Living on the Edge

The Girl's Got IT!

Q is so creative.  She is becoming quite the artist.  She is very aware of details when she draws.  She drew the most detailed layout of her land and home when she 'grows up' and has her own place.  It was amazing.  If I can get her to let me scan it, I'll post it.

One area where I have to take a deep breath...and hold it....is her clothing creativity.  I am posting the picture as an example:

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case, 4 words:  stars, plaid, stripes and zebra....

You go girl!

Q finds a new sport

I had never pictured my oldest choosing to cheer, but she wanted to do dance and we haven't been able to find a dance studio this summer.  At the Rathdrum Days Parade she saw this group perform.  They were not the only cheer group in the parade, but something about this one caught her eye.  They are the Northwest Cheer Allstars based out of a gym in Coeur d'Alene. Flip factory Gymnastics (And from researching them a bit I found them to be the least expensive and with the best attitude among the coaches.)

So she tried out the 'first class free and your hooked' promotion....and she was.  It is going to be quite a bit of physical work...probably more than she thought, but that's a good thing.  I can see how this actually can be considered a sport.  The workouts are twice a week for two hours each.  They do A LOT of conditioning.  (It brought back the memory of indoor, rainy day workouts when I was in crew in college).  Sit ups, pushups, burpees, crunches, sprints, stretching and more stretching.  They do almost an hour of that and then an hour of tumbling work.  Those nights she falls asleep soon after we get home at 9:30.

No Q is not a big girl.  She was the second smallest in the entire 7th grade last year.  So I knew what they were thinking as soon as she walked into the room....FLYER!  She doesn't have the gymnastics ability that the other small girl has and she has to learn how to think 'light', but they already had her up and in the air her second week of practice!

 

She's smiling...that's a good thing.  (that's Q in the brown shirt)

 

1,2 and up you go!

 

You had to get used to the feeling...

 

And then you were set!

So on to bigger and better things now?  So we are on to cheer camp in the Seattle area...somewhere the weekend after Labor Day....of course, right after school begins :-)  Everything has timing doesn't it?  Slow days of summer and then...slam...the school year starts and life gets hectic again.  Cheer season goes from summer through March with 3 big travel weekends I believe.  I think they get a little break after the big Portland trip in March and then start up again in May so they can get together for all the summer parades and performances.

Well, if it's this kind of cheer, that works for us.  Next to follow is her sister.  I can see the wheels turning. She wants to do a year of gymnastics first though...so if she decides to do it, she will be limber and tumbled enough to do it.  By the way...this means no more Soccer Mama for me!  Now I get to hang out in a sweaty, stinky gym! LOL!  Well, at least it's warmer than a soccer field in October!  And they have wifi!  Maybe I'll like this change after all!

My Baby Turns 11!

So I'm back posting since I'm so behind on my blog.  But this way I know where to find it when I want it :-)   But my baby is now 11.  She is in the 5th grade and wants to be a phorensic anthropologist and wants to get a PhD so she can "be smarter than her mom".

Every day is a mix of pleasures with her.  She dazzles me with her growing intellect one moment, then finds humor where noone else can find it.  She is goofy one second and way too analytical the next.  It's such a kick. 

Happy Birthday CC!  I love you!

But Mom it's Pink!

CC had her first soccer game this weekend.  Here are some pictures from the first game.  CC is number 18. 

 

There are 11 girls on the team this year.  8 players, 1 goalie and 2 subs.  It's the largest team they've had so far.  They also play on a large field with the large goals.  It seems so big when you see a tiny little ten year old trying to defend the goal!

 

Some things don't change...oranges are inhaled at halftime!

 

CC is learning the difference between playing aggressively and being an aggressive player.  This team was a tough one.  They won overwhelmingly, but it was a good lesson for the girls and a reminder that they have to play the game and not watch it.  CC figured it out.  She got into some head-to-heads with some players....

 

She got the ball away from the girls in blue!

 

There is only one problem this year.  One that almost had CC walk away from the game completely!

"Mom, the uniforms are PINK!"

This was a tough one for her...but the love of soccer won over in the end!

Our New Cousin

The girls were so excited to meet their new cousin.  They kept asking "how many more days" till we leave!  Well, we made it to Portland, finally!  I was coming to the point, that if the day didn't get here soon, I would just throw them on a plane and tell their Aunt to hang onto them till we come get them!

Here's sweet Jewel with her "Baba".  She is such a doll that you just want to hold and snuggle her...

But she is 3 1/2 and it's hard to get her to hold still long enough for a snuggle!

She is pretty tough too.  Just look at her trying to take down CC!

But she is as light as a feather, so CC quickly had the upper hand!

Jewel loves to pose for the camera.  After each shot she had to see how it turned out!  How did we ever grow up with regular film!?

And once she approved of the shot, she would orchestrate the next one!

This was my favorite one.  After the first shot above, she grabbed both girls (you see she is still holding their hands) and dragged the girls next to her, then pointed at my camera!  Of course she came and gave the picture her approval afterward too!  Way too cute.  Mama and Baba are going to have their hands full with this little one!

What was most amazing, was the connection she had with CC!  Not that I don't think CC is awesome, but I have never seen her be so doting on a little one before.  They just fell in love with each other!  It was hard to keep them apart!

