker badge from the officer at church.  He said he wants to be a police officer so he can help people and put the bad guys away.  Since then his concerned sister, Arden, has told him that cops have a very dangerous job.  His next two jobs of choice were firefighter and builder.  Arden convinced him those were also dangerous so together they settled on him being a farmer.  I can't make this stuff up!

The kids had a super cool nanny over the summer.  Since Arden and Halle made straight A's for the whole year, Brian and I bought them season passes to Splashtown.  Naturally we had to buy Jack and Jane (our nanny) passes too.  Jane took them to Splashdown at least once a week.  

My oldest turned 14!  I'm so proud of the lady she's becoming.

Jack started at a new preschool and he LOVES it.  Arden started 2nd grade, Halle started high school, and I started a new job!

Brian and I joined a kickboxing gym.  It's great!  I take out all of my frustrations on the punching bag.  Sometimes I pretend it's a particular person.  It helps!

I also started pulling the church trailer with Brian and doing blue crew at church.  Blue Crew is the team that sets up and tears down our portable church campus every week.  There are two groups so we do it every other week.  This picture was taken at 5:00 am. 

Our kitty cat, Parker, has been sick.  We are hoping he gets back to 100%.

Halle joined choir and had her first choir performance.

Arden went to a Sweet n Sassy party and got to ride in a limo for the first time.  And a pink one at that!

I got a new car!  Van Gogh was no longer going very well so we had to sell him.  This one's name is Diva because she's high maintenance.

Arden got a bob!  She just wanted to "brush her hair and be done with it!"  No more fixing or styling she said.  After it was cut, she said, "Oh, it looks so good on me.  It's just so cute how it curls at the ends.  I love it!"

Jack overcame fears of picking up crawly things.  Here he found a lizard.  He also overcame his fear of costume characters.  

Slacker

When it's Wednesday and you realize your kid is still wearing the dress she wore to church on SUNDAY.  #badmom

Swim Team 2016

My guppies

We have been extremely busy since April, which is why I've totally slacked on blogging.  Most of the busy-ness was swim team.  Brian and I both joined the board of the neighborhood swim team, and it took over our life!
Brian became an official so he got to be the mean man that disqualifies little kids.  Plus he had to wear the dorky "Officials" outfit and old man white shoes.  I'm so proud of him, lol.  I did have to draw the line when he tried to add an awful looking sun hat to his get-up.  "Is that your husband."  "Nope, not mine, I have no idea who he is."  Kidding, kidding.

There's my official man

  He also became vice president and worked really hard for the team and the kids.  I was just as bad.  I was the secretary so I got to be the annoying mom who bombarded parents' emails and FB feed with swim team news 50 times a day.  Seriously, though, we had a great time helping lead the team.  Our neighborhood almost didn't have a team this year so it was hard work getting it back up and running.  It was A LOT of time and energy but it was worth it for the sake of the neighborhood.    We were exhausted by the end, though, and glad that it's over until next year.

Halle, Arden, and Jack all swam this year.  Some tidbits on them...
JACK
Jack only made it across the pool one time the whole season at a meet, but hey, he's four.  The one time he was successful was due to the major bribing of cotton candy and ice cream.  This is Jack his first week of swim practice with Coach Lauren.  He loved his junior coaches: Lauren, Sterling, Austin, and Nicolas.

The junior coaches and other older kids really took to Jack and Jack practically turned into the team mascot.  He was passed around from kid to kid and they would play with him, give him piggy back rides, and always ask for him to come sit with them.  The older boys thought he was the coolest.  I spent a lot of time running around at meets, so at least I knew that he was being watched by someone.  One time I was sitting down at the meet because I didn't have anything to do at the time.  I made him sit with me under the tent.  After about five minutes of being there he says to me, "I want you to go time or go be busy."  What he really wanted was for me to take my eye off of him so he could go run with his friends.
He received one of the funny awards from the coaches.  He got a superman backpack since he declared himself Super Jack and always flexed his muscles

He also got a $150 gift card to a local swim shop for being the boy who raised the most money for Wacky Olympics.  Thanks Papa Mike, Gigi, Aunt Sarah, and Uncle Adam!

