Valentines Weekend

Lane's parents came to visit on Valentine's Weekend!  Lane and I met them for lunch at Keeter Center, then Rose Mary and I went to the school for Crosby's class party.  C was excited to have Grammy visit his classroom!

We bought fruit snack valentines for his classmates, but on the morning of his party he decided he needed to make paper notes for everyone.  He took the time to write a personal note to each kid...things like "You are so kind", "You are so funny" and "You are so fun to play with at recess".  I thought it was really sweet.  He also made his own valentine bag at school and wrote "I am awesome" on it.  :) Some kids in his class had fancy boxes...castles and things like that.  I did offer to help him make a box at home, but he didn't want to.  He's such an easy-going, happy kid!  :)

Crosby and Alexee both had basketball games on Saturday, so it was great to have Grammy & Bobba there to support them!  Grammy took Alexee birthday shopping that afternoon after her game.  She wanted to go to Books-A-Million where she chose a book, markers and Shopkins.  

Family pics before going out for lunch on Valentine's Day!  It was a good weekend with family.

*****

On 2/19 Rhett was a class representative in the 6th grade spelling bee, and he placed 3rd in the competition!  We're proud of you, R!  Great job!

Saturday the 20th was Alexee's basketball team swim party at an indoor pool.  It was a beautiful day, so the kids ended up playing outside some of the time instead of swimming.  It was at a community center with a great view of the lake.  I took Rhett and Alexee there (Rhett hung out with some of the other older brothers) while Lane took Crosby to his last basketball game.  I really hated to miss C's last game, but the events were at the same time so we had to split up.  :(  Afterward we ran home to get Crosby and finish packing.  Lane had to go to work, and I took the kids to Flippin for my cousin's baby shower.

 The girls signed basketballs for their two coaches.  It was such a fun season!

 They had pizza and popsicles in the pavilion--can't believe this weather in February!!  So nice!

They always love getting to see their cousins.  They spent most of their time playing basketball and playing in the treehouse.  I just can't believe how big they all are...time flies!  And I also can't believe that there will be a new cousin in the group pictures soon...my sister is expecting a baby boy in July!!!!!  We are so excited about that!!  

The baby shower was a lot of fun.  She received so many sweet things!

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Jut a few more pictures from February...

Birthday Celebrations!

We had a great time celebrating Alexee's 9th birthday (so hard for me to believe she is NINE!).  Our first event was Sunday brunch at the Keeter Center, one of her favorites.  The staff sang Happy Birthday to her and surprised her with a giant piece of chocolate cake.  

1/31/16

She is thoughtful, kind, smart, creative, witty, helpful, funny, a little bit mischievous, loves guinea pigs and cats (although she is still trying to convince her Daddy to let her get a cat), a basketball & volleyball player, writer & illustrator, fort builder and Minecraft player.  She takes gymnastics and would like to learn to speak French and start piano lessons.  Her favorite school subject is spelling.  She's a caring friend, great sister and precious daughter.  What a blessing she is to our family!  

We love you, Alexandra Reese!

Sunday afternoon we had her birthday party at our house.  She was so excited to have the girls over to play!  They opened gifts, had snacks and cake, painted hot chocolate mugs and played Capture the Flag in the back yard.  :)  We had amazing weather that day, which was such a treat!  It has always been cold on her birthday...with snow and ice some years, so she loved getting to play outside during her party.

Such a sweet group of friends!  So thankful for them!

She asked for white cake with pink icing and purple polka dots.  It was yummy and cute!  The bakery added a little purple fondant mug to go along with our painting theme.  

Happy Birthday, Dear Alexee, Happy Birthday to YOOOOU!

  

The pottery studio in Springfield offers a party-to-go package, which is what we decided would work best for us.  They packed up mugs, a variety of paint colors, plates, detailed instructions, etc.  It was great!  We had two craft tables in the garage, and the girls seemed to have a lot of fun creating super cute, colorful mugs.  A few days later I took the mugs back to the studio for firing, then we filled them candy and a hot chocolate mix and delivered them to her friends at basketball practice, carpool line and gymnastics.

(Some of) the finished products

Monday night we let her open one gift before bed.  I had her open her new guinea pig outfit because I thought she might want to wear it to school on her real birthday.  The shirt says "PAAAAARTYYY!!"  :)

She opened her other gifts before school the next morning.

She got two new emoji pillows, one from Lane and me and one that the boys chose for her.  She loved them!

