Madalyn's Dance Recital

Raymond Crew

Madalyn

Madalyn & Willow with Mrs. Milan

Madalyn in the Beauty and the Beast Ballet costume

Dance Recital this year was from a totally different perspective. Since Madalyn is on team, she had 2-3 dances in each of the four recitals. The bright side of that was that I got to see half of Buda on Saturday, the down side was being at Evans Auditorium at Texas State for 12 hours. Needless to say, it was a VERY long day. The girls had a lot of fun hanging out together in the dressing rooms, and I got a glimpse of the middle school girls giggling over texting boys (not ready for that yet). The highlight for Madalyn was earning her 5 year dance trophy, which she focused on all year. Since she just did the team dances she got medals and pins, but the trophies all stay at the studio. But this one she earned, and she got to bring home and she was very excited about that. We still can't figure out where that competitiveness comes from :). Its a really great group of girls, and now we're focusing on Nationals in July and trying out for team again in August. *sigh*

Last Day of 3rd Grade

Me and Madalyn & her brilliant Girl Scout Troop


Our Super Star

This was absolutely a banner year for our precious Madalyn. She just blossomed, and matured and met so many goals its hard not get a little nostalgic as it really seems like she has taken huge steps to being an amazing person. All of her hard work has paid off, as you can tell from her medals and certificates. She earned one for being commended in TAKS Reading, one for being commended in TAKS Math, one for Academic Excellence for being commended in both Reading and Math, and the last for perfect attendance. (When Mrs. Milan gave it to her she told Madalyn that she wanted to go for a ride in her new car that she earns for having perfect attendance through 12th grade.) Then she got a certificate for 'A/B Honor Roll' and a certificate for being voted 'Smartest Student' by her classmates.
Even with her scoliosis diagnosis this year, she has kept a positive attitude and achieved some truly great things. Not only all of the stuff above, but she bridged in Girl Scouts, will earn a 5 year dance trophy tomorrow at the Dance Unlimited Recital, got second place in the talent show, earned a spot in ALPHA-H the gifted and talented program, and earned perfect scores on both of the TAKS tests. Her teacher said that its so important for each of the children to taste success. Once they have a little, they will work for more.
We are so proud of her its hard to put it into words. I read a quote recently that said 'children really aren't yours, they're just on loan for 18 years' and I keep thinking our time is half-way gone. :(

HBP3 Update!

We locked in the date for the 3rd Annual Halfway BirthRAY Partay. It will be at the City of Kyle Pool on Saturday, July 18th from 7 - 10. I will work on the evite and send it soon. Hope to see you there!

Kimberly Hart Graduates from UT!!

We spent Sunday afternoon celebrating our cousin's graduation from UT. Kimberly got her Bachelor of Science degree in Retail Merchandising and will be going to Los Angeles in the fall to study shoe design. Super cool! Congratulations Kimberly, so glad to have another Longhorn graduate in the family!!

Talent Show!

I totally forgot to post this! A week late, and out of order, but I had to post it - Madalyn, Anna and Willow won second place at the Talent Show. There were twenty-something acts and they were THRILLED to get second place behind the 5th grade magician who was amazing. Seriously amazing. The girls choreogrphed their own dance to Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten, one of my facorite songs. They are already planning for next year to see if they can win first. Wonder where that competitiveness comes from...

Girl Scout Campout

Troop 2283's Shel Silverstein poems theater act
Yes, it was one of those weekends. Lots of things to do and places to be, including Madalyn leaving for a Girl Scout campout right after Field Day on Friday. The moms joined them on Saturday night to stay in the cabin at Zilker Park. The Girl Scout House that they have there is awesome. It's a lot like the Zilker Clubhouse that we've rented a few times for MLR parties. The girls cooked everything on a campfire, planned and shopped for all of their meals and seemed to really learn a lot. This picture is of the show that the girls put on for us. The only down side was the rain that rained out the Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare in the park we were going to attend, but at least we were in a cabin and not tents! Oh, and they had a recipe for 'Tired of Smores' with Thanks a Lot Girl Scout cookies, Reese's peanut butter cup, and toasted marshmallow. They were worth the wait. :)

Last T-ball Game

The moms with our boys

Beck getting his trophy

Beck on the mound

Beck's last at bat

Braves singing the National Anthem


It was a little bittersweet, but Saturday was Beck's last t-ball game. We had a really great experience with our first time at the sport. Out coaches were great and the parents were a ton of fun. We made some great friends, and so did Beck. He was definitley the entertainment for the team and even got to play pitcher at the last game. Yes, they have a pitcher in t-ball. :) Although everytime he was in the infield we had a heart attack. The Braves finished the season in 4th place overall and capped off the season with a pool party in the coach's neighborhood. T-ball was awesome!

