Roos N More Fundraiser

Friday afternoon I took the girls to see Chloe's friend Megan.  She's been sick since December and was even in the hospital recently. Chloe had been asking to see her ever since she got home.  After playing for awhile Megan's mom had asked if we wanted to join them at the Roos N More fundraiser downtown but it was unfortunately during the Polar Plunge that Etta was participating in.  So she said Chloe could join them.  Needless to say Chloe was more than excited at the prospect of having an afternoon out with her friend.
I told her she was going to get to pet some animals and she kept saying she was excited to pet some bunnies.  I didn't want to tell her anymore so she'd be super excited when she got there.  I knew Roos N More would have more than just bunnies.

I was told that this is a kookaburra which I have never seen before.

Sounds like the girls loved this hedgehog.

Both Megan and Chloe love owls, maybe that's why they are such good friends.  A common love for animals.

She got more than just bunnies!  Actually now that I think about it I'm not sure if she got to pet bunnies!  She couldn't stop talking about all the fun she had with Megan and her parents which puts a smile on my face.  Plus it was a great cause.  Hopefully Roos N More raised enough money to open their facility up to the public once again.

Polar Plunge 2014

Cinderella has a Polar Plunge team every year and this year Etta wanted to participate.  She understood that she was going to raise money for kids to participate in the Special Olympics but I think that's about it.  But I did explain she will be raising the money by jumping in a cold pool.  She didn't seem too worried.

I want to thank all of our family and friends who supported Etta (my mom, grandma, Eric's brother, and aunt and uncle).  She raised her goal of $125 which pays for one Olympian to compete.  Plus she got an Adult Small (about three times her size) sweater and a free lunch.  She is very proud of that sweater.  After registering she got to meet Miss Nevada. 

Etta with Miss Nevada

 I even talked a friend of Etta's from gymnastics to participate as well.  She's done one before where they actually had to cut ice out to get into the water.  Needless to say our Polar Plunge was more like a spring plunge since it was in the high 70's.  I wish I had brought my swimsuit too!

Etta with her friend Claire

It was so nice the Cinderella team was in the water at least an hour before the plunge.  Of course this water wasn't as cold as the main pool but the kids had fun splashing around for an hour.

Testing out the water before the Plunge

 Here is the team before the Parade.  Oops missing a team member.

The Cinderella Cold Water Crowns

Etta promised to do a belly flop into the pool to earn her last $25.  I think she forgot about it when she had to stand poolside for 5 minutes until the clock struck noon.  As you can tell, she did not belly flop!  She swam across the pool and when she got out I made her belly flop in which was not recorded.  Claire's mom was recording while sitting pool side.  Of course when everyone jumped in the water sloshed over the side getting her wet, hence the shaking video camera.

She is now telling me she does not want to do that again next year since the pool was too cold.  Hmmm, wonder if she'd sign up to raise money but be a 'chicken' and not jump in?  The highlight of her day was when we won a raffle.  She considers it hers since I let her put 10 tickets into whichever prize she wanted to win.  Of course this was one of them.  Looks like we are going to see the dolphins at the Mirage, paint some pottery, and eat some sandwiches now.

Etta and her raffle prize

I love that Etta is getting active in the community and learning to be a good citizen.  Now if I can only talk Chloe into doing it too!

Clark County Cinderella Pageant

Etta had a local Cinderella pageant this past weekend.  What made this pageant really special is that her best friend from first grade came to cheer her on.  After taking pictures with my cell phone I realize my phone takes really crappy pictures but I just don't have the patience to carry around my nice Nikon.
Etta loves to interview but I heard she was pretty fidgety while sitting through interview.  Good to know so we can work on that.

Just before interview with judges

 All my pictures of casual wear and party dress were too blurry to add to the blog so I'm going to skip right to her talent routine.  She changed her old routine a little to add a couple of new skills.  She bobbled on a few things and she ended a little early (she always rushes when she's nervous) but over all it showed what she can do.

She didn't win the Overall Mini Miss title but she did win the Talent title.  One of the judges came up to ask where she takes contortion and mentioned Etta was her first choice pick which really made Etta happy.

 Here are the contestants, State, and Local title holders.

The little girl in leopard print won the tot Overall Title and I helped her prepare for the pageant the two weeks before hand.  She's so full of personality and super cute.

Kiera, super excited about her trophy and crown.

Sunday is normally contortion practice but the contortion classes and Kung Fu classes were going to perform at the Chinese New Year Festival just across the street instead.  Etta was excited when she was given a little routine to perform with another girl her age with similar abilities.  They performed twice that day and enjoyed getting up on stage in front of everyone.  Sorry the video is from behind stage.  I would never have made it to the front of the audience in time to video it.

Etta's Last Gym Meet

Etta has requested to try rhythmic gymnastics which means she has to give up something to do it.  That happens to be artistic gymnastics.  We're coming up on her last week of practice and this past weekend was her last competition.  I've promised if she doesn't like rhythmic gymnastics she can return to artistic gymnastics so you may see more of these in the future.  We shall see.  Here are some videos of each event.