At this particular swim meet another swimmer took to babysitting him the whole meet, all on her own.  He loves older women, and the fact that she had a teddy bear.

And he loves younger women.  There was a 45 minute gap between Arden's practice and Jack's practice.  During this time Jack played with his friend, Emerson, on the playground.  This is them walking from the pool to the park. 

Hanging at the ready bench with some of his boys: Sutton, Kaiser, and Kyle.

ARDEN; Arden did so well this year and had some exceptional improvements.  She learned to do butterfly and breaststroke.  In addition to that, she started swimming the 100 yard IM!  She made All-Stars in fly, and had the opportunity to swim in the progressive relay at Ponderosa.  This was her third year on swim team.  I just love this kid and the energy she brings.

she received the "high point" award for 7/8 girls.

A big part of swim team is the camaraderie.  One of Arden's best friends also joined swim team this year.  They had so much fun swimming relays together and the weekend sleepovers before swim meets.

That pose though.  Could it be any more perfect?  Miss Long and Lean on the cover of a sport magazine.  

you turn your back for two seconds and your daughter is all tatted up.  What's even better is the next day when she wears a dress for church and her legs are still covered in Sharpie "Eat My Bubbles.".

Arden was invited to be on the progressive relay team at Ponderosa!  She is the little one there in the gold cap.  For progressive relay, you have five swimmers: one 7/8, one 9/10 one 11/12, one 13/14, and one 15/up girl.  They totally got smoked, but it was a good experience for Arden.

HALLE

This was a great season for Halle.  She made Ponderosa again and was 0.4 seconds away from breaking the pool record for fly.  She still has next year to do it since it is a 13/14 girls record and next year she'll be 14.  I know she'll do it!  

She made some friends and got to know the coaches pretty well.  She likes year-round swimming, but I think she really enjoys summer league because it keeps the fun in swimming, and is not so serious.  There's lots of social events and you get to hang out with the kids in the neighborhood.

You would think swimming is a pretty safe sport (well, you know, other than  drowning)  but actually Halle has been injured a few times.  Here she had pulled her shoulder muscle.  This is a candid shot taken by our team photographer of her in pain trying to massage it out before her race.  At least she didn't chip four front teeth by running into the wall.  Yeah, that happened to another one of our swimmers.

off the starting block.  I love these action shots because they're hilarious

My kid racking up the points at Summer Thunder

She helped mentor two younger girls on the swim team and helped Arden and Jack with their strokes.  She made some new friends and had a great season.  Since Halle is so quiet, she got a  princess whistle as a funny award from the coaches: princess because it's beautiful just like her beautiful strokes (have you seen this kid swim?  She's like a mermaid in the water.)  And a whistle so she can be loud.  Ha!

The kids pumped up for Divisionals!  Our team, which almost didn't make it this year, placed 2nd at Divisionals!

a great part of swim team is hanging out with your family.  They do love each other.  But then again, this sweetness lasted 2.5 seconds before the bickering started again.  That's what pictures are for: to capture the rare moments of peace and pretend in your head that it's always like that.

This is a perfect illustration of an indoor swim meet: waiting around for hours for your next race.  Playing cards on an empty pizza box in a crowded cafeteria in camp chairs that have molded to your butt.  In fact, my butt fell asleep just now thinking about it.  Good stuff.

chants and cheers before the meet.  Our team has great team spirit.

My girls showing off their ribbons.  They both got high point girl for their age group.

They are dressed up for our fundraiser, The Wacky Olympics.

Arden and Brian hanging out at Awards night watching the slide show.  She loves her daddy and lately is always sitting by him.  I keep mistaking Arden for Halle in this picture.  And she looks like me here too!

Brian and I had to work a few shifts at Summer Thunder.  We chose the best job ever, putting labels on medals.  You get the best seat (and by seat I mean you get to SIT.... in the AC!)  in the house to watch all the races, and the job is super easy.  We feel like we deserve some medals too.  Real winners right here folks.