Carrie was my first friend in Apex. We don't get together nearly enough because she went back to work and doesn't teach the morning Jazzercise classes anymore. When we do get together, it's always super fun and a lot of talking and catching up occurs. We stayed at the Mexican restaurant from 6:00 to almost 9:00. They were ready for us to go!!
As we were leaving we decided that we needed some selfies. Carrie was amazed that my new phone has a flash on the front so we had to try that out a few times, too. Never a dull moment! Love this girl!!
Kamdyn was the class Spelling Bee winner for the 3rd year in a row! We were so proud of her, yet again! This was the school's first spelling bee since this is it's opening year. We studied Kamdyn's words SO much that I thought my brain was going to explode. Some of the words are so difficult that we have to get Google to pronounce them...seriously!! We thought the "third time would be the charm." She ended up in 6th place out of the entire school, which is still wonderful!! Kamdyn was disappointed, nonetheless. She misspelled "ecclesiastical." We practiced that word a lot, but it has so many syllables and standing on stage in front of a lot of people can get the best of anyone's nerves. The kid that won had "courage" for his last word! What?? Anywho, she has her fifth grade year to try to win the whole thing. It will be our last year of studying those 450 grueling words!! Apparently, they don't worry about spelling bees in middle school.
Kamdyn Lucy, you are the smartest, sweetest, soon-to-be 10 year old that we know and we are so blessed to call you ours!!
She drew #5 so she was relatively close to the front!
Only a few were left! The girl on the far right is also a huge Clemson fan with parents who graduated from Clemson. Go Tigers!! Two out of the last 8 were Clemson fans. Actually, they were both in the final 6! That little girls finished 4th.
I was getting nervous at the end so I quit taking photos.
Sydney's Mom, Stacey, told me about this show coming to DPAC months ago. We decided to get the girls tickets as part of their Christmas present. We had such a fun time taking them to dinner and to the show! It was so cute! They fell in love with the book in 2nd grade thanks to Mrs. Sidney. The play made them love it even more! Spending time with my big girl is always so much fun!!
We are so lucky to have so many sweet kiddos in this neighborhood. On one of the "snow" days, these three played together at our house. They are always such a pleasure to have over. They get alone so well together and I hope it stays that way for years to come!
Maggie, Campbell, and Karcie making bracelets.
On to play-doh before going to Maggie's house to play for a while!
They called school for Friday relatively early on Thursday afternoon. All we really had that first day was a bunch of sleet and freezing rain, but it didn't stop these kids from going outside. They literally stayed outside all day long except for coming inside to get their clothes dry and to eat!
A bundled up Karcie!!
While these three came inside to warm up for a while, we made bear biscuits. I used to make these with my Pre-K students. It was good time to break out some of the old ideas!! The girls loved them!
It finally snowed some during the middle of the night. We started Day 2 of the snow at Lucca's 4th Birthday Party and it was genius! They had a Winter Wonderland party for her and it was perfect. Their driveway is on a steep incline so sledding was the entertainment for the kids! It was awesome!
After the birthday party, Karcie came back home and decorated her snowman, Snowey Jr. Kamdyn went down to Morgan's to play with Morgan and Sydney.
Karcie, Campbell, and Declan played for hours between our yard and The Kirk's yard. I have no idea how they were not freezing to death.
These three came upstairs for a quick drink of milk!
Then the big girls came back down to our house for a while!
They were sledding between our house and The Kirk's house. I had the perfect view from my dining room window! I loved watching them and listening to them squeal and play!
Sydney and Kamdyn crashed. It was so funny!
When I was finally able to get the girls to come back it was almost dark. We made flour-less peanut butter cookies and they were delicious! I let the girls mix the ingredients, roll the cookies out, and make fork marks on them all by themselves. The love being little bakers!
Then we had a little dance party in our living room! Whoop Whoop!!
Karcie is SO stinkin' funny! I think she needs a cordless microphone!!
We had the busiest 6 months that I can remember. Between going to the lake, football games in SC, traveling to football games, a few other vacations, and Christmas, we rarely had time to just be. We were all longing for low stress and normalcy. January through March are the slowest months of the year. And while I do get the Winter Blues from time to time, it's also during these months that we get our batteries recharged. We spend these months inside to avoid the cold. Most importantly, we spend these months with our little family of four! I have loved every second of it.
We got our first "taste" of snow and it didn't stick around.
It was pretty watching it fall!
Karcie had to go outside on the deck to enjoy it.
The rest of us stayed inside. These two played The Game of Life.
The girls had two days out of school so enjoyed a few lunches out. It was 38 degrees and they still wanted ice cream at Chic-fil-A!!
The girls got their dance costumes so we tried them on!
