In continuing the over exaggerated sappiness, Charley Rhea was in the Senior beauty walk at school on the same Saturday as the marathon. Of course, they start the program with a slide show of baby pictures. I was okay at this point, just a lump in the throat remembering this precious toddler who had me COMPLETELY wrapped from the day she came into this world.
Then she walked onto the stage (middle, between the red dress and blue dress) and all my rock solid composure started to crack a bit! :) She looked PHENOMENAL. Not just beautiful, she looked stunningly gorgeous.
She would've fit the bill if she were walking the red carpet at the Oscars.
That. Dress.
It fits her like a dream.
There were lots of beautiful girls with beautiful dresses on the stage, but Charley carried herself with such an air of maturity and grace instead of giggles and tripping over dresses. When she walked onto the stage, it just felt different. Like surely she must be 8 years older than the other girls because she just had this sense of mojo about her that the other girls hadn't yet grown into.
She was called into to the top 30 which was a total no brainer!
Mom had a very detailed system down for how she was ranking her favorites in the event. She even thought Charley earned a 'WOW' by her name after she first walked out! I was cracking up but I couldn't agree more!
Char got to come say hello to us between rounds and Andaddy practically stuck the camera up her nose trying to get pictures of her! He had the best time whooting for his grand baby and playing with their new camera!
I can not believe we are in our final year with this girl just a few minutes away. I was hopeful her senior year would be a good one, and as we listened to the crowd erupt with screams every time she walked out on stage, I knew it. She's having the time of her life.
You've brought us all so much joy, sweet Charley. We are overwhelmingly proud of you. We'll be in the crowd, cheering you on for every single stage of life. You can count on that. We love you more than you'll ever know, beautiful girl!
These two tiny people have officially run 2 more marathons than me! So be it. I hope I never do one! Two Saturday's ago, London and I jumped in the car to cheer on our favorite twins at the Mercedes Marathon! They run a mile every day at recess, then show up to the 'big event' to run their last mile and they get official marathon medals! I absolutely love this idea. How cool will it be to one day have a pile of marathon medals?
I know this isn't a precious pic of him but I love his happy eyes and how you can see the freckles on his nose. He's such a cutie to me!
Caden was stiff arming London in the above picture because I wanted a pic of just the three of them, but you know little lady pushed her way in anyway! And, she's eating. Shocker.
London and I strong armed our way to 'sight distance' at the finish line. You guys. A wall of proud parents might be harder to push through than the Great Wall of China. Those jokers were. not. budging. I couldn't see a thing so I stuck London on my shoulders and told her to scream like crazy when she saw either kid! We saw Caden run through first but I couldn't get a picture because we barely saw him fly by! I did catch Lizzy though! For the record, even though the Proud Wall of Parents was thick, no one was a more obnoxious cheer leader than the me and Lu combo. Whoa. We brought the loud.
I wanted to make sure I had evidence of both kids running so we did fake finish line pictures, which were really fun! Caden giggled the whole time... another shocker.
London veered way off course for some reason (She had 1/8th of a block to run and somehow managed to take a trail run in that distance.) Anywho, her 100% awesome cousin was waiting for her at the 'finish line' with a high five! :) He's the best.
This picture right here is why I moved to Birmingham. I didn't want to miss a thing. And I'm not going to. Caden spent the night with us this night and London later told me that she wished he were her brother. We both adore them.
I'm so proud of these chicken nuggets!
Booper and Andaddy drove into town just after the race so we met up for lunch. As luck would have it, the restaurant was painted perfectly to match ALL THE SAPPY FEELINGS I was feeling this day! How fortuitous!
(Be warned, the sappy level only goes up from here... more to come on that.)
I wrote a very long, wordy post last night, amid beautiful pictures of a trip to the zoo, but I wrote like I had a fire lit under me and decided to save it until morning so I could CALM THYSELF. Turns out I felt very impassioned about encouraging mothers while burning the midnight oil. We're gonna dial all the emotions down a little and try again on that one soon!
Instead, how about a pictures heavy post of the fun times we've had over the past two weeks or so!
Cousin's spend the night party and trip to the dollar movie to see 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day', which was really cute! I had forgotten how much I love going to the movies! So fun! (However, Lu's attention span isn't quite long enough for the movies which honestly annoys the snot out of me. She's THE BEST but aren't we old enough to sit through a movie by now?! Sit and hush, child!)
