Boosterthon

As you may remember, Boosterthon is one of my favorite days of the whole school year.  Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy myself quite as much this year because they changed the date at last minute on me(like as in the day before it was to happen), so I had worked night shift the night before, slept two hours, and was there to cheer on my kids, because I am a mom first, and a nurse second.  (It was a Friday, Nathan drove me around, which is good, because I have no recollection of eating lunch or the ride home...another little nap before it was time for them to come home, and even then I was pretty much a lump on the couch for the rest of the day). Seth's grade went first...

 The three amigos.

The school raised a ton of money with Boosterthon (thanks to all the grandparents and Uncle B for their support)...enough that the MPTO was able to purchase FIFTY document cameras, as well as rugs and easels for all 8 first grade classes.  The teachers LOVED their document cameras, and it was so nice to know they got something they truly wanted/needed...it hasn't exactly been the greatest year to be a teacher in NC.

Petite Rouge

You know how I feel about taking my kids to see live theatre.  In March, we saw a gem.  If you have never read Petite Rouge, go to your library and check it out.  We had read it once, and then in first grade, the author had come to Seth's school, and we own an autographed copy.  It was a no-brainer to go to this show.  The show was even better than we thought it would be!  We laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more!

cookie booth

The very next day we had our first (and only) cookie booth.  We had beautiful weather and the girls sold over 150 boxes of cookies in front of an Old Navy in three hours.

While we were selling cookies, the boys went to UNCC to watch their cousins' PE club perform in the halftime show.  They had a great time!

pottery party

We went to a local pottery painting place for Amelia's party.  Frozen theme, of course.  We originally wanted to do "do you want to paint a snowman?", but Amelia was mad that they didn't have Olaf (can you tell she's had a mommy-manned birthday party every year until now?)  In the end, we decided on square trinket boxes, and everyone picked their own topper to make their creation unique.

 Amelia and her Frozen cake:

 Sugared up with some of her best buds

Amelia 6.0

Amelia's birthday fell on a Friday, so unfortunately, she had to go to school.

 BUT, Friday means Nathan works from home, so he planned his day to be done after school, and we headed to the mall to make a Build A Bear Disney Palace Pet puppy (got all that?).

We had planned to eat at the Mellow Mushroom, but the wait was too long, but we found a gem at Terrace Cafe!  The birthday girl ate lobster bisque!

Gram and Pops arrived right after we got home, ready for an action packed weekend!

yard update #2

During the BIG snow, a couple pine trees beyond our fence fell.  That was enough incentive for us to seriously look into getting the four big pines removed from in front of our house.  I was in a computer class the day it happened, so I missed all the drama.  The tree guys fell each tree across the street into the neighbor's yard, narrowly missing mailboxes, ornamental trees, etc each time.  Oh, and they brought a horse in case they needed help pulling the trees down.  It was all done by the time I got home.  I almost didn't look at our house because I didn't like the pictures of the front of the house online.  I was immediately happy the moment I drove home (some of our neighbors, not so much).  I never realized how much those trees worried me until the first time we had a bad thunderstorm, and I wasn't worried about a tree falling onto our bedrooms.  Money well spent!  

The very next day, the tree up to the left side of the house disappeared, this time with Nathan manning the chainsaw again.  We also got the pin oaks in the front and back yard cleaned up two weeks later...the guy said it should have been done 6-8 years ago, yikes!

BIG snow

After years and years of false alarms, I usually take the snow warnings with a grain of salt, but for some reason I heeded this one, and I made sure I had enough food to last us several days in the house.  I'm glad I did.  I'm fairly certain it snowed non-stop for about 48 hours and we got over 11 inches of snow.  Minnesota cousins, laugh all you want, but no plow come through to bail us out, and we were literally sharing snow shovels up and down the block.  These pictures are out of order, but who cares at this point.  Seth's snow person:

 The assistant principal issued a FB challenge to make a book character snowman the first day...challenge accepted!

 Sledding down our street:

By Thursday morning, I was really tired of seeing the white stuff fall out of the sky.  That afternoon, we bummed some shovels off of neighbors, otherwise I would have been walking to work Friday morning.

 Our street...thank goodness the Xterra has four wheel drive!

cookie mom

In case you've ever wondered how many cookies seven little Daisy scouts can sell...

