february randoms

The weather was great this month and all of the kids took advantage of it by playing outside!

We love making homemade pizza!  And I love that the girls do most of the work!

February is cookie booth time here so our weekends are full of booths at different places around town.

After her teacher said that she was squinting at the board, Miss Lexie got glasses-- they make her look so grown up!

Ben's request for a Super Bowl snack was cheesy piccolis-- Easy Cheese on top of pickle chips.  Bleh!!  The kids (and Jacob) all thought they were fabulous!

Chick-fil-A is one of our favorite lunch stops-- especially now that I know you can get just strawberries in the fruit cup!!  Though Ellie has been to the dentist at least six times, this was the first visit with no tears, and she's even excited to go back again in six months for pictures of her teeth!!

One of our favorite things to do is try out new restaurants in the area so we were super excited to attend the soft opening of the new Famous Toastery in Downtown Mooresville.  Such a great location and delicious food!!

Ben loves playing basketball and we love cheering him on!

Miss Ellie was so excited to get dressed up for her daddy-daughter dance at preschool!

- The Dad and the Daughter -

We love Chick-fil-A!

Ellie loves going to pick up Christopher from tennis practice because it means she can play at the playground until he's ready to go!

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june randomness

Grandma, Auntie Janne and Hannah all came out to celebrate the end of the school year with us.  We love having our sweet Hannah come to play!!

End of the year awards at Rocky River!  Lexie got Student of the Month, the writing award and perfect attendance!!

3rd grade teacher: Mrs Morrison  3rd grade assistant: Mrs Williams  3rd grade student teacher: Ms Coleman

End of the year awards at Mooresville Intermediate-- Ben got A Honor Roll all year!!

4th grade teacher: Mrs Brewster 

The end of the year is full of award ceremonies and Girl Scouts is no different!

Lexie bridged from Brownies to Juniors after the award ceremony.

We took advantage of having Grandma in town and went to dinner and a movie!

new hair, daddy-daughter dance and girls on the run 5k

Lexie, the girl who NEVER wants cut her hair, decided after months of debating, to chop off a bunch of hair and donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths where they make real-hair wigs for women with cancer.  We made an afternoon of it and she got her hair done and we went to lunch at McAlister's with just the girls!

Later that evening, she and Jacob got all dressed up for the Girl Scout Daddy-Daughter dance and had fun dancing the night away!

Like her brothers, Lexie trained all throughout the fall with the Girls on the Run program and ran her first 5K on a freezing December morning.

Unlike the boys program, Girls on the Run requires each girl to have a running buddy so she convinced Jacob to run with her.  While they weren't the fastest duo, they completed the 5K and had a great time!

mooresville christmas parade

The Mooresville Christmas Parade, held the Tuesday BEFORE Thanksgiving, is such a big deal in town, that schools have an early release so that everyone can attend the parade.

Lexie's Girl Scout troop, along with almost all other scout troops in the area, marched in the parade.

We saw marching bands, church groups, and an acro-fitness group that did flips over the crowd (including Nick).

The Mooresville school lunch ladies were in the parade as well, and stopped to give Ben and Lexie a hug!  We had a great time gearing up for the holiday season at the parade-- especially since Santa was there!

curtis pond holiday parade

Instead of a Christmas parade this year, our neighborhood did a holiday parade and each group chose which holiday they wanted to represent-- Lexie's Girl Scout troop chose Veteran's Day!

A few of the brothers (including Christopher) dressed up in military gear to ride on the float with the girls.

For being a neighborhood parade, there was surprisingly good participation!

The high school marching band came, as did other scout groups, local businesses and even Santa!

zootastic!

Lexie's new Girl Scout troop planned a trip to Zootastic and Ellie and I were able to go too!  All the girls had a great time checking out the animals and the goats seemed to be a favorite.

Zebras!

Zootastic offers a wagon ride through the park where you can feed some of the animals.  The llamas especially liked the girls!

At about the halfway point of the wagon ride, Ellie finally worked up the nerve to go sit on the outside and be a bit closer to the animals.  Look at the sweet Zebra watching the sleeping baby Watusi-- much better than the lions "watching" the sleeping zebras on the Jungle Cruise!!

We wrapped up our fun at Zootastic by feeding the giraffes.  All in all, it was a great first Girl Scout outing!