Pretending to play at the arcade because ain't no body dropping hard earned quarters in an arcade game, right?? They didn't seem to mind the looping preview screens at all!
Also, my favorite declaration as of late is that Caden wants to be an American Ninja Warrior when he grows up. I fully support him in this decision and will forever be on Team Caden Ninja Warrior. He delights me.
Our tradition of post movie dance party continues! Good times!
I've covered this on the blog before, but for the past few years, when winter seems relentless, I get the blues. I'm not sure if it's the cold or the lack of fresh air and sunshine, but this shadow moves in and wreaks havoc on my usual chipper demeanor. I've purposefully been taking pictures of things that make me happy so I can keep record of how good things are. It keeps me from throwing pity parties about how the winter won't. let. up.
We don't have a garage anymore, so the car is covered in ice most mornings when I come out for work. Every day we sit in the car and marvel over how beautiful it is. The sun is rising and it paints the coolest pictures through either the ice or, lately, enormous snowflakes that have frozen to the glass during the night. We sit amazed, looking at how every single snow flake is entirely different from the others. Aren't snowflakes one of the most remarkable things on earth? God..... YOU CREATIVE GENIUS.
Again- taking inventory of things that make me happy... this laugh. Holy cow. "Spin me, momma!"
{Video- you'll need to come visit the blog to see it!}
This sweet child. I try to speak lots of loving words over Lu Lu so that she will turn around and speak loving words to the people she's around every day. I was putting her to bed a few nights ago and she curled up into me and said, "I love all the words you said to me today." And I just about died. Lordy, I love her.
Also, whenever she sees the north star in the sky she says, "I just saw the star of wonder star of light star of royal beauty bright!" I have no idea how one star got such a long name in her head but she BELIEVES that is the north star's name. She says it so factually and it slays me every time!
Related: They sang 'We Three Kings of Orient Are' in her school Christmas play and these are the lyrics according to London:
Star of wonder, star of night
Star of royal beauty bright
Questward leading still croceeding
Guide us to thy perfect light."
Man. I have so many more London-isms but I'll wait and post them as follow ups! Kids are so funny!
The wicked cold finally let up one day so we went straight to the park after school. I was chatting with Jill and Lu borrowed my phone to go take pictures. She took these of her BFF's and I thought they were great! Look at bottom left. Just a great shot. Little lady has an eye for this photography stuff!
Playing around with my new camera one night. London's room looks like a carnival of lights at night between her night light, glow bracelets, and pillow that shoots color lights on the ceiling. I've got to admit, I love laying in there with her and watching all the lights change color. It's very tranquil!
Another one of my new favorite things: Jill and I have both been swamped at work so at the end of each day were dying to see each other and just GAB. It's been too cold to stay outside for long so she's started putting the kids in the back of the van and driving really slow donuts around the school parking lot. It gives us time to talk and the kids are in the way back sloshing all around and howling laughing! It's hilarious!
After one of these donut days, London asked if she could drive. So, here was our post work driver's ed course. We might need to keep practicing!
{Video}
Last week we met the Thomas' for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. London looked up from dinner and said "Look! The ice skating golf race is on!"
I still can't stop laughing about it. So funny.
Look who's losing all of her teeth!! Doesn't she look adorable as a snaggle tooth?! I love it so much!
The Thomas' invited us over for game night and we played 'headbands'. It was so adorable! On the way home London said, 'That was a fun family night, momma.' :) You've got that right, little lady!
Science is fun! Lu Lu with a major case of static electricity!
Knox is running in his first track meet soon so we met up with the fam for track fun with Coach Kurt!
(Pouting but beautiful still.)
Bonk.
JUMP!
LEAP!
His shirt says 'too much awesome' and I couldn't agree more!
Someone has been working REALLY hard to meet a goal I had set for her. She made it so we ventured to the fancy part of town and went to a candy shop. London had saved up reward money for a few weeks and when we went to pay, she pushed all her pennies across the counter and said, 'here is ALL my money.' She was so proud of herself and it was a delightful time treating this pearl of a girl!
We even bought candy that reminded us of Andaddy because he can fix bones. This one LOVES her grandaddy.
And why not finish off the weekend with a little tennis? This session involved lots of leaping, so we didn't make a lot of contact, but she sure did look adorable! :)
