Max & the Gingers

It is Battle of the books time at the Junior High. Elementary finished up earlier this month. Both Ivory and Daisy were out on the first round on competition day, but Ivory's team used up every single bonus question, so it was a great battle. I helped every single day, so I was super excited to see the end results, so I went to the final battles in the gym on the last day. There were parents surprised to see that I was there when I didn't have a child in the finals, but it didn't bother me. I know a lot of the kids. In the 5th/6th grade battles there were cousins that I know. They had to battle each other. That must have been tough.

All the kids did a great job. I took a picture. Several of the kids on the team on the right were from Ivory's class. They won. And in the 3rd/4th battle, the 3rd grade team won. I was so proud of them.

Fast forward to the Junior High battles. The girls have had their team in place for months. Once again, they weren't on the same team, but that is to be expected. I went to help out again. You can check out last year's battle for more info on how the questions work. All ten teams showed up this time around. They came up with some creative names. Mr. Trent is on board with the names, although he mixes them up sometimes.

Day one was pretty good. All the teams were pretty close by the end of the day. I always take a picture to make sure no one changes the score between day one and day two. No one ever has, but I take it just to be on the safe side.

Robyn was on the Tootsie Rolls team, #10. And June was on the Asian Squad, #6, which was funny because there was only one Asian girl on their team. Mr. Trent finally figured out most of the names, but he never got Robyn's team right. He always called them the Tootsie Rollers, so we finally changed their name.

The last two rounds were intense. Especially, round three when only one person can answer the question and it has to be exact. Most teams just lost points during that round. It was rough. In the end, it was still very close. In fact, the scores are almost identical to last year.

Good job all the teams. And even the kids who didn't win got candy.

Here are the books they read this year.

Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
Divergent by Victoria Roth
The Nightmarys by Dan Poblocki
Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I hear Nightmarys was super creepy. June's group drew straws to see who had to read it. :) I didn't read all the books, but I've read a few before. But it is always fun to see how much the kids remember and if I would get any of the questions right.

February Phone Dump

February flew by. That is probably because it is short, but mostly because everything is in fast forward all the time. Robyn reminded me that February is the dreaded 'sick' month and true to form, I remember that Pearl was sick. And there were also some mild colds. But (knock on wood) it wasn't that bad. Not nearly the amount of illness we usually have in the short span of days that is Feb.

So let's do some Fast Forward February. And we'll start with Ivory's mouth. She is still losing teeth. But most of them are surprises to her. She will be sitting there and suddenly she will have a tooth floating around in her mouth. This one was actually wiggly beforehand, so she showed me how her tongue could push it halfway out.

Robyn did the window for the month of love. She was so fast. She was out there for a few minutes and came back in with this completed design. So far, it is one of my favorites.

There was not a lot of outdoor Spikeball during the month of February; it was just too cold. But one day, the sun smiled on us and we quickly grabbed the net and ran outside to enjoy a few moments of Spikeball bliss. Ben happened to be with us. He wasn't too bad. He doesn't compare to our awesomeness, but we accept amateurs.

June had me paint her nails one Sunday. Then she immediately was annoyed with how they felt and she wanted to take off the polish. I was sad because I had taken some time doing them, so we took a picture, because it lasts longer.

Have you seen the Greatest Showman? It is pretty epic. June saw it first with her friends and then kept bugging me to go see it. We finally got tickets for the whole family. And we all loved it!! Tyler took this picture. Please ignore my mad face. Apparently that is how I always look when I am watching TV. People often ask me if I'm upset. Yes...I'm upset. Stop interrupting me while I'm watching TV...

We run so fast around here that it isn't weird to find someone sleeping, especially Robyn. I think June has a dozen photos on her phone of Robyn sleeping on the couch. Chances are, if someone is unconscious and producing heat, Pip will think that is a good place to set up camp.

Pearl is also losing teeth, but hers are at the front of her face. I love when they lose them at school, because then they get the cute little tooth holders.

