Birthday photo shoot

When I made Emily's birthday invitation, I wanted to include a picture of her but realized that I didn't have a bathing suit picture of her where she's wearing a one piece suit.  Including a bikini picture on a 7 year old's party invitation seemed a little risque to me, so we staged a photo shoot in the front yard and churned out some very cute (and modest!) bathing suit pictures to include on her invite.  They all came out so cute that I thought I'd share a few with you.  Happy (end of) summer!

Happy birthday!

Em's birthday is technically not for another week, but we like to celebrate the week before because so many people make plans for Labor Day.  This year, we celebrated with a water-themed party in the backyard.  Ten giggly girls descended on our house this weekend and spent two hours chasing each other around the yard with water guns and having different kinds of water relays.  They were so cute to watch!  Instead of the traditional doughnuts we always have on E's birthday, we had the Kona Ice truck visit our house during her party.  I can't tell you how great this was! The truck arrives loaded with forty flavors of syrup and he allows the girls to design their own shaved ice.  They danced around on the driveway trying out every syrup on the truck and dancing to steel drum music before hitting the back yard again to finish out their water attacks on each other.  Emily was so tired after everyone left that she slept for two hours!  She is downstairs right now sifting through all of her birthday loot.  It's so funny to realize that the other girls really know her personality.  Their gifts reflected it - lots of friendship bracelet kits and peace sign paraphernalia.  One girl even said, "Everyone knows that Emily loves peace."  It's wonderful to see that she's making such great friends.  Some of my best friends are girls I met in elementary school and I hope that she's building those same kinds of friendships right now.  Happy birthday to our big girl! 

Presents first seemed like a good idea - before they all got soaking wet!

Craft time is the right time.

Cute cousins on a very fantastic picnic blanket

One of my favorite pictures - I just didn't manage to get Emily in it!

The ice man cometh!

Tough decisions

That's my kid in the bucket.

And now...nap time! (for both of us)

Welcome to second grade!

Can you believe it?  Emily is a second grader!  She started the year with a bang...and a fantastic outfit.  Who could help having a great first day of school when you're wearing sequins, peace signs, and zebra print?  We're very excited that Emily has Ms. Byrd for a teacher this year and that she's in a classroom with so many of her friends.  We're looking forward to learning all kinds of great things.  Another big bonus - she's only about ten steps away from the library!  If you headed back to school this week, I hope your first week went well!  Goodbye summer...but at least that means fall is right around the corner!

Twas the night before school - this is how she got ready for bed.

We always take a picture with Curious George on the first day of school!

Olympics...Barbie-Style!

Today Emily and I staged an equestrian competition using Barbies (and other Barbie look-a-likes that were floating around the playroom).  It was a smashing good time!  Barbie took gold in all of the jumps because the Loving Family kept coming unseated from their mounts.  Take a look at the stylish wardrobe of the audience - most of these Barbies were mine and so are sporting some cool vintage duds.  Hope you're enjoying the Olympics as much as we are!

Barbie and the Loving Family are ready to go!

These jumps look particularly challenging today

The audience is enthralled by all of the action on the race course.

We discovered this severed head floating in the Barbie drawer and decided to give her a hat as we couldn't give her an entire outfit.  We gave her a seat down front so that she could see everything.

Come to our Lemonade Stand!

Just look for the yellow signs!

Emily has begged all summer to do a lemonade stand and we're squeaking it in at the very last minute.  Come out and visit us this Saturday, August 4th, between 1:00 and 3:00 at the White House.  Emily has decided that she wants to donate all of the money she raises to RescueCats, a wonderful no-kill rescue and adoption agency in Fayetteville.  Our lovely boys, John and Ringo, were adopted through them. So proud of my little humanitarian!  Hope you can stop by to visit us, have a cool drink, and support a great organization this Saturday!

Ladybug Pool Party

Emily and I had a great time today at our annual ladybug luncheon.  The moms had so much fun catching up and telling stories while the seven little ones had an even better time swimming away the afternoon.  It's so wonderful to think that we all grew up together and now our children are playing together, too.  We need to do this more often, ladies!

These are the only two pictures I could get.  They were in constant motion all afternoon!

And now for a silly pic...

Swim Show 2012

Both synchronized swim teams put on a fantastic performance at Ms. Betsie and Ms. Megan's 2012 swim show!  This was our girls' first year as part of the synchronized team and we couldn't be prouder of all of their hard work.  Here are pictures from the big night.  Also, you can view their entire performance at Swim Show 2012  Watch at the end of the video - Emily is the one who gets tossed up into the air for the finale.   Keep in mind that she only joined this team about three weeks ago.  Up until that time, she had been swimming with the younger synchro swimmers.  I think she did an incredible job of keeping up with all of the older girls.  Ms. Betsie and Ms. Megan do an amazing job teaching the swimmers each year and I'm so proud of all that our girls have learned with them!  Hope you enjoy the show as much as we did!

Ready to head out to Ms. Betsie and Ms. Megan's house!

Pre-show pedicure for all of the synchro swimmers

Abby's waiting her turn for a pedi

Posing with Ms. Megan

Here they go!  Emily's pretty easy to spot - the shortest one!

So proud of their medals and trophies!

Getting a hug from Ms. Betsie before heading home for cake!

Synchronized Swimmers

Emily and Abby have worked hard all summer with their synchronized swim team and it's almost time for the swim show. We're so excited to see their routine because we haven't been allowed to sit in on their lessons this season. The swim show will be a big surprise for all of us! Emily started out with a younger group but (proud mama alert) got bumped up to the older group, so we're excited to get to see both Abby and Emily perform together.  Tonight they had a special session with a videographer who will produce a DVD for all of the parents - can't wait to see it and the cool underwater pictures they took! In the meantime, I'm posting a few group pictures that the instructor shared with us. How cute are these girls?!

Guess which one belongs to us?  That's right - the daredevil flipping through the air!

Another tooth bites the dust!

Emily's been wiggling her second loose tooth for a couple of weeks now and it suddenly came out while she brushed the other night.  Lucky girl - the tooth fairy brought her a two dollar bill this time.  Hope all of her teeth come out as easily as the first two!

Storytime at the Library

I was invited to host a summer storytime at the PTC public library and ended up dragging Donald, the Mad Scientist, and Emily, the Mad Apprentice, along with me for the ride.  We had a great time presenting stories and science activities to a group of around 30 students.  I was thrilled to see that at least a third of the guests were students from my school, some who had even already gone up to middle school.  One boy that I didn't recognize told Donald that he came on purpose to see him because Donald apparently visited his school last year to do the Mad Scientist show.  Famous!  Donald and Emily also ran into some paparazzi the next day at the gas station.  A Dad came over and asked if they would come and speak to his kids because they had seen the storytime the day before and were so excited to run into them in public.  Hooray for summer reading - and science!