Another School Year Over.....

It was very hard to say goodbye to this school year for a number of reasons.
Reason #1: I had such an amazing class. I had 24 of the kindest, sweetest, hardest working students. I am really going to miss this class.
Reason #2: This was one of the best school years Caity has had in a long time! Everyone had warned me about 6th grade and I went into the year a little scared. I was told that it would be a rough year for her, the girls would get mean and catty and Caity would develop "6th grade attitude." I am happy to report that none of that happened! This was an incredible year for her. She grew up so much and is such a responsible and confident girl! She won the speech contest at school, took 4th in the district speech contest, and was on Student Council this year. She ended the year with 4.0 GPA! If the girls got mean and catty this year I never heard about it and she never let it bother her. She has such a strong sense of who she is and is so incredibly confident in herself, I love that about her!
Reason #3: My girls are growing up too fast. I now officially have a 6th grader and one in junior high.
Reason #4: I had to say goodbye to a good friend and co-worker who is moving out of state. I hate that things are changing so much at school.

It still doesn't seem like school is really over. Maybe it's this crazy weather. It's hard to say goodbye, but I am looking forward to spending lots of time with my family this summer!

Lindsey's New Room

This post is mostly for the benefit of my mom and sisters! For Christmas this year, Lindsey asked to have her room re-done. Her old room was adorable but she was definitly outgrowing it. She wanted a much more grown up looking room. She decided on hot pink, black, and zebra striped. She received the bedding and a lot of decorative items (thank you Memere!) for Christmas. After the holiday we started thinking about replacing her furniture. Mark told me that as soon as I got rid of the old furntiure we would look at new stuff. I took some pictures, listed it on our church's website, and it was gone in about 4 days! I think Mark was shocked at how quickly it happened! We ended up finding the perfect bed and dresser for her! The bed has a trundle so we now have a place for friends to sleep when they spend the night! I repainted and we replaced the carpet while we were waiting for the new furniture. It is still not quite finished, we still need to add a few small touches, but she loves her new room. The trundle has come in very handy! Despite the fact that we ended up also getting Caity a new dresser, desk, floors, and bedding for her room, Caity has slept on the trundle bed in Lindsey's room every night since we got it!

Our Big, Exciting Weekend!

The excitement began on Friday morning. Caity was a participant in the school's Patriotic Speech Contest. All 6th graders at our school are required to write a speech on a patriotic theme. They then give their speech in front of their class. The two 6th grade Language Arts teachers then got together to decide which 6th graders would compete in the school contest. There were 14 6th graders chosen. They had to give a speech that was at least 2 minutes long. Caity walked up to deliver her speech without any notecards! She had worked hard to memorize the entire speech. She was extremely confident and poised and made eye contact with everyone in the audience. When she was finished an older gentleman sitting next to me nudged me and said, "Can you believe that little girl...she just did that whole thing without one single notecard!" It was pretty impressive. The winners were announced beginning with the 5th place finisher. When they got to third place and Caity's name still had not been called, her proud Papa turned around and said, "she won the whole thing!" Sure enough, our Caity is the school champion for the speech contest. On May 5th, she will compete in the district competition at the district office!

The next morning we were off to our first dance competition of the season. The girls both performed with their dance team in "Fame," and they each competed a solo. This would be Caity's first season competing a solo and she was very nervous! The team did great placing 7th overall in the junior division. Both girls did amazing jobs on their solo performances. They are what their dad likes to call "gamers!" Caity finished 7th out of 24 girls in her category. Not bad for her first try! Lindsey was in a more difficult category since this is her second year competing a solo. She won her age division and came close to making the top 10 out of all the soloists in her category! They are now working hard for their next competition in April. The next one will be the whole weekend and they will take classes from master teachers too. It should be fun!



The "Fame" girls!

Lindsey's trophy for her jazz solo.

Caity's trophy for her musical theater solo.

Proud Mama!

The 6th grade Speech contest winner!!!!!