Back to School Shopping

This year, I made sure to do back-to-school shopping with the girls separately. Last year I attempted to do it with all three, and that is totally overstimuli for me. We discovered a store called Maurice's and it had so much cute stuff for Jo/Lex...so we got most of it there.

We did one afternoon with the O'Bannons at forever 21...where we found a few things but that was WAY to much for my brain. It was fun though.

We got rid of bags of old clothes in order to fit in some new ones. We did a pretty good job and I don't think we went overboard...and so far everyone is happy with their choices!  It's no small feat to be sure kids are prepared for the new school year! Whew!

Elite Team Auditions - The Dance Company

It's no secret that we have really dove in all the way to dance. The girls have been so excited for two months for auditions for this next dance year. The few days before auditions, The dance company has three days of intensive dance classes. These really prep them for auditions, but they are also observed during this time to see which ability levels of each girl can flow together to form each dance team.

On our way to intensives!

Saying "good luck" to Pey as she was heading to her audition.

And the next morning, we recieved the results of how they formed the teams! Because our studio is so small, it's not necessarily a question of whether they will make the team. It's WHICH teams they will be put on. Jordyn and Lexi weren't sure this year if they would moved up a level with the older girls, and so they were excited that they get to do two dances in the teen category with the older girls. They will really stretch and grow even more this year!

Get Rid of that GROSS Carpet!

I'm grateful tucker is so patient...because he always gets the experience of me springing ideas on him RIGHT THAT SECOND. For example "we are going to need to rip up our carpet and base boards in the next two days because Art said he can either put the wood down in three days, or not till December. I chose now!"

I could not handle the carpet anymore...and the dogs were not helping matters. So we had a crazy couple days but but has been SOOOOO worth it!!

We got rid of this dresser...which we bought from Greg Cutler's sister Laurie when Lexi was born!

Painted the baseboards.

Re-painted this strip in Jordyns new choice of "Caribbean blue"

And she really wanted a wall of frames. I gave her all the xtra frames I had and then did what I've learned is best: totally handed over the project to her and let her do it 100%. She prefers it that way and she always ends up doing a great job! I thought it was cute that she enlisted Lexi's help. In fact, they were in there for like four hours just laughing hysterically.

This is the result!!

See You Later Cousins

Last few days with Alyson and the McLeods. It's always so terribly sad to say goodbye, knowing the time between visits is so long. 

It was quite the ordeal to get Alyson on the plane...United basically stinks big time. But saying bye to her stunk more! One week is NOT long enough at all.

After we said goodbye to Alyson, we had the last overnighter with the McLeod's before they left. I had everyone at our house and it was finally Kylee's turn to have "a sleepover at Jamie's"! She was so overjoyed! (Poor girl had asked all summer and since last time we did it she got up at 5 AM, but then I decided to just let her do one night. But she slept until 7 AM! So next summer we will have to do more sleepovers) We had kids sleep all over the place because the rooms were torn up getting ready to have the floors put down.

 

The next day, we took the kids out to the cemetery to visit Ryan's grave, it was everyone's first time except Paxton's. They had a very intriguing time walking around reading all the headstones.

I don't have a picture, but then they drove off the next day to Kansas!! Monday was such a trooper getting 1500 miles done by herself!

Birthday Continued! Photo booth

Photo booth fun! This was such a fun birthday week. And I told my mom that she made celebrating her birthday easy because she told us exactly what she wanted and what mattered to her. All we had to do was execute it! Normally it seems like you are guessing or hoping you are doing with somebody wants you to do for their birthday. And she proclaimed over and over that it was the best summer of her entire life. That was the best thing to hear!!!