Daisy and Robyn decided to take the great leap in ocular advancements and try out contacts. Since
we switched Ivory and June over to the daily ones, they have been easier to maintain. The eye doctor was telling me that there was no reason for younger kids to wait if they wanted to try them. Daisy was super excited to get them and Robyn was willing so we went for it. What we didn't know is that the daily ones are harder to learn on. Daisy and Robyn spent a fair amount of time trying to put even one contact in. I sat with Daisy and encouraged her since she was the younger child, and she eventually got one in. By that time, Robyn was about done. Her eyes were so irritated. Here you can see the defeat on her face.

Daisy got the second one in after a long struggle, but she was able to take the trial ones home. Robyn had to come back and conquer another day. And conquer she did. Now both the girls can happily wear contacts whenever they want.

I am happy to say that I didn't have to do anything this year with Valentine's boxes. I think it is a silly tradition and it makes me mad when we spend hours putting together something that will be used for two minutes. The girls still made boxes but they helped each other and this Mom stayed out of the whole business. They had such cute ideas and I loved all their boxes. Pearl had a monster, Daisy had a cute giraffe, and Ivory made a starburst.

This winter was sadly lacking in snow. (I say sadly because I know we need the moisture, but I prefer clear roads.) It only snowed once each in Dec and Jan. It snowed again in Feb, on a holiday once more. It sure is pretty.

At work there is this creepy wooden angel. It has nails in its head for hair. I have no idea where it came from or why it is there, but the girls come and visit often, usually for lunch, and it has been the topic of many conversations. In Jan, they started dressing it up. It changes outfits for the holidays. It wasn't finished in this pictures, but it was well on its way to being a happy leprechaun.

Tyler tried taking Pip for a walk. He learned that she does NOT walk. Instead she digs in her paws and strains against the leash. She was so adamant about not walking that she literally wore through the pads of her paws until they were bleeding. That is one stubborn dog. Here she is giving Tyler the annoyed glare after the walk. (Although, that is kind of how she always looks.)

Robyn has a lot of hair, which we have already established. Sometimes when it gets in one of its moods, you just have to take a picture.

Ivory and Alyssa made it to District with their engineering project. They were super excited and hoped to go on to BYU.

However, they did not make it to the next level. In fact, NONE of the engineering projects passed. Does that mean the kids didn't do it right? Were they not very good projects? Or does the engineering side not hold up to the science side? Who knows. The girls still had a good experience and I don't have to do this again until next year.

It is a thing to catch people napping. Here is June, glasses and all.

Skate Night is not my favorite, but I realize it is a right of passage. The little were so excited to go. These are the perfect ages to go and like a boy and pretend to ignore him all night while actually knowing where he is at ever given second of the evening. I brought a book and tried to ignore most of the drama, but I'm glad we went. Here is our crew.

And Alyssa gave Daisy some killer glow shoes. They were so awesome out there on the skate floor. Daisy fit right in.

Finally, one more of Cakes. She is doing well in piano. While I was out of town with Ivory, Tyler took her to lessons and he enjoyed listening to Richard and Daisy play duets. He took a picture and I love it. Richard is an amazing teacher. I'm so happy we found him.

Heart Attacks

I enjoy activity days. The younger girls can get a bit rowdy, but I really enjoy the 10 and 11 year old girls. We had several girls that graduated right in a row. We lost one in December, one in January and 2 in February. For our last activity with our February girls, we did a heart attack. We were trying to decide whose door we should do, and for one of the people, they chose one of the girls who had just graduated. I think they missed her already.

We had a lot of fun. We brought paper, stickers and markers and I was amazed at how the girls could pump out designs. With only four girls and two leaders, we had a ton of hearts in half an hour. Look at some of the fun times.

Who does this remind you of?

I didn't realize a heart could look like a goatee.

I love how Rebecca used the donut sticker to say, "Donut you want to come back?"