...this Cookie Mom had to drive to the other side of Charlotte one day to pick up 63 cases of cookies.  The warehouse couldn't believe it was for a kindergarten troop.  And that was just the presale.  I went back for 19 more cases about a month later.

daddy daughter dance

Our town hosts a daddy-daughter dance, and for weeks it was all Amelia talked about.  She got a new dress and everything.  While the girls and dads went to the dance, the moms and brothers went bowling, and when we got back, the party poopers dancers were already home.  Turns out it wasn't what Amelia expected, and there were too many fast dances for Nathan's liking, so they skipped out early and went to Sweet Frog instead.

yard update #1

 Our neighborhood is almost 30 years old, and a lot of the landscaping is WAY, WAY, WAY overgrown.  We made a lot of changes this year, the first being to take out this tree.  It didn't look "bad" there, but we were tired of squirrels using it to get on our roof. I did not miss the tree one bit, especially when the flowers started blooming in summer!

Checkers game

Our little Daisy got us primo seats at a Checkers hockey game.  I think it was the most fun sporting event we've ever been to, and I can't wait to go back this year!

 We bought Seth a shirt, and then he caught one!

Super Bowl Party

My friend, Parry's, house was on the market, but that didn't stop us from convincing her to host a Super Bowl party, nevermind that we couldn't start the party on time because there was a showing ending at 6:15, and unbeknownst to us at the time, another showing the next day, that had them scrambling to clean up from the mayhem the next afternoon.  (One of us may or may not have found a Super Bowl Punch recipe on pinterest that was fantastic.  Same someone may or may not have "cleaned up" by putting a bag of craft pom poms in the laundry hamper thinking they were funny.  Ahem.)  Anyways, those two families kind of fought over the house, and it was under contract by Wednesday.  All's well that ends well, right?  Here is Amelia making chocolate eclair cake for the party, and Seth walking around with a bucket on his head, because, baby Seth loved to be a bucket head.  

Frozen sing a long

I don't know if I've ever mentioned my friend, Liz, on the blog.   I met her at the kindergarten ice cream social...she was living the life I had lived the year before...moved here the week before, daughter going to Amelia's old preschool having one of Amelia's old teachers, older son starting kindergarten that year, and best of all, Liz was a NICU nurse taking a year off to get her family settled.  I made it my job to make sure her first year was a little less lonely than mine was, and lucky for me, I have made a great friend in the process (and so have the kids).  While the boys were having an epic light saber battle upstairs, the girls were holding the moms hostage to a Frozen sing-a-long...

...luckily Liz and I do sneak out to lunch once in awhile when the kids are in school...there's only so much "Let It Go" that a momma can listen to (although Sophia's version is my absolute favorite in the entire planet)...

big snow #1

We got a "good" snow the last week of January, and as any good North Carolinian does, we took pictures to document our one good snow of the year. 

Little did we know...

3rd grade musical

After months (and MONTHS) of issues with this bleepin' computer, I think we've got it figured out. Time to play major catch up.  The third grade had a musical performance mid-January.  It mostly had to due with the underground railroad and the road from slavery to freedom, so it wasn't our most fun school performance, but Seth sang with gusto (dare you to ask him to sing "Drinking Gourd").

January recap

So I have no pictures, but I'm pretty sure January was a just a mash up of school, work, and basketball practices.  That's one way to catch up on the blog, ha!

New Years adventures!

Nathan and I had tickets to see the Avett Brothers in Charlotte, and my parents were nice enough to come over on the train on the 30th, and on the 31st, they took the kids back with them on the train to Cary, and the kids stayed with them for three sleeps so we could go to the concert and go back to work.  The kids and my parents think Amtrak is the best way to travel these days.

Poor Millie didn't quite make it to midnight...

In addition to our cloud not picking up three months of pictures, I just got a new phone, so I can't even email myself NYE pics anymore, and I look like death on Nathan's, so here is a link of the New Year's countdown at the concert we went to...at the 4 minute mark, they started my all-time favorite Avetts song to start my year off right!  I don't know why I love this song, but it always makes me so happy whenever I hear it.  These guys are so versatile, here is The Old Rugged Cross, I and Love and You, and they ended the night with Goodnight, Sweetheart.

Christmas 2013

My fever lasted a couple days, and I was able to work Christmas Eve, but in doing so I think I majorly halted my recovery.  Thank goodness Nathan was able to work from home over the holidays and my mom cooked for Christmas, or it would have been SORRY around our house.  Here are pictures my dad took over the holiday:

 Amelia had her first lefse lesson, and she did really well:

 An airbrush kit from Lisa and Michael.  I can't wait to start paybacks.