Girls' Trip to the Fox Theater

Back in December, Arabelle, Mamaw, and I had a "Girls' Trip" to Atlanta. Mamaw's choir, the Jubalheirs, sang with The Getty's at the Fox Theater. We arrived in Atlanta just before noon and had lunch at Mary Mac's Tea Room. It was delicious! 

We loved all the Christmas decorations.

Mamaw had rehearsal for a few hours, so Arabelle and I spent a couple of hours at a Barnes and Noble bookstore. I loved it!

We had to get a treat too. Arabelle's brownie didn't make it long enough for a picture. ;)

I called a salon nearby and the owner happened to be there (why are salons closed on Mondays!?) and was kind enough to open for me to get a MUCH needed hair cut. 

After that, we met up with Mamaw and had dinner at Baraonda. It was really tasty as well! Arabelle and I walked around and looked at the Christmas lights and decorations for a while before heading back to the theater for the show. 

Intermission snacks, of course!

The Gettys are Irish modern hymn writers and we loved their concert!

We got back to Pineview well after midnight and had to be back home the next morning by 8. We were tiiiiiiired, but it was so worth it! 

Arabelle is 8 years old!

It is so hard to believe Arabelle is 8 years old! Arabelle is such a fun, silly girl who is competitive, generous, and loving. She is such a great big sister to all three of her siblings!

We started celebrating a few days before her birthday since Jared would be gone on her actual birthday. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for supper and let her open a small gift. Here's a video of her opening the gift (bracelet making kit).

Last day as a SEVEN year old! 

Silly and seven! While Jared was out of town, I let each kid (well, not Zeke) sleep with me one night. Arabelle wanted to wake up on her birthday in my bed, so she slept with me the night before her birthday. She was a *little* excited.

Still dark outside, but too excited! Birthday pancakes and presents on her birthday, September 20th!

Zeke was up too. :)

I had planned a girls day out for Arabelle and I. Our sitters came at 10:30 and Arabelle spent the morning counting down the time. :)

First she got a hair cut and her nails painted.

Then we picked up her birthday donuts (what she chose instead of cake). She wanted caramel donuts for herself and we got some glazed and chocolate too.

We looked around a Belks some and tried on their fashion jewelry, then went to a local restaurant to eat lunch. She thought it was so fancy!

We had so much fun on our outing!

After the little kids napped, we picked up a milk shake before she had swim, then we met Papaw and Mamaw at Johnny's Pizza for ANOTHER celebration.

 Donuts and candles one more time. :)

I can't believe how quickly the last 8 years have gone by. She's half way to driving!

First Day of School, 2016-2017

School has officially started around here! Mae had her first day of preschool on Friday, August 5th. She will be going three mornings a week from 8-12. She was really excited, as you can see. She has one new teacher and one is her teacher from last year. There is only one child from last year's class in her class this year, but she doesn't seem to mind. She will play with anyone! 

We started our 2016-2017 homeschool year on Monday, August 8th! I intended to start slow this week, but the kids kind of picked right back up where we left off, so we got a lot more accomplished than I thought we would.

For Arabelle we are continuing All About Reading and All About Spelling. We are just over half way through level 3 and 2 in each from last year. She's starting on Singapore Math, level 3A. We are adding in cursive this year and using A Reason for Handwriting C (Thanks Jill!!).

Bo is continuing where we left off in level 1 of All About Reading and beginning Singapore Math 1A. He is also starting A Reason for Handwriting A. We will add All About Spelling in later this year.

Together we are continuing to work through the Story of the World, a fun little My Body workbook, and starting the Scott Foreseman Grammar and Writing Handbook. I am keeping them together on that grammar and writing, even though it's a first grade level. Arabelle hasn't done it yet and it's just easier to keep them together. 

Of course we are also doing read alouds daily. We did a Beverly Cleary series over the summer (Mouse and the Motorcycle, Runaway Ralph, and Ralph S. Mouse) and we have started The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Carlson this week.

I have gone back and forth on what we are going to do for Bible and I think I've found a good one, but haven't settled 100%.

I've got two teacher's pets. ;)

And Zeke....he will be the wild card this year. I hoped to send him to preschool 2 or 3 mornings a week, but they changed the format for the 1 year old class and only offer a 5 day option, so that was a little disappointing! So far he has mastered climbing on the school table and eating crayons and it's only week 1. :p

Can't get over how big the big kids are getting!

I'm sure this year will be one to remember considering there are 2 toddlers in the house, but also praying it will be a successful year with lots of learning and fun! 

District and State Swim Meets 2016

The district swim meet was in Douglas on Thursday, July 7th and the state swim meet was in Tifton on Friday, July 15th. To qualify for state, you had to place in the top 3 at district. For the state meet, you had to place in the top 8 in the prelims to qualify for finals.

Some of the younger kids:

There were 5 age groups swimming, so the meet took several hours with lots of time between Arabelle's events, so there was plenty of time for card games with friends.

Arabelle is there ready to dive in to the left of the metal pole. This was their freestyle relay. They took first place in both relays!

Diving in!

Results-

50 yard freestyle:

Medley Relay:

Arabelle and Lily became fast friends this season:

She swam the backstroke all year until the last regular swim meet, when they were trying to sort out who was swimming which stroke in the medley relay. They put her in the butterfly and she did great, so she swam that at district also and took 2nd place!

Freestyle pics:

Douglas Stingrays won district for the 13th year in a row!

Papaw and Mamaw, Jared, and Sambo made it to the district swim meet to see all her races. She was so proud!

The 7-8 and 9-10 year olds swam on Friday the 15th in Tifton. They have a parade of swimmers before the meet starts and we had a superhero theme this year.

Arabelle and her new friend Peyton, before the parade:

Her 50 yard freestyle was first, so she had to have some of Papaw's watermelon for a snack right after.

She placed 4th in the prelims! Here is the video for the 50 yard freestyle race.  She is in the lane 2nd from the right. As you can see, she cut 4 seconds off her district meet time!

Ready to go for the 25 yd butterfly:

Here is the video of her 25 yd. butterfly in the prelims.  She had a slow start and got 6th in her heat, but her time was 8th overall, so she qualified for finals. She was really surprised to see that when the times were posted!

They easily qualified for the finals in the 100 yd medley relay and 100 yd freestyle relay. I didn't get a video of those. Their winning district time for the freestyle relay was 1:21 and their prelim time was 1:13!! They FLEW that time and was seeded first for finals. 

We had a break from 11:45 until the next warm up time at 2:45, so we went out to eat with Lily's family.

They swam one length of the pool at the warm up before they made them get out because of lightning in the area. Soon after 3:30, they called the first event and rushed them up there to get going. 

50 yd freestyle finals video. She placed 5th! 

25 yd butterfly final video. She had another slow start, but swam a great time! She placed 8th. If you notice, she was the only 7 year old in the finals and also was ahead of all other 7 year olds in the 50 free, so next year is looking promising. ;)

The girls placed 3rd in the 100 yd medley relay and knocked 3 seconds off their best time!

The girls were seeded first, but knew they would have a close race with Oconee County. It was a really fun race to watch and the girls came away with 2nd place with another really good time!

100 yard freestyle relay video

So proud of her medals!

Relay girls:

Arabelle had a great first year on the Douglas Stingrays and is so sad that it's over. She impressed us all with how quickly she picked up the strokes and improved her times each meet. So proud of all her hard work and we look forward to next year! 

*I know she can't hear me cheering for her while she swims, but I just can't help it! ;)