pop a special message just for you

happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday to you cha cha cha, happy birthday dear pop, happy birthday to you cha cha cha. have a grrrreat day!!! we miss & love you so, so, so much!!!

happy last day of school

well today was the last day of school and we got our report cards & it's official we can say...
WE ARE NOW 4th & 8th GRADERS!!! 

Blue ink

i've been studying like crazy for my final exams and i read that if you write everything in blue ink it helps you remember everything that your writing. so i've been writing everything over & over in blue ink... so we'll see. mommy is just happy that i'm copying everything because she thinks its the repetition that's going to help me, but i know its really the blue ink!

livi's 3rd grade award ceremony

today was livi's 3rd grade award ceremony & her teacher went all out to make the kids feel loved & special! it was a packed house in there with so many proud parents. out of all of livi's ceremonies, this one was mommy & daddy's favorite. each student stood up and talked about their experience in 3rd grade and since they spend so much time on poetry in 3rd grade they also read a poem they wrote. it was so personal & thoughtful, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.  livi received lots of awards this year & she even got a trophy for being a student council representative. here's the list of awards she received.... accelerated reader: gold level, a medal for being an all star reader,  a medal for reading all 20 wrangler reading books, a medal for all A's one B honor roll & her classroom award was for outstanding achievement in LEADERSHIP!!! we're so super proud of how amazing livi has done this year & how she proved to everyone that nothing can stop her from doing anything! we can't wait to see what she'll accomplish next school year!

AR points

this year livi worked super hard on reaching 100 AR (accelerated reader) points so her name would be on the AR wall at her school for all to see and she did it!!! keep in mind each book she reads is between .5 points to 4 points so that's a lot of books! yay livi!

my 1st group date

so today i went on my 1st group date with a boy i may like with some of our friends. we walked around the mall shopping & went to my favorite pizza place for lunch. mommy spent the whole time stalking us & trying to give me space while not embarrassing me. she even managed a few pics while hiding in the front window of barnes and noble to document this... insert eye roll here.

countries and cultures exhibit: switzerland

this year in GT livi has traveled to numerous places with her teacher as their travel agent. now every student in her class will have their opportunity to select a country & become an expert about it. livi choose to represent switzerland because she thinks it's fun to say, it has a "z" in it & not many people talk about it. all the students had to do the projects in the classroom, but they brought supplies from home. livi also had to look up her country at home and print pictures to bring to school to place on her poster board to help teach others about their country. they had guide to fill out to help them along the way & ideas for pictures to print out like the country's flag, a map of the country, famous citizens, popular landmarks, traditional foods, native celebrations, country's currency and any other pictures that would add interest to their presentation. so today was the 3rd grade gifted and talented countries extravaganza. parents, teachers & classmates were invited to attend the countries and cultures exhibit to learn more about fascinating places around the world by all the students acting as travel agents for their countries. livi was super excited about her country & wanted everyone to come by to ask her about it. this girl knows more about switzerland than probably the president. she even decorated her table space to draw more people in with a country table cloth & lots of sparkles. whenever anyone would walk up, livi would say "welcome to switzerland" with a huge smile & no one could walk away from her. she had a toblerone box that she was using as a pointer to show people what she was talking about on her board... how genius is that?!?! mommy & daddy were in shock watching her present, she was the most confident person they had ever seen. it was just awesome!

here are some of livi's other classmate's posters.

mr. john bernhard

Livi has been working really hard on a project for school that she’s presenting Tuesday. She’s a travel agent for Switzerland and she wants people to come visit her amazing country. We were having some trouble gathering hands on info to show her “customers”, when mommy's friend asked her to see if we had a Swiss Consul in Houston. Low & behold we do and he’s a phenomenal artist to boot! He’s been so incredible and gave Livi maps, books, pamphlets, sticker, coloring books & more things for her to share with her classmates. Today she got to meet him & thank him in person (she was so happy to finally hear his lovely accent) while at his art exhibition at the art car museum! It was such a wonderful afternoon and we enjoyed every second of it. We got to see the coolest cars & awesome art. Thank you so much Mr. John Bernhard for taking the time and helping make this presentation a huge success and a project Livi will never forget.

Broken Oak Crawfish Boil

 our neighbors right next door to us are from louisiana & every year they throw a crawfish boil! AND today was the day for our broken oak annual crawfish boil & it was the best day ever!!! mr. nick (our neighbor) got up super early to drive to louisiana to get over 100 lbs of fresh crawfish from his family!! there was crawfish everywhere, literally they kept escaping before they could get cooked & we we're chasing after them with gloves. let me tell you this was the best crawfish ever & our neighbors showed up the correct way to eat them. all the way from twisting off their heads to pulling the poo sack out! we are the crawfish masters now! i don't think daddy has ever been happier, he ordered over 7lbs to eat. this year we had it in the cul-de-sac so we could fit more people & it worked out perfectly. we even had water stations you could cool off at in case you got to hot. i don't know if we've made it clear but we live on the best street ever & we love it so much!

NJHS Induction Ceremony

tonight was my formal induction ceremony into NJHS & i was so nervous! i still can't believe i'm part of NJHS. from 600+ 7th graders over 150 students were invited to audition to become a member and only 48 were accepted and i was one of them!!! it was awkward having to stand on stage in the high school auditorium in you're fanciest attire for almost an hour with tons of people staring at you waiting to hear your name called. our rehearsal the night before didn't cover much so we were all winging it which was pretty amusing. at one point we thought the table might catch on fire because a candle was doing everything it could not to fall over. the 1st couple of rows in the audience would gasp every once in a while when we thought for sure it was going to topple over. then when it came time to say the pledge, i think we are all so nervous we had no idea what was coming out of our mouths. i know i drew a blank & just said watermelon over and over so you couldn't tell i didn't know what i was saying. shhh, don't tell anyone! my biggest fear is when they called my name & i had to walk across the stage i wouldn't sound like a monster clomping. i'm still getting used to heels, thankfully i didn't sound like that at all... phew. and then it was over and i had my certificate in my hand. i can't wait to start this journey & see where it leads me... yay!

after the ceremony it was time for the reception which included eating lots of cookies, taking tons pictures & laughing with your friends.



talk about the proudest daddy on the planet!!!