Random Pictures from the Park

Blanco Vista Field Day

I took two days off to run the concession stand for PTA at Field Day. It was incredibly nice to be away from my laptop for an extended period of time, and do some good. We raised $815 in that two day period- which was just over our goal. We had a lot of volunteers which I was extremely thankful for, especially my mom who also took off to help on Friday. It was a very hot two days, but the best part was getting to watch the kids just be kids. No TAKS tests, no homework, just fun and the parents and teachers even got in on the action. The parents beat the kids at tug-o-war which is still my favorite Field Day event. The obstacle course was cool as well as the new additions of razor scooter race, so everything gets updated I guess.
And we bought matching Field Day Hero shirts, just to make it fashionable. Since Field Day is still one of my favorite days, I'm sure you'll see me wearing this soon.

BEST NEWS EVER!!

In one day we got really good news for Madalyn and Beck. Beck tested for the Dual Language program in early April and the principal told us what a great job he did, but it was a HUGE relief to actually get the piece of paper saying that he was admitted. Then to our surprise we also got a letter letting us know that Madalyn had been admitted to the ALPHA-H program, which is the gifted and talented program in the Hays CISD. She had taken three different tests throughout the spring and she tested high enough to get in. I'm not sure if her 100 on the Reading portion of the TAKS test played into this at all or not, but however it happened we are thrilled. Hands down the best Mother's Day gift ever, because either Jeff and I can finally say that we're doing something right in our parenting, or we can at least say that we passed on some great genes! I'll take either one. :)

Brownie to Junior

On Sunday Madalyn's Brownie Troop bridged from being Brownies to being full blown Junior Girl Scouts. Complete with new green vests, certificates and lots of new patches and pins the girls were very excited. The two hour ceremony was a bit long and the boys were more than ready to go, but we made it through somehow. They are all looking forward to their campout on Memorial Day weekend.

Wheel of Wow

Madalyn's school was supposed to have their 1st Annual Fiesta yesterday. Cody had worked on creating the 'Wheel of Wow' since Sunday and we stayed up late making the final push to complete it Thursday night. Then they postponed it at noon on Friday because of the swine flu. Boo to that! I just had to show off the handiwork of the first brother/sister project for longer than I can remember.

Talent Show!

Madalyn and her friends Willow and Anna made the talent show! They created original choreography to the song Unwritten by Natasha Beddingfield. And to sound totally biased, they did an amazing job for three 9 year-olds. I'll make sure to post the video when they perform in the talent show on May 15th.

T-ball Doubleheader

Kiddoes, Beck and Eric

Beck and Eric are both playing the Hays T-ball league for the first time this year. They recently had a double-header on a Tuesday night with Eric playing first and Beck's game following. They aren't in the same league so they don't ever play each other but both seem be having fun. We had another great turnout for the games and we took this picture of the kids afterwards. (disclaimer-Madalyn just came from dance, we don't let her wear that around usually!)

Girls Night Out

The counselor at Blanco Vista organized a Boys Night Out and a Girls Night Out to promote spending time with our kids at the school. It all benefited Gold Ribbon Rescue, a local rescue group for Golden Retrievers and Emma one of the therapy dogs was in attendance both nights. I volunteered and helped with the boys night which had a good turnout, but there were a lot more moms there with their daughters at GNO. I guess girls are more of the congregating and hanging out type. They were very successful events and it was nice to be part of both of them. Madalyn and I took this picture to put on her scrapbook page that we made.

Asthma Walk

Bristol making tracks

Diana, me, Brianna and Brandy

Team Pic

My friend Diana organized a team for the Asthma Walk last Saturday. She recently got involved with the american Lung Association and this was the first big event she was a part of. You can see how many team members she attracted and raised over $3,000. It was a rainy morning, but actually turned into a really nice walk for the 5k around Arbor Trails in South Austin. The walk was fun and very different from the ones downtown that we've been doing. Beck walked his first 5k at 5 years old and Bristol made it one whole lap before he took a ride with Ella in her stroller. We never replaced ours after it bit the dust at Wurstfest last year, great memories. :)

Box Top Day at School

These are from the end of March, but I thought they were worth sharing. One of our PTA fundraisers is 'Box Tops for Education' - you know those little 10cent squares on General Mills products - which add up quickly when you collect them for an entire school for a whole year. We raised $672, which meant that we counted 6,720 little squares and put them in bags of 50. The process actually went quite quickly and just took us a couple of hours one afternoon. The class for each grade that raised the most box tops got to have a moonwalk recess to celebrate. Here is Madalyn's class on their big day.