End of the School Year Awards? Or not.

I have been wanting to post about the girls' end-of-the-year awards, but I have been waiting because my computer finally ate the dust (the one with all the pictures on it), and I have been using our old laptop.  Luckily, we noticed that the iMac was acting strange and I backed up all my photos on Dave's zip drive.  I have yet to load them on the laptop though.  You know, going from being a Mac user to using a PC laptop is really difficult.  Maybe it is ACTUALLY more difficult, or maybe it is totally a mental thing, but whatever the reason, I am having a hard time transitioning.  I loved our iMac.  I am totally bummed that it is no longer working.  But, it was about 6 years old, which in computer years is like 100.  (I think computer years are even greater than dog years... right?)  Anyway, once I get things all figured out, I will post about my genius children and their amazing academic year!  Until then...

Awards, Friends, Cake, and Presents

The night before Ciera's birthday was her school's awards assembly.  The students were getting recognized for grades and citizenship, as well as getting awards from each teacher for their student of the year.  Ciera received A/B honor roll for the entire year, and she was chosen by her Language Arts teacher for her "favorite student" award.  (That is not exactly how they describe the award, but we know that Ciera was her favorite!) We are SO proud of her and how well she has done in school this year... now on to Junior High.  Ugh!

For her birthday party this year, she had some friends come over on the Friday evening before her birthday for a "late night" party.  They had pizza, danced to music, did their nails, had cupcakes and ice cream, opened presents, watched "Puss in Boots" and played Clue.  She had a lot of fun, and stayed up really late!

 

Ciera's birthday was a busy day.  We woke up early and had cinnamon rolls and she opened her presents before school.  For her cake this year, she wanted the Young Women Torch.  She gets to attend Young Women class at church now, and the torch is the symbol for "Stand for Truth and Righteousness" and reminds the girls to make wise choices each day and choose to live virtuous lives.  I am proud of Ciera for wanting to make that a priority in her life.

After school, in the evening, we ate dinner and then had cake and ice cream before we went to her band Spring Recital.  The bands from the Intermediate School and Junior High School were all performing.  They all did great! 

Each band had their end-of-the-year awards at the same time too.  Ciera got the Outstanding Performer award for the French Horn class.  She has done really well this year with her instrument.  She is always getting praised for her awesomeness, and has consistently held first chair.  She is going to continue in band next year, and develop her talent even further.  We are so proud of her accomplishments!

HaPpY 12th BiRtHdAy CieRa MaRie!

I can hardly believe that my little baby is 12 years old.  It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing a little peanut home from the hospital.  She looked so little in her big car seat; Dave drove so slowly all the way home, and I sat in the back with her to make sure she was okay.  It was difficult adjusting to being parents.  Ciera was a challenge- she cried (and I mean SCREAMED) all the time!  I remember just making it through each day until Dave got home and then handing Ciera off to him so I could decompress for a little while.  It was amazing to me how much I could love such a little person even through difficulties.
Ciera has grown up to be such an amazing young woman.  She is sweet, funny, kind, beautiful, smart and talented.  We are so glad to have her in our family.  She is such a great big sister to her three younger sisters, and is an amazing daughter and person.  We love her!

Happy 12th Birthday Ciera!!

Random Happenings in May & a Dino-Kid!

I haven't been the best at keeping my blog up to date lately, so I thought I would post some pictures of things that we have been up to this month.  At the beginning of the month, we had a groundbreaking ceremony for a church building in Wylie.  It is a big deal!  Currently, we have to drive into Garland to attend our church meetings, which takes us about 30 minutes (some people even longer!).  After this building is complete it will take us 10 minutes to WALK there!  It is located just outside of our neighborhood!  We are so excited (even though it won't be finished until next spring/summer)!  Everyone who wanted to got to take a turn turning over the dirt... Brooke didn't want to, but the other girls all took a turn.

The girls have been trucking along in school, and only have two weeks to go!  It has been fun seeing how much they all have learned and how they have grown.  They all have done SUPER!  Chloe was chosen by her teacher as "Dino Kid" this month.  Yay Chloe!

Dave and the big girls took turns drawing on each other, and I thought is was worth documenting.  It is WASHABLE marker (the only acceptable tool to mark on yourself, okay girls!?!).

Spring Dance Recital

At the beginning of May, my dance classes had their Spring Recital.  We have had classes for several months (a winter session of six weeks, and a spring session of six weeks), and this is the end result... The younger class had a whole bunch of new students in it, only my girls and one other girl were returning students from the last session.

My older class had all returning students, but only about half of them returned for the second session, so the class was really small!

The dance studio that we have class in has been newly renovated, and has mirrors along all of the walls and a bigger dance space. My classes for the spring session had to learn tap for the first few weeks with no tap shoes while we waited for the floor to be finished with a different surface, good for tapping on.  It was a challenge, but they did well, and we made it through!  I taught both classes tap and ballet dances, but only the tap dance from the older class and the ballet dance from the younger class are shown here.

Lightening Bugs

One of the great things about living in Texas is that we have fireflies, or lightening bugs.  Each spring we go out in the evening and see the flashing lights of the fireflies along the green across from our house.  The girls really wanted to catch one this year, so Dave did. (Good thing we have an entomologist in the family, huh?)  Each girl got to have a turn holding it.  It lit up in each one of their hands, which made them all super excited... then we let it go.  Amazing how something so small and insignificant can bring so much happiness.

Chloe's Art

A while ago, our school district had "Celebrate the Arts", and Ciera played her french horn and Chloe had a piece of artwork in it.  I posted about Ciera's part previously, but didn't have a picture of Chloe's art.  Now I do!  We are so impressed with Chloe's art... she loves to draw, paint, and create things.  This picture was an assignment in art class at school.  They had to make a construction paper owl.. it turned out really well!  We are proud of Chloe!