Mattie wasn't quite on the news!

This is a really cool thing that happened towards the end of the school year in May. Mattie's friend Hannah came up with the great idea of collecting funds to send to help Japan with their earthquake/tsunami disaster. She and Mattie made encouraging announcements over the intercom and the kids at the school all collected change. The girls presented their plan at a PTO meeting and convinced the PTO to match their contribution funds (they were happy to). The Marie Hughes students raised almost exactly $500 in change, which Hannah's mom took Mattie off to the bank to have counted. Then a representative from the Red Cross came to the school to pick up the checks in person, and a reporter from Channel 4 News also came and interviewed the girls and recorded the lady from the Red Cross thanking them. Unfortunately the segment was never aired, but fortunately I'd also recorded most of it with my camera.  (We were bummed - we watched a ton of news that day and the next morning, and we didn't think there was anything in particular that was important enough to have bumped our girls!)

Here the girls are just as the reporter was getting set up to interview them. (Then I switched to movie mode, no photos.)



And here is the segment that I think I can fit on the blog. The lady from the Red Cross was very nice and appreciative - I think the whole thing left a very positive impression on the girls, hopefully other students too, and on the school as well.

Zoe's preschool program

This is also from last month. Zoe's preschool does such fabulous programs twice a year! This was her "graduation" program - I guess she graduated from three-year-old preschool. :) She was a mermaid in a play called something like "Hunt for the Missing Triceratops" - a dramatic thriller! It was very cute, as always.

Here they are lining up to come on stage.  Aren't these the cutest mermaid costumes?  Can you believe the preschool provides all these costumes???  They were a good-bye gift for the kids this year.


Here they are onstage.


Zoe's big line was coming up! 



Here she is saying her line: "I am a girl mermaid. I swim in California with my brother and sister and my mom and dad." 

I have some other videos but evidently there is a size limit here... I guess that makes sense... anyway it was a really fun night!  She got the "Loves Preschool" award, which is totally true - she loved every day of preschool and was never a bit sad about going.  We all love her school and appreciate all they do for the kids.  I'm so glad she has one more year!

This picture was in Old Town on a portrait shoot for someone else. The girls came with me because Matt and Pierce were on the father & son campout - a highly anticipated event every year. I usually end up with at least one cute shot of Zoe when she's along, and this is the one this time. :)

Little engineers

I need to keep reminding myself that it doesn't need to be a big deal to update this blog. :) I have plenty of fun pictures that should be posted! For instance, one day at least a month ago, I went into Pierce's room to see him and Mattie constructing this really fun ride for their toy hamsters. (We have a large and thriving family of toy hamsters!)  I'm not sure where they got the idea, but they made a carnival-type ride that eventually ended up holding all 8 hamsters (I think there are more now) and could spin them around without tipping.  Great engineering!  (Matt and I are naturally very proud.)


Oops, there they go!


Some repairs.








Hamsters tenderly placed.



They ended up taking it all apart and making a sturdier base, and then the whole thing worked perfectly. But in these videos you can see even before modifications, it worked pretty well!

The preparation:

Here it is actually running.

Soccer tournament and special guests!

We had such a special weekend - Grandma & Grandpa Pierce came down to visit for a couple of days! We really appreciate them taking the time to make the long drive down to see us. Pierce had a soccer tournament and we were happy that they could come & see him play. He and his team are a lot of fun to watch play soccer. They had a couple of good games and he scored 3 times, which was lots of fun.  Somehow I avoided taking any pictures with Grandma & Grandpa... sorry... we love you and were so glad that you came!

Our silly Zoe didn't want to be cold... you never know around here this spring - it's been pretty cold and windy - but it was only a little chilly, and the hat & mittens soon came off.


I love this hat.  I made it for Zoe at the end of winter, and then didn't get a picture of her wearing it when it was actually cold out.  She also loves these white shiny mittens which I believe Santa gave her a couple of years ago.  The whole ensemble is 100% Zoe.


I love their faces when they are playing.




