Leadership Award

We are very proud of Sophie in this house right now!! She has received a Leadership in Christ Award at her school. Each grade had one recipient of this award and Sophie received it for first grade. She was given the award for being a great leader, taking care of others, showing compassion with classmates and making good decisions!! I cried....I don't think I can even find the words to express how happy this made me. You always hope that your children will exemplify these traits and then for them to receive an award for actually doing so was amazing. Sophie I love you and I am so proud of you!!!

Here she is pictured with her fabulous teacher Mrs. Hall and Hayden her classmate who was awarded the Servant's Heart award.

Decorating with style

We put up some decorations for halloween this weekend because Sophie loves to decorate for holidays and she does not give up begging to decorate until we do it. She is the only one that remembers to turn this pumpkin on every night and tonight I came around the corner...and surprise....Sophie at some point, I'm not sure when.....put her tiara on the pumpkin. She leaves little traces of herself like this all over the house and never says anything. It made me smile!

Jen and Deb BFF-High School Memories

Okay, I was just commenting on my friend Jennifer's blog and it made me remember this story from high school. I was just commenting that she was what my friends Lynette and Lyric say is a "cruise director". You know, that friend that is in charge of what we are going to do and we all rely on that person to have a plan!! Well, Jen was our cruise director in high school. She was Student Body President and she knew everyone and was involved in all of the activities at school and all that "spirit stuff" you do. She drug us to all the dances and made us decorate for assemblies and stuff like that. So, I do hold her accountable for my popularity:) Anyway....this is the kind of crap she came up with all of the time.

She decided we were going to get up and get to school early everyday and introduce ourselves to two new people a day so that people would feel welcome at high shool and maybe we would meet cool new people. I mean first of all I am not a morning person, but whatever ,I was the one with the car and I was younger so I did what her and Debbie said I was going to do. (Good thing they are Mormon or I would have taken drugs and drank if they had told me to as well.) So, everyday Jen and I would go up and introduce ourselves to strangers (and some of them were very strange in the 80's) in the halls of Manzano High School, this is just not normal....I think back to all of this stuff and it is a wonder someone didn't beat us up!! As for Debbie, I recently remembered that she used to like us to walk down the halls getting so close to guys with cute butts to see if we could read their 501 size..... Oh yeah, we were bad girls........NOT!!

Just a little trip down memory lane for me and my high school pals. I love them and am so thankful I had great friends and great role models in high school!! As I approach 40 I am really starting to enjoy remembering these good times instead of all the bad stuff you tend to remember from high school.

A new bike for good grades

Sophie is totaly obsessed with bike riding right now. So, Daddy surprised her with this new bike for good grades and a 100% on her spelling test that day. She gets good grades very easily and has never missed a spelling word so this was really just an excuse for her Dad to bring home something fun and make her smile. Sophie is always so excited and thankful when she recieves something so it is a very gratifying experience for all! She is relentless now about bike rides, we are talking DAILY, bike rides, even twice a day......

She is so funny when cars go by she stops and waves like a princess and she was very proud when an older boy in the neighborhood told her "cool bike"! Her other obsession is asking for bike accessories for rewards for everything she does. Today it was, "Is Dad going to buy me a bike accessory (yes, this is the word she uses) for not waking up the cat when I got dressed". Seriously, Sophie??? "Yes Mom, serious"!!

Wrinkles and all!!

Okay my picky friends..geesh!! Here is a picture of ME with my new hair. I am still getting used to styling it and I absolutely do not like posting pictures of myself like this because you can see that I really enjoyed sunbathing throughout my life!!!!! But here it is anyway...just for you Debbie and Jen.......By the way Sophie took this picture, are you impressed?!?

My new haircut

Okay, my friend Debbie posted her new haircut so I wanted to post mine. Here it is......

okay, so this is not my face, but I wanted you to see what I was hoping for!!!!!

No training wheels!!

We are so excited, Sophie has learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Since we waited so long to really try this it came so easy for her. This is how things go in our house. Tiler learned to throw a ball early, ride a bike early and rollerblade early. Sophie learned to talk early, read early, write early. So, sometimes the coordination stuff comes a little slower for Sophie so we had not pushed taking the training wheels off to hard. Plus, when she falls doing something-NOT GOOD!

This morning she decided to ride her bike and I thought, these things really need to come off she is a little big to be riding around the neighborhood with training wheels. She got the wrench and removed them with me and we took off. She took to it immediately and it only took a couple of tries and she was turning around, riding around the block, and not falling!!!! She is so proud of herself too-there is nothing like the joy in your child's face when they accomplish something they thought they could not do.

This really makes us Phoenicians happy!

We have clouds....there are actually pretty white and even some beautiful grey clouds in the sky. I am soooo happy. It may even sprinkle.....this changes our whole day in Phoenix. We actually venture out....who are those people who live next door, crazy, are they new to the neighborhood???

I must say it even made my run this morning enjoyable, I mean I actually felt good while running, that is a miracle. The other miracle-I will actually be able to go to church this afternoon without sweat marks under my boobs and other places that well, let's just say, make me look like I peed my pants!

Just want to wish everyone a great weekend!! Wow, I even feel nice.......my teenager is not even bothering me today...oh wait that is because he is not here.

The joy of field trip day!!

Today I drove for Sophie's class field trip to the library. I had all girls in my car which I was totally appreciative for. I have put in my time with the boys for all of Tiler's school parties and field trips all the way up to shopping with him and another girl crazy boy in the mall for homecoming clothes. So, I deserve some all girl time when I help with the class. The girls chatted very seriously about one of the Jonas brothers having diabetes and how it affects his life and they were so polite all of the way to the library-and they didn't stink up my car either. When I got to the library one of the other Mom's looks at me with this frazzled look and says "oh, these boys, one wanted to spit out of the window and the other one was throwing popcorn around the car and then when your car of girls passed them they got all hyped up and were screaming.......aaahhhhh........girls are good I thought to myself! For a moment I even forgot about "girl drama".

BUT, here is the thing about girls. In the classroom before leaving for the field trip the teacher is explaining to the kids that they can take their snacks and water bottles in the cars because the library does not allow food and we will be gone during their snack time she then proceeds to give other rules and at the end asks the kids if they have questions. Many hands shoot up into the air as kids ask how many books can they check out, sharing that they have been to the library before, etc etc. My darling daughter has her hand raised to the sky patiently waiting to give her input. As she is called on she clearly states to the teacher, "it's okay with my Mom if you take snacks in our car, but you better not spill anything because she is SUPER picky about that!". Of course this is hysterically funny to everyone except ME!!!!!!I mean what is that, I CANNOT and I mean CANNOT imagine what else she tells her class, and I am NOT picky about spills in my car....just for the record!

Here are some pictures of my little storyteller and her friends at the library!

This is Kenton who she has a very special bond with-he is like a brother to her!

For Women Only

This is how I spent my day: stirrups, speculum, guzzling water and trying not too pee myself for an hour and a half, pelvic ultrasound....you get the idea right......not a great day......not much to say!!

My little Egyptian

And you thought I wouldn't post........I tricked you, here it is! Sophie has Chapel every Wednesday at her private school and the classes take turns acting a Bible story out. Sophie's class taught about Moses and she had a couple of part as an Egyptian that she memorized like "your God has turned our water red" and "oh no, not gnats". Then she was given a very important part that required a lot of reading about loving and trusting God and included scriptures. It was just so cute and fun watching her up there-she is very talented in the drama area (I wonder where she gets that from-her Dad of course!)

Look she handles the paparazzi just like a pro!