Fun Times

May has been pretty busy. Trips to see grandma and grandpa, birthday parties, lots of gymnastics, Spring colds, allergies and of course the usual life stuff. But the usual life stuff is fun too.

My family.

 Ally took a class on how to ride a bike. She almost has it down. Now if we could only find time to practice that.

 

Cuddling (smothering) Cloey on the couch. Ally still says at least twice a week "I can't believe we have a dog." I can't believe we have a pug - and that Becky loves the pug so much. But she does, we all do.

 

Ally was excited to see her first dandelion of the Spring earlier this month.

 

Ally is still the smallest in her class at school, gymnastics and ballet, but she is growing and needed some new summer pajamas. I found some with pugs on them!

 

Ally and mommy - being silly in our striped shirts.

 

 

And Ally has been enjoying time at the park again.

 

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day weekend was a bit of a blur. Ally was pretty sick on Friday - 101 degree fever and a cold, so she stayed home from school. She went with me to work in the morning and then we spent the afternoon at home. Ally binge watched her new favorite show H2O which is an Australian TV show about 3 girls who have magical mermaid powers, and I made cake pops. It was our friend Shannon's 40th birthday on Saturday. Ally rallied for the weekend.

 

Ballet Saturday morning and then we went to Sephora for some makeup. Ally has a ballet recital in a few weeks and the girls are supposed to wear light pink lipstick and pink blush. I bought a couple of tubes of lipstick at the drugstore but none were right. I told Ally we could go to the mall and have a professional help us out. She was thrilled. I had thought to go to Macy's and a makeup counter, but Sephora was right there - if you don't know its a make up store that carries its own line of makeup and most of the other department store brands. Right away we had a makeup artist help us out and she tried on a few different colors of lipstick, and found the right blush. I then decided Ally needed some sparkly eye shadow too. It was fun and quick - took about 15 minutes and frankly was so much better than continuing to try for the right shade at the drug store.

 

Pink lipstick, subtle blush and pink sparkly eye shadow.

 Eating cake pops at the party with Stella

 

The birthday mom with her family.

 

 Shannon was so thrilled with all the desserts - and we were all impressed with Atwood's cheese plate.

 

On Sunday morning we headed out to Grandma Barbie and Grandpa Frank's house again.

 

Ally was happy to find some dandelions to blow.

Becky and I worked hard at my parents' - we assembled new kitchen chairs, hung a grab bar, planted flowers, did laundry, changed sheets, shopped for and installed a new toilet seat, hung up a bird feeder - you name it we did it. And we were happy to help. Ally was a good sport about it and had fun going for a ride with Grandpa Frank and Java and playing Uno with her grandparents and reading and watching a movie.  But that night we were all pretty tired.

And that night Ally and Becky and Cloey slept on the king air mattress. It was hilarious - Becky was all scrunched up on the edge of the mattress with Cloey curled up on Becky's belly and Ally snuggled into her.  The things we do for the love of our children and dogs.

And our parents.
When we left Ally asked if we could go back again in two weeks! I'm not sure about that but we will go again soon.
 

Final Gymnastics Meet of the Year.

Ally was pretty excited for this meet. Her friend Hannah was competing this week too. Ally placed 4th out of 18 for her age group and scored a personal best on the vault.

All dressed in her warm up suit walking to the gym. The theme for this meet was Hollywood, and so they had a Star for each gym. 

Watching another team compete. 

The vault!

Bars

Dismount

Hands up to finish

On the beam.

At home with her trophy. 

It was a fun meet and we continue to be so very proud of Ally. She works incredibly hard at gymnastics and is very committed. She wants to keep going three times a week even though competitions are over and she asked to start team practices this summer and go three times a week to that. That would be 9 hours of gymnastics a week!!!! She explained it to me. 

We talked to her coaches and they thought she should start with two times a week and see how that goes.

Friday Fun

On Fridays after school Ally goes to swimming lessons with her friend Melyna (aka LouLou) then the girls either come back to our house for dinner and a movie or they go to Melyna's house. This Friday they came to our house and then we went to their friend Aiden's birthday party which was at our neighborhood park.

It was such a nice evening the girls asked to watch something on the Ipad in the front yard rather than on the couch inside. How could we say no?

Ladybugs at the park!

Mother’s Day 2015

For Mother’s Day this year we again went to visit my parents. It was a quick trip – out on Saturday afternoon and back on Sunday evening. Ally has ballet on Saturday mornings this year from 1130-1230 so it makes going away for the weekend a bit difficult.

I was really proud of Ally for deciding not to go mini golfing this year. It is an annual tradition but Grandma Barbie could not go – doctor’s orders that she not be outside for so long due to the high pollen and her lungs. We were all so happy she was finally home after 2 weeks in the hospital and 1 week in a rehabilitation hospital that it was fine.

Grandma Barbie asked us to bring some balloons. As part of her physical therapy she is supposed to hit a balloon up in the air to work on her balance. Ally had fun helping her with that.

Becky and I went to Target while Grandma and Ally watched a movie – this is a tradition now. On our way home we stopped for ice cream cones. Mom and Ally demanded we go get them cones. So we did. They were thrilled.

Ally “discovered” a new trick – throwing a ball up in the air and kicking it from a handstand position. Hilarious.

On Sunday morning it was gift time. Ally had made us a bouquet of paper flowers with task on them for us to pick a flower from. Things like “ a hug” or “feed the cats” She was thrilled she had her own surprise gift for us. She also gave my mom the mug she painted and I got a bowl she painted with the word love all over it.

Ally gave Becky a new version of Ticket to Ride and together we gave Becky a new watch.

Playing on the Ipad is always fun with Grandma Barbie

We did manage to have our traditional Mother’s Day meal at Jumpin’ Jacks.

For Mother’s Day Grandma Barbie got a whole bunch of new clothes from Uncle Frank, and we did some home improvement projects – one of which was organizing the family book shelves.

Becky made this montage of the car ride. On the way to Grandma & Grandpas – Ally was passed out sleeping and Cloey was awake and then on the way home it was the reverse.

Happy Birthday Cloey!!!!

 

I made cupcakes with purple frosting and Becky stopped on her way home for purple balloons. Today is Cloey’s 1st birthday. Ally has been talking about this for months. We have a small party planned for next weekend. This was just Cloey’s small party at home with her family.

 

 

Ally got to blow out the candle on the cupcake.

Pretty fun time.

And in other fantastic news Ally practiced at full strength today at gymnastics and even did her vault and round off back handspring. We are so proud of her. Not just for gymnastics but she got another fantastic report card and her teachers had lots of positive things to say about her at our conference yesterday.