Pumpkins and Bagels!

Ally has decided not to trick or treat this year. She wants to go to gymnastics practice instead. This is her choice and we support it.

So instead of our usual pre-trick or treat gathering we hosted a group of Ally's school friends for breakfast and pumpkin carving.

It was a blast! 

 

Our table scape!

 

Rice Krispie treat monsters!

 

Ally made the sign.

 

Pretzel sticks.

 

A wall of bats again.

I made donuts before the party and iced them with black frosting!

 

 The living room.

 

The bat(h) room. There are 200 black bats taped to the walls of our bathroom.

 

Becky and I with our puking watermelon! 

Ally and I decorated the hard boiled eggs with faves yesterday.

 

After some food we laid out tarps on the front porch and each kid chose a pumpkin and the carving started. 

 

A couple decided to paint theirs. In the end some painted and carved. Above is Sonya and Sofia.

 

Ally, Olive & Maya

 

Lizzie and Catalina

 

Erik, Sophocles and Ale(jandro)

 

Clemens and his dad Chris. Nina is in between them.

 

Ally and Willow show off their pumpkins.

 

Sopho and his mom.

 

The group! 18 kids!!!

Clemens, Sopho, Sonya, Nick, Eric.

Olive, Maya, Erik

Lizzie, Sofia, Nina

Aiden, Catalina, Willow, Ally, Daniela, Ale

Not pictured is Nina and Daniela's little sister Elena. 

 

Chris and Juan with their own pumpkins.

 

After most of the guests left we let Cloey out in her witch costume. She was quite happy in Ally's room surrounded by Ally and her friends.

 

Cloey was so good. 

It was a lot of fun and maybe a new tradition for us.

Gorgeous afternoon at the park

Meeting a Gold Medalist

The Ally's new gym is much bigger and much better organized than her old gym. Last week they had a event to meet Nastia Luiken. Nastia was the gold medal all around champion at the 2008 Bejing Olympics. She lives in Boston now and came to the gym to promote a gymnastics app she is piloting. She gave a short motivational speech and then answered questions. At the end there was a photo and autograph opportunity.

Ally read on the car ride to the gym.

It was pretty cool to be there. She talked about her gymnastics career and inspirational times in her life. She told the girls she won 5 medals in Bejing:

1 Gold Individual All Around

2 Silver Team 

3 Silver Uneven Bars 

4 Silver Balance Beam

5 Bronze Floor 

Some words of wisdom I wrote down: 

"You can't quit on a bad day. Have to wait for a good day." Nastia said her mom would tell her that whenever she wanted to quit. 

Your life is more than gymnastics. Your whole life should be good and awesome not just gymnastics.

Ally asked Nastia "what do you like to do in your free time" 

The answer was "spend time with family and friends. Journaling and being outdoors because I'm inside the gym so much."

I was so proud of Ally for asking a question. 

We learned Vault was Nastia's least favorite event! The running, the handspring all of it!!! And then she talked about how she liked beam and bars the best. Ally was pretty thrilled to hear this because vault is her least favorite too. 

It was a fun hour and well worth the drive to the gym on a non-practice day. 

Always moving.

Ally is having a great time at her new gym. She has practice 3 days a week for 10 hours total. That's gymnastics in Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. 

On Fridays she does conditioning in her room:

On Thursdays it's ballet class for 90 minutes. It was parent watch day last week.

 

It was fun to watch. 

Ally seriously is always doing handstands or cartwheels or back walkovers or something. Today at practice she did a round off followed by 3 back handsprings! She was really excited to tell me. 

Alice turns 10!

Alice invite the Guatemala Girls and some other friends to a kid's salon for a spa themed birthday party.

Recently Alice broke her wrist, so she was in a cast.

Rosa got the first facial!

Then Alice.

Alice got her nails done.

And then relaxed with a facial.

Rosa, Ally and Roxie.

It was a fun party.