Pierce is always so relieved when he scores.  He took a LOT of good shots during these 2 games - he really wanted to score!  Once he does, we all feel much better.

Mother's day family portraits

I'm stilllllll not done posting vacation pictures. And I even went through them all this last week, working on a little project which I can't write about here for a couple more days. :) But I will get back with them soon. In the meantime I wanted to post our family pictures from yesterday. I love my family so much! I'm really grateful that they humor me once a year on Mother's Day with some "official" family portraits.

A day at the beach

Still working on these trip pictures. It's so fun to look back at what an amazing time we had! I wish we lived in Florida! :)

You'll have to forgive me for this post - I have a lot of pictures of Zoe and Pierce, because they were the ones staying close on the sand.  And I didn't want to take the camera too far out into the water. 

We went to Jetty Park at Canaveral Seashore, just north of Cocoa Beach.  It was a gorgeous park near the an outlet that the cruise ships take out to sea.  It was the perfect day with the perfect temperature and we had a fantastic time.  The bigger kids spent most of the day in the water (the disastrous consequence was some awful sunburns for Colby, Casy, and Spencer... somehow our kids have an easier time tanning).  They body surfed, jumped the waves, went WAY too deep and were shouted into coming back, and had a wonderful time.



Zoe dancing at the beach:

I think this was taken after the deepness policy of "no deeper than waist high on the shortest cousin in the water".  I felt much better after that.

Some lunch on her face along with the sun!


The big kids got really good at the body boards!






We rented some chairs and a couple of umbrellas, which helped the adults relax. When we got a little tired of all the sand and water, we went on a hike over to the pier.  There were little sea turtles swimming around in one area, and a fisherman even caught one while some of us were watching.  (He put him back in the water, where the turtle swam away, hopefully unharmed.)  There was a terrible fishy smell.  And three huge cruise ships sailed to sea right past us, which was really fun to watch.

We finished up with a wonderful dinner at a big pier in Cocoa Beach.  We got to sit, eat seafood (and alligator), and watch the sun set through the big windows over the water.  What a great ending to a perfect day.

A day a Wekiva Springs

Wow, I am really having a hard time getting to this blog. But something is better than nothing! I'm still happy I started. And now I will get back to our vacation adventure last month:

I'm not sure why this picture is here, but as long as it is, I'll write about it so I don't forget.  This is a compilation of their pictures from the Mt. Everest ride.  It's hard to see (they don't actually like you to take pictures of their pictures) but you can see how happy we all are!


On Saturday we decided to take a theme park break.  (I know, can you believe we wanted a break???)  We went to Wekiva Springs, one of Florida's many natural springs, and a state park we'd never been to before.  It was SO beautiful.  Unfortunately it wasn't clear from the website that the main activity was really going to be swimming, so we weren't super prepared for that.  Mattie forgot to bring her suit at all (we wrapped her up in my swimsuit) and most of the adults didn't bring one either.  But we bought some snorkels (even though we had some at the house too...) and the kids - & Matt - had a fantastic time in the beautiful spring water. 






It wasn't really very warm, but with a towel to wrap up in, and some sandwiches and snacks, it was great!


We happened to be there on a day when the parks service was sponsoring an art contest.  So there were a bunch of painters competing to finish paintings in just a couple of hours.  This guy was a pro, and not in the competition (I thought doing such a big painting was kind of showing off).  Some of the paintings were great, some I did not love.  His painting was... certainly big and striking!  In any case, how neat is it to go to a park with lots of artists!


I believe the kids were capturing tiny little fish in a mesh sack for their own "aquarium".








Seeing this really makes me want to go back!


Zoe had to be coerced to go in the water.  The water wasn't real warm, and the day wasn't real warm, so she mainly wanted to look at the water and eat snacks.  But we rented the life jacket, and I thought she should get some use out of it!




We all went on a really nice nature walk along some boardwalks and trails.



And then suddenly we were all hungry for dinner, and the bitey little flies came out, and we took off in a hurry. But it was a wonderful way to spend the day!