The Sunday before Thanksgiving, we took the girls to see the Rockettes at the Grand Ole Opry. It is the last year they are in Nashville and it was awesome! The girls loved it. Pictures and videos aren't allowed, so I only have the picture I took before we left and one right before it began:
Michael had to work Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, so we didn't head to east TN until Wednesday. Since we were going to be gone over the weekend, I decided to put our tree up a little early.
It was fun to set the tree up in the new house.
We headed to east TN and visited with family and ate until we were stuffed. :) Michael's grandmother wasn't feeling well, which is always a bummer on a holiday (especially with a bunch of kids running around your house):
Then we headed to Stoney Creek for lunch at Dad's house. Always fun to play with the cousins!
Paige always asks to have her picture made when I have the camera out. And she always poses like this:
Ha! We also ate dinner at Lilo's, where I failed to take any pictures! *Must remember to keep camera glued to hand on Christmas*
This month has been packed! So packed, that I barely took any pictures this month (you know it's busy when I don't have time for pictures!). I started working part time, writing home studies for potential foster care families. Luckily, it's very flexible and most of it I can do from home. I did get a few pictures one day when I thought the girls looked cute:
Olivia wanted to do a split:
So, Paige had to do a split:
She is such a funny kid. She is apparently in the middle of a growth spurt, because she eats all.the.time. If you're eating, she demands you share. Doesn't matter when she ate last or what you're eating. She's also talking like crazy. Her teacher at Mother's Day Out even commented on it. What's funny is if you don't understand her, she just says the same thing louder. My favorite right now is she has "thank you" and "you're welcome" backwards. When a cashier at Target gave her a sticker, I said "What do you say?" and she said "you welcome." Love it!
We have spent the majority of this weekend at the gymnastics competition our Parent's Club hosts, Music City Invitational. Let me tell you, there is so much that is involved in a gymnastics competition! Geez. Wednesday, I helped unwrap 800 individually wrapped medals. Set up was Thursday, which involved setting up gymnastics equipment/mats/awards area/etc. The competition is held at a sports complex in Franklin (way too big for our gym! There were over 600 gymnasts). I timed the uneven bars during a session Friday morning, Olivia competed yesterday morning, then I helped with awards at the session after Olivia's. And there were more sessions today! It was fun, though. Luckily, Mamaw is visiting this week and was on Paige duty, so I could work.
Speaking of Olivia's meet, she did awesome! She was 3rd on vault (8.9), 2nd on bars (9.4), 2nd on beam (8.825), 2nd on floor (8.8), and 2nd all around (35.925). It's really amazing how much she's improved in a few short months. She was 2nd in her age group, which were 5 1/2 -6 1/2 years old. There were 90 Level 2 gymnasts and she was 26th out of all of them. The majority of the Level 2's are 7-9 years old with a handful of 5-6 year olds and a handful of 10-11 year olds.
Her group yesterday (her team is so big, they have to split into 2 groups during competition):
Olivia's biggest fan (eating, of course):
During awards:
2nd place trophy:
1st place team:
And Sadie was there!
The awards area cleared out and we were still there talking to Sadie's family. The podium was empty and the girls were playing on it. All of a sudden, I hear "Mommy! Picshur!" and turn around to see this:
Little sister was not to be outdone. Olivia let her wear her medals:
It was so nice for Halloween to be on a Friday this year. It rained most of the day, but started clearing up around 3:30 pm. We ate dinner with our neighbors, then headed over to East Main street downtown. The local police block off the street and the people that live there go ALL OUT. The houses were amazing! That street is full of historical homes. One house was decorated like a pirate ship, one had turned their (large) garage into a haunted house you walk through, and one had turned their front yard into the forest from Sleeping Beauty. The lady that lives there was dressed as Maleficent and was very into her character! It was really neat and I unfortunately left my camera at home. My cell phone pics weren't that good.
The girls went as peacocks:
These pictures were before the coats went on:
Paige was pretty excited with their loot:
About a week ago I got an email from Olivia's school that said she was getting an award the next day at school. It's a new program they're starting, called the ROAR awards (their mascot is a tiger). It was short notice, so Michael wasn't able to get off work, but Paige and I went. We watched as child after child was called by grade for math, reading awards, then for Citizenship and citizen of the month. I had no idea what award she was getting, so I basically had my camera ready for every first grade award. Finally, the principal pulled out a huge stack of papers and said: "Our last award goes to the student's that had perfect attendance the first 9 weeks." Yes, her award was perfect attendance. She was thrilled:
