March - Daddy Daughter Dance

The daddy daughter dance was on St. Patrick's Day this year.  

It was a "Boots and Belles" theme.

With besties Josephine...

... and Emily.

She had a blast.  She and her girl friends danced all night, even up on stage!  According to Jon, she was much more adventurous this year than last year, in which she didn't want to be too wild or loud since that is against the rules in the cafeteria.  This year we made sure she understood rules don't apply for the dance!  Lol!

She even managed to save a few dances for her Dad. :)

March- Jace's Art Show

Since Rylee and Jon would be having a special night on St. Patrick's Day (more on that later), I decided Jace and I should have a special day.  His school was having their annual picnic/ art show so I took the day off to attend.

Before our picnic...

Jace is in the Snoopy class this year

(previous years were Winnie the Pooh and Sunshine Bear).

His class made a whole "cityscape" out of cardboard boxes and paper.

Here he is next to his architectural wonder.  :)

The rest of his displayed art included a candle holder,

a fingerprint tree, 

geometric abstract art,

two collages,

and his watercolor painting entitled "Magic People."

After the art show, we went to Chuck E. Cheese's (Jace's pick) to 

play video games and ride the mini carousel.

It was a great mommy/son date.  :)

Feb/Mar - Part 1

We rounded out February with a few more events: moving my parents into their new condo!, my Dad's birthday, and the Broadway musical version of The Little Mermaid.  We went with Venessa and Madison so that made it extra special.  Before the show...

Rylee and I had similar seats when we saw Cinderella so they were positioned great...except we had people with obnoxious kids behind us who kicked our seats and talked through half of the show. 

At intermission, we decided to find different seats.  We were lucky to find vacant ones in our same section just a little to the side.  It was much more enjoyable after that!

March-

I share my birthday (almost) with Dr. Seuss.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but it was Mixed-up Dr. Seuss Day so Rylee's clothes are backwards and inside out.  I had a training that day so it was a nice break from the classroom and then we had a celebration with my parents that night.  

Another Fun Friday was Dress like a Scientist Day.

Scientists Rylee and Emily...

I'll have to get some pics of my parent's condo one of these days.  My kids already love it!  There's a porch with a TV overlooking the lake.  The kids have claimed this as their "clubhouse" and spend most of their time out there.  The other big draw is the plethora of heated pools,  Papa took the kids swimming one afternoon while I helped Gaga unpack.

This is just one of 18 pools!  We've only tried 3 so far.  :)

Feb- Monster Jam

Sunday was Monster Jam and it was everything we hoped it would be.  

Big names, big trucks, and 5 backflips!

On Monday, the boys went golfing and the kids played outside with more fun toys.  I'm pretty sure they think of Mark and Meagan's house as the best hotel they've ever stayed in.  :)

We had to leave that afternoon since we all had to be back to school and work on Tuesday.  It was a quick trip, but a great one.  We had one addition on the trip home: the El Toro Loco pillow Jace bought at the event.  :)

Feb - Misc & Jacksonville- Sat

For the 100th day of school, the kids could dress up like they were 100 years old.  Not many had the guts to participate, but Rylee hammed it up anyway pinching the cheeks of all the "youngins" she came across.

  

Play date with Emily (karaoke time!)

Jace has been obsessed with Monster Jam for the past couple of years.  We really wanted to take him to a big stadium event so we were looking into going over to Tampa.  Before we booked, our friends invited us to stay with them and take in the show in Jacksonville.  We were in!

We left on Saturday morning and took the first roadtrip in my new car.  The kids were great.  DVDs and Icee's kept them entertained on the 5 hour trip.

Mark and Meagan have a beautiful home and two boys with lots of fun toys.  The kids had a blast playing together and the adults had fun catching up.

Feb- Awards

Not to brag, but... Rylee makes me so proud.  Not only is she smart, but she's a well-behaved, kind-hearted, hard-working kid, both at school and at home.  All the teachers love her, of course.  One continuously tells me that she would reconsider her decision not to have kids if she was guaranteed to have a "Rylee!"  :)

*I keep joking that Jace is going to have a tough act to follow next year, but he's such a sweetie I'm sure he'll do fine.  And lately he has been obsessed with reading and homework so that's a good sign too!

Back to Rylee:  With all of the above, I wasn't surprised to see that she racked up some loot at the mid-year award ceremony.

Here she is with her best friend, Emily, before the ceremony.

She won the "Radical Reader" award in her class.  

She also won a Specials award.  The Special's teachers only pick one student per grade so that is always a coveted award.  She was recognized by the Computer teacher.

She also won an Accelerated Reader award (based on the number of books she read and AR points). She's in the AR Hall of Fame so her picture is in our school's library.

Jace was really proud of his sister!

As we all were.  Love you Rylee!

Jan- Oops!

I almost missed two more important events in January!

Rylee and Josephine both love gymnastics so her mom and I bought the girls tickets to the Colgate Skating and Gymnastics Spectacular featuring their idol: gold medalist Simone Biles!  She was the only female gymnast, but there were some other male gymnasts.  Lots of ice skaters, ice dancers, pairs skaters, etc. including Nancy Kerrigan!  Kristi Yamaguchi was also there, but didn't skate.  :(
Two of Nancy Kerrigan's kids are little gymnasts and they performed a few times too.  So cute!

This was a one-time event that they just happened to do at the arena next to our house.  They were filming it "LIVE" for television.  At the time I didn't know why, but both Biles and Kerrigan are on Dancing with the Stars this season so I'm pretty sure this was part of a whole publicity thing leading up to their being on the show.

Anyway, it was amazing!  We had perfect seats.  We were front row middle of the second section so were only about 25 rows back and we could see everything.  All the routines were done to live music by the band Evermore.  The ice skating rink was in the middle and the gymnastic areas on the sides.  They incorporated the two sports together really uniquely.  

The thing that was really interesting was after the show.  They asked us to stick around for more "action."  We were all wondering what that could be... when they brought the people back out one by one to reshoot any parts they might have missed.  So skaters came out and redid jumps; Simone Biles came out and redid her balance beam routine.  Then they edit the footage together so the "LIVE" performance looks perfect!  The magic of television!  We taped the broadcast on TV and every time they change camera angles, they can edit in a fix.  :)

The other January event was the Panther Prowl run at Rylee's school.  Jon ran it with her last year, but he was in AZ visiting his Dad so she ran it with her friends this year.  (I. Don't. Run.)  I was out with my class though so we got this pre-race pic.  :)

Jan - The Rest

I found pics of one more thing we did over break, we took the kids to Game Works.  (This has become one of Jace's favorite places).  They must have rocked on the ticket collecting or the claw game, because they each came home with some loot.

Afterward we stopped at a yogurt place that has some dairy free options.  

I would say this is the definition of chillin'.

Now for some random January pics like Rylee eating spagetti 

WITH MEATBALLS for the first time.

A fun Friday pic with Josephine, it was some kind of love theme maybe?

Jon and Rylee also participated in our school's cleanup day.  As you can see, Jon was extremely excited to get up early on a Saturday morning.

I sacrificed and stayed home with Jace.  What's my excuse going to be next year when Jace goes to the same school?  I'm thinking... I'm thinking...