The first video is of her beam routine.  This was the first time she's done a kick over on the beam and ended up with a personal best of 9.2!  She placed 4th out of 10.

 

Next was vault one of two.  This one looked better than the second vault and she scored a 9.0 which gave her second place out of 10.

 I was sitting in a great spot, except I couldn't see all of the floor routine since the judges were right in front of me.  Etta had just gotten her round off back hand spring and her coach said she should do it as a last hurrah.  She did!  However her arms were bent so the judge killed her score and she got an 8.575.  She ended in 10th which I thought was crazy, especially after watching a lot of the other floor routines.  But, I told Etta I was so excited she tried it and did it fairly well (ie not landing on her face!).

I love watching Etta's bar routine, it makes me realize just how strong she is and that she'll probably loose that going to rhythmic gymnastics.  Hopefully continuing contortion will help.  She scored a 9.4 which isn't her highest score to date but she did awesome.  She also received 4th place for bars.

  

2nd place on vault

4th on bars

4th on beam

10th on floor

4th All Around

  I'm proud of her for putting two brand new skills in for her last meet!

Holidays at Home

After multiple attempts of blogging about Christmas I have finally been successful at uploading pictures!  We were fortunate to spend another Christmas season at home and have family come to us.  My parents spent an entire week hanging out with us and loving on the kids.  It made for a great Christmas. 
We went to one Holiday party up at the base Eric works at and the girls go to have lunch, make crafts, play games, and even visit with Santa.  We didn't have the heart to tell the girls that Santa was Eric's boss a few years back!

Chloe and Santa

Etta and Santa

Christmas Eve was amazing.  Friends of ours had a Christmas party at their house and there was a surprise guest for the kids.  Santa and Mrs Clause came bearing gifts.  It was funny because Chloe and Etta were one of the last of the bunch to be called up and you could see how nervous they were the entire time sitting and waiting.  They must have been worried about being on the naughty list!

Here are the girls with their presents.  Etta got a sewing kit and Chloe got a earring holder and a new owl hair clip.

Christmas morning was wonderful.  We were able to convince the girls to sleep in until 7:30am and have breakfast ready for the adults.  Of course the kids have no interest in eating Christmas morning!  The kids came running down the stairs to this sight.  Needless to say they were so excited.

Etta received a magic set from Santa

Chloe got an American Girl doll named Saige

My parents spending pretty much the entire morning watching the girls unwrap presents.

Chloe even got Saige's horse Picasso.

Chloe spent a lot of Christmas break riding her bike and her new two wheeled scooter.

Etta is still learning how to use her new skates.  There have been many falls.

I can't believe it's 2014 already.  Where did the past year go?  I feel like time moves so much quicker now that the kids have gotten bigger.  I can't believe it's been a month since Christmas and have enjoyed looking back already at all the pictures.  Hope you enjoyed them too.

Chloe's 6th Birthday

Chloe turned 6 nearly two weeks ago!  One reason it's taken so long to post pictures was the fact that we neglected our parental duties in picture taking.  We had a BBQ & pool party for her friends and their families.  The kids had fun swimming forever followed by taking turns on the zip line.  After swimming, zip line, and food, everyone got a chance to eat owl cupcakes.  I forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes before the party so they didn't look great by the time I pictured them.  They were still cute though and the kids seemed to enjoy them, especially the eyes.

 

Chloe got lots of great presents.  Do you notice the theme?  Owls.  For some reason Chloe loves owls and lemurs right now and owls were the easier of the two to pick for the party.  She got an owl pillow, custom owl shirt, owl dress, owl toys, lipsticks, a stuffed horse, horse reader books, money, and even a gift card to get her ears pierced.

 After the party was over we hopped into the car and went to Claire's to get her ears pierced.  She's been waiting for her 6th birthday to have them done.  Chloe's future mother in law was the one to pierce her ears (yes, Chloe has had plans to marry Trystan for the last two years).  She was brave, no crying.  Of course with all that was going on before we left, I forgot the camera next to the stairs.  Sigh.  Chloe spent tons of time in Claire's spending the rest of the gift card.  She was so excited.
Here Chloe is after getting home.  It was a long day and Chloe passed out hard.  Here she is with lots of her new gifts and even her new owl eye mask.

 

The following day Chloe and Etta went swimming with Eric and one of Chloe's new earrings had fallen out.  Of course it was closed up by the time Eric found the earring on the bottom of the pool and tried putting it back in.  We had to wait a week for the hole to close up and get re-pierced.  I brought the camera that time, but forgot it in the trunk of the car.  We are horrible parents!  Luckily Pilar had her phone camera on hand and tool a picture of that ear being pierced.  Once she returns to Spain, she can send me that picture.  For now, here is a picture of Chloe and her pretty butterfly earring.

 

She wants to be a big girl and is cleaning her ears by herself with my supervision.  She loves her new ears!