Etta Turns 8

Where has the time gone?  I still remember most of my pregnancy with Etta as if it were last year.  I can't believe she's gone from a 4 pound baby to this little lady.  She's become outgoing, athletic, and studious these last two years.
Etta had been asking for an art themed birthday party so when I saw a groupon for The Social Paint Brush I snapped it up.  She was able to pick out which painting her friends would paint at the party out of many different paintings.  I was surprised she picked a dancing owl since that is Chloe's favorite animal, not Etta's.  Here are a few highlights from the party.

For some reason her friends love picking her up and carrying her around.

A pre-party beverage for Chloe (hence the favorite owl).

Art themed dessert: Rice Krispie Treat Paint Brushes, palette cookies (I did two different kinds, with M&Ms and others with the candy melts I used on the paint brushes), and colorful cupcakes on palettes.

Smocked and ready for painting.

Our instructor for painting, Eric.

Let's go!

The only boy allowed at the birthday party (minus dad of course), Kade.

Chloe loved painting her owl!

All done and even signed.

One happy birthday girl.

The finished products.  It's fun seeing how each one made theirs slightly different.

 Etta's birthday party was actually before her real birthday since she had a gymnastics meet the following weekend.  We didn't want to have a conflict since you don't have the gym schedule until usually the week before so that's why her party was a little early this year.  So, the celebration continued the day of her birthday and you should have seen her bound down those stairs in the morning.  Here she is greeting her dad with a super grin.

Eric took the day off of work so she could open her presents in the morning rather than wait until near bedtime to open them (which is when he normally gets home).  She had some amazing family presents to open and even her BFF who just moved to New Mexico sent her a gift.  Let's just say this smile was plastered on her face for nearly a week!
My little girl...she's getting so big.

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.