We left early that morning so we could go by Krispy Kreme to pick up donuts for her class snack.  The kids had one for breakfast, too.  Delicious way to start a birthday!  Her sweet teacher sent me this picture of the class wearing their Krispy Kreme hats and enjoying their b-day snacks!

And I enjoyed stopping by the cafeteria to have lunch with her!

That night we put candles in a piece of leftover cake and sang to her again just for fun!  

Happy 9th Birthday, Alexee!!!!

January Summary

I'm trying to catch-up, so here are the January highlights:

On New Year's Day Lane and the boys went to see the Star Wars movie so Alexee and I went shopping at the bookstore and Target.  We stopped for hot chocolate at Starbucks, too.  It was a fun date.  :)

On January 2nd Crosby and Alexee started basketball season (the girls' team had played in a few tournaments in December, but this was the first of the regular season.)  My parents came up for the day to see the games and have lunch--it was great to have them here!

Crosby loved playing!

We went to Panera Bread for lunch then drove out to the lake again to show Mom, Dad and Lane the floodgates.   

If you look closely you can see a rainbow over the water in the photo below.

 Later that afternoon we all went back to the gym for Alexee's game.  She loved playing, too!

January 3rd--enjoying her new bike on an unusually warm winter's day!

January is dentist and eye-doctor check-up time for the kids, so we had lots of appointments.

(Rhett was in a different room by himself.) 

R went to Springfield for a friend's birthday celebration.  They jumped at SkyZone and had birthday donuts afterward.  He had a blast.  The birthday boy's mom sent me these pictures, and I was reminded again how thankful I am for the great group of friends he found when we moved here.  Huge blessing!

On January 18th we got a thin layer of ice.  It hit right at afternoon carpool time, which made for a crazy afternoon for traffic in town, but thankfully we didn't have any trouble getting home with 4WD.  We brought Rhett's friend E home with us, and the kids all watched The Wizard of Oz.  (Drama Club is doing the Wizard of Oz for their spring play, and R and E had just found out their parts so they wanted to watch the movie again.)  No school the next 2.5 days, so the kids made the most of the small amount of ice that we had and tried out their new sleds.  I wish it had been a nice, fluffy snow instead if we were going to have to miss school, but oh well.  They had fun anyway!

1/19/16

 We've been seeing a lot of deer in the yard lately.  I love to watch them!

We had basketball games every weekend!  It was a lot of fun!

 Bogart tried out a new groomer this month.  He came home looking super cute in his bandana! :)

January 30 was an extra busy day.  I'm so glad Lane wasn't scheduled to work that day!

7:15 E's family (and several other boys riding with them) picked Rhett up to go to the out-of-town math competition.  What a crew!

8:00 Alexee's tournament game #1, Lane took her.

9:00 Crosby's game at a different gym, I took him.

10:00 I took C to the other gym to drop him off with L & A, then I left to drive to the math competition/awards ceremony (about an hour and 15 minutes from here)

11:00 Alexee's tournament game #2

12:00 L, A and C went to pick up A's birthday cake for the her party the next day, then picked up lunch and went home for a little while.

1:45-2:45 Math Awards Ceremony.  The kids from our school did great!!!  Many of them, Rhett included, qualified for the regional competition in March.  Sixth Grade division:  Rhett received the 10th place ribbon in the "number sense" test, 9th place ribbon in "sprint" test and the 3rd place trophy in the "target" category!  We are super proud of him and all the kids from his school!  

3:30 Rhett rode back home with friends to hang out at E's house, and I stopped in Springfield to pick up the birthday party painting supplies at the pottery studio.

4:00 Alexee's third game of the day, Lane and Crosby took her to that.  I was hoping to make it back in time to see it, but made it there right as it ended.  BUT, she had one more game, so I did get to see that one!  We hung out at the gym for an hour visiting with the team which was fun.

6:00 Alexee's last game of the day!  WHEW...long day!

 Math Team

 (That's Rhett in the orange shirt)

 Beautiful colors in a winter sunset

New Year's Eve

It was a quiet NYE here.  Lane worked the day shift, and I took the kids to the dam to see the floodgates roaring after the area flooding.  It was a scary amount of water!  It was cool to see, but I actually didn't like being that close to it.  

That night Lane and I (and Bogart) ate popcorn and watched TV by the fire.

And the kids had fun staying up later than usual and having a sleepover in Rhett's room.  They took these cute selfies to document the last day of 2015!  

Happy New Year!