Molly

We got a cat.  I know, right?  I hated her for the first week and all the kids were terrified except for Jackson. Now we have had her for 2 1/2 weeks and I can't imagine when we didn't have her.  All the kids love her and she takes turns sleeping in each of their beds, although Jackson's is her favorite.

She is such a sweet cat.  She is 4 years old, we we are excited for her to grow up with the kids.  Never thought I'd be the crazy cat lady, but look at me now!

Random Cameron

I'm trying to finish up blogging my pictures from this past year.  I am totally going to fail and leave out a lot, but here is my last ditch effort to catch up.

I'm pretty sure I never posted pictures from Cameron's birthday party, so here you go.

He got a skateboard for his birthday and he loved riding it to take Griffin to preschool.  It turned a 4 minute trip into a 30 minute adventure, but hey, you're only 3 once.

And, Cam loves Jingle Bells...like a lot.

Soccer

Griffin had an amazing first soccer season in September.  He loved it...seriously.  He was also super talented.  He was the top scorer on his team, by far.  But more importantly he put 100% into every game.  The whole time.  That is huge for 4/5  year olds.  While other kids were picking grass and whining, he was kicking butt and tearing it up on the field.

He made 4 goals in the game that day.

It is hard to see, but Griffin is right in front of the net.  2nd kid in maroon from the left.  He is pumping his arm in the air because he had just scored.  He did that every time he scored all year long.  It was awesome.

He is far right, almost running out of the picture.

Teammates!

He was seriously good.  He definitely has some strong Mikel genes!

Good Bye Blanki

Remember when our sweet Cam was tiny?  He was always...always...always, wrapped in his muslin swaddling blankets.  We had a set of three and they were perfect for him.

Then he got bigger and we were done to one and it was his nighttime blankie.  He slept with it wrapped around his wrist every night.

This year it became a cape.  He went everywhere with it.

And then the poor blankie started to disintegrate right before our eyes.  In fact, it ripped right in half where it was tied around his neck.  

And so, we took one last picture with his beloved blankie and then tossed it in the trash...because besides being ugly and old, it stunk.  Really bad, no matter how often I washed it.

Good bye Blankie!

Griffin's 5 year old Check Up

Here are his stats:

 51.3 lbs = 92nd%

47 inches = 97th%

BMI 16.35 = 76th%

Fire Station Trip

Griffin's preschool took a trip to the fire station that is right behind our house.  It was super fun.

She Made It...And Other Stuff

The short story is:  She got it the play.  She is Little Red Riding Hood and she is beyond thrilled.

The long story is:  The day before auditions, I got a call from a friend who works at the office in the school.  She told me that a couple of Sunny's friends had come to the office and told her that Sunny was upset and they couldn't figure out what was wrong.  I came up to the school and Sunny was indeed pretty upset, so I check her out and took her home.

She said she was feeling very stressed and worried about the audition.  She had gotten a nasty respiratory virus the week before and had had laryngitis for a whole week.  The poor girl had tried everything to get her voice back, but it just wasn't happening.  She said she thought she just couldn't audition.  With her voice not sounding great she was too nervous and she just didn't want to do it anymore.

We talked for awhile and tried to come up with a solution.  I knew she still wanted to do it, so we decided that she would talk to the music teacher and let her know that she was sick and that she would just do the best she could.

The auditions the next day went great.  She said the dancing was by far the scariest part and that singing was fine.  She said her voice was okay and she only had a hard time on the high notes.  She also said her teacher told her never to say was sick again, because even sick her voice was fabulous.  That really helped her confidence.

After the auditions she came home to wait for the call back list to be posted online.  A couple of hours later we looked and saw that of 150 kids, only 30 had gotten a call back, and she was one of them.  That meant that she had a special time to go to the school on Saturday and she had to read a scene with one of the teachers and sing the audition song by herself in front of several teachers.  They were supposed to be dressed nice, so we went out and bought her a cute leopard cardigan.

I was nervous that she was going to be to scared to audition again, but she proved me wrong.  Some people had parents going in the school with then, but my Sunny girl walked in all by herself.  She said this audition was the scariest thing she had ever done, but that she had loved it.  Next, we waited for the final cast list to be posted.

At the end of the day, it finally was and we saw that Sunny had gotten the part of Little Red Riding Hood.  She was so happy.  She can't wait to dress up and be a part of the play.  It is going to be great, and she said the 7 hours of workshops and auditions was totally worth it.

Next up is 3 months of an insane practice schedule to get ready for opening night, which is the last week of March!

Sunny also had a choir concert last week.  On her left is her bff Lexi, we don't know the girl on the right, but she smilied for the pictures, and on the far right is her other bff Rakel.  She sure has some great friends.  I love them all.

And this would be her face when she found out that I had gotten tickets to the Taylor Swift concert next September.  The show sold old in under 3 minutes and it was just totally lucky that i was able to get them.  

When she got home from school I tricked her and said, "Sunny, you know I wanted to get tickets to the concert, but it sold out in minutes.......good thing 4 of those tickets are ours!"  

 The girls and I are very excited, and I think Ryan is too.  He just won't admit it.