Was it the braces, the long hair or just something else?  Whatever it was, was cute to see.  My little girl is growing up...and she is nurturing to others!  That's nice to see!

Q didn't mind too much.  She was into this furball cat!

Kids in a Box

We haven't totally banned them from the living room...really!  They are so creative.  I love that they still love to play even now that they are 10 and 12.  Imagination runs rampant in our home...still!

In case you are wondering what they are doing...they are watching our portable DVD player.  No wonder they need glasses.  I'd be blind if I tried to watch 10,000 BC on that little screen!

The many looks of Q

Q is full of attitude personality these days...12 years old and ready to take on the world!

We took the boat out for a spin to escape the heat.  There is a great little beach the girls like to play on downriver.

I get this one a lot....what mom?

The something icky look.  Could it be a spider?

She still loves hats...She's worn them since she was a baby.    She didn't have hair then so she had to!  Now she has beautiful milky white Irish skin that burns so easily!

I know her eyes were shut for this shot, but she looked so peaceful for the moment.  A total attitude free moment...rare at the age of 12.  She was in heaven this day...playing on the lake with her best buddies visiting from California.

Long Lake Crawdads

The weather was beautiful while we had our visitors.  They must have brought the sun with them from California!  One afternoon we went down to the lake to find the crawdad trap we had placed. (We have some kids in the neighborhood who keep taking it--not all kids have been taught manners apparently).

DD placed it under the tree...in hopes that the crawdads would crawl into it.....finally.  It had a can of catfood in it and was just ready for the little critters to crawl into it.

We found them under the dock!  But they just wouldn't crawl into the trap.

Sorry, I got sidetracked by the forget me nots growing along the river.

Still looking for the crawdads....man that river is still chilly!  You don't see me in there do you?  The girls said, "Mom, it's not bad once you don't feel your legs anymore!"

Does it mean I'm getting old when I won't walk through that cold water?

The river still is running high and looks soooo big right now.

Best Buds Since Birth

We had friends visiting this past week.  They are some of the really good friends we had to leave behind when we moved from Humboldt County to Spokane 3 years ago. 

These four girls are like sisters.  They range in age from 9 to 12 and they were together every Sunday (even in the womb-since we are good friends with their parents), they went to the same daycare, the same school and often got together at other get togethers on Saturdays as well. 

They have always gotten along well, exceedingly well.  I was worried though that it had been awhile since they were together and maybe the connection wouldn't be there...

Those fears were quelled within two minutes of piling into the car at the airport, they talked non-stop for the twenty minute ride into town.  They had filled each other in on the past year and half of their lives in an amazingly short period of time! 

And they continued to have plenty to talk about over the course of the next four days! 

The visit cut into my blog time...but we had so much fun during the visit.  And now I have lots of pictures!

My First Baby Turns 12

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but 12 years have passed since the birth of our first baby, Q. The funny thing is that I'm not a day older!  Yeah I wish.  How did time fly so fast?  I am still working on losing the baby fat...aren't all mamas? LOL!

Her birthday was mellow this year...we told her that she was too old to have a big birthday party.  We went out to dinner at her favorite resaurant, Rancho Chico on Northwest Blvd, and got dessert at Baskin Robbins.  Then we got her a new bike at Walmart to replace the bike that was stolen from her by our neighbor, Crazy Karol.  (still no resolution to that situation..the wheels of justice move so slowly) 

Notice my favorite piece of hair hanging in front of CC's face?  Love that whisp of hair.  It tells you what her mood is.  The little strand you see is a sign that she is happy.  The more strands that hang there, the darker the mood!

No, this isn't a living creature...though it looks like a hamster doesn't it?  It's one of those Webkins.  How many do you have in your house.  Don't ask, we have too many.  I'm sure they are Star Trek's version of Tribbles.  If you leave them in a dark closet, they multiply readily!  Captain Kirk, I know how you felt! 

If it looks like we got off easy on the birthday event this year...

No way!  As a compromise to not having a party we agreed to an End of School BBQ at our neighborhood's park along the lake.  Easy enough.  No house to clean!  Buy some dogs, big cooler of pop, snacking foods, and bring all the watertoys down to the lake and let them play.

Then she came home with her guest list...hope you are sitting down...I should have been.

There were 40 names on the list!!!  ("Mom there are only 39 names, my name is on there too!")  Her closest buds from school.  Knowing her, I believe that.  And worse yet, I'm reading the names and half of them are boys!  After I took my high blood pressure medicine...oh wait, I don't have high blood pressure...yet...I let her daddy give the stamp of approval...and he did.  I was a bit surprised, but I made him swear that he would be there in uniform. LOL!  Not really, but we did invite another family we are good friends with whose husband is also a sheriff's deputy...maybe we can park a sheriff's car there too?!

Now why did we say yes?  We don't know if we will be here next school year.  If our house sells we are off to Idaho so she won't be with these friends next year.  It's also a great way to meet all these friends that she has been 'hanging' with all day and all year and see which ones we need to keep our eyes on...especially those boys!

Since it's summer and Hoopfest weekend, I'm sure the number will be cut back to a more manageable amount.  Unfortunately, RSVPing appears to be a lost art!  So we have no idea how many are coming.  We may be having weenie roasts throughout the summer...we may need to invite a few of you if we end up with too many!