Then we went into stealth mode and delivered the hearts. Check out this door and this was only half of them.

Oh, I forgot that I made pink popcorn for the girls for a treat. It was actually pretty easy and super delicious. I should use that again sometime. But maybe with chocolate and peanut butter next time.

And one more door. I think this house may have had a camera doorbell but there was no light on when we got there, so we decorated quickly in the dark. When I came back to take a picture, the light was on, so I tried to be sneaky and I took a picture from around the corner. You get the idea.

The girls are so fun. We only have three right now, but girls keep getting older and pretty soon, the younger ones will be up in our group. Then of course, the older girls will graduate into Young Women's. Darn that cycle of life.

Miniature Ballroom

I feel like I only dropped one shoe with the ballroom post, and here is the other one.

The younger girls are on the same schedule as June. But this post will be in order with the February competition first and the BYU competition second. Since I have already explained most of the procedure, we'll just jump right in. The younger girls wear flowers in their hair instead of ribbons around their waste. Not sure why, but that is how they do it. Ivory was on the purple team and Daisy was on the green team. The flowers correspond with their colors.

Ivory was scheduled to dance Tango with Hudson. I love this picture. She happened to look right up at me.

They did a good job dancing. Tyler came with me to this event which is why I can access youtube. It doesn't like my videos, but it will accept his. A little prejudiced if you ask me.

Daisy was up next. Her designated dance was Swing and her partner was Stone. They changed up partners from the last competition. I was sad to see Daisy lose Henry as a partner.

But they did a good job doing Swing.

Ivory's surprise dance was Swing, so she got to do the same that Daisy just did.

And oddly, Daisy pulled Tango from the hat. So they switched dances.

While they tallied scores, they did the group dance where the boys asked girls they didn't know. I took this picture where you can see both Daisy and Ivory in the throng.

I didn't get any pictures of awards, but the purple (Ivory) team took gold, and green (Daisy) team got silver. They both did a great job. It is based on the entire team, so even if my girls dance very well, they are still included with the other members of their team. All the kids are pretty good dancers though.

After the competition was the Newcomer Cha Cha. During normal dance routines, they can share boys, but for the newcomer events, there is no switching. There aren't enough boys for all the girls, so they chose beforehand and some girls were not included. Sadly, there weren't enough boys for Daisy and she will have another couple of years to participate, so she did not do this dance. Ivory was paired up with Henry. They did a good job. They were called back once, but didn't make the next cut. I was fine with that, it meant we could go home. Those events get really long.

Fast forward to BYU. Our team had to qualify to get there, which they did. And there was still the problem of a limited amount of boys. So once again, Daisy did not get to attend this event. Poor chica. Even Jane got to attend as an alternate, but she didn't get to dance the team event; only the newcomer dances.

We arrived and the girls got their flowers. Our school only had one team and they were white. Good choice.

Here you can see our team as they entered the floor. Jane was carrying the flag (white) and Ivory helped carry the school banner.

For this event there was only one couple per dance, making it a faster event. Henry and Ivory were partners again and they were the designated Cha Cha couple. You can find them in the picture and then you will know where they are in the video.

Their surprise dance was Waltz. I think Ivory was super happy not to draw Swing. She always seems to get that one. They had a run in with some couples in this one, but they do a great job not letting it throw them off.

They had the big group dance after. Check out this awesome face that I caught on Ivory.

Then they announced awards. Team white got GOLD! And not only that, they got the top score in gold, so they went home with the huge trophy. They were so excited. The trophy really was huge.

Here is the team with their gold medals. Good job guys! I'm so impressed, especially at this BYU level.

Hahaha. Love this picture.

But we didn't go home because we stuck around for another newcomer dance...this time Swing. Ivory and Henry did a great job. And you can see Jane and her partner in the video as well, but they weren't called back. There were so many kids, it was a bit much. But the day was still a success.

Ballroom has been such a fun experience for the kids. I have a feeling there will be a lot more in the future.