Introducing........

...Junior Rockstars!!!!

We have Miley Cyrus, Fergie, Avril Levigne and Taylor Swift!!! Callie's friend, Alexia, had a Rockstar Birthday party. The kids looked great!!! Fun was had by all!!! These four girls in the picture all spent the night.

(AKA Callie, Rachel, Alexia and Courtney)

Avril, Taylor and Miley waiting for the rest of the stars to arrive pose for the camera.

Security was present at the door!

(AKA Alexia's Dad!)

Taylor and Avril sang a duet!

Miley brought her guitar along.

Steven Tyler made an appearance and sang a song!

The Best of both worlds....Miley and Hannah!

She's a little bit country!!

Been too long.....

.....since I blogged! I just love this picture I put on the top of the blog. When I first saw this field of dandelions I thought,what a nuisance for the person who has to take care of this grass. But when I saw them from this perspective........Wow, how beautiful. I never saw dandelions this way before except when my little girls brought me bouquets of them.

We had a great Spring break the week before last. The weather was yucky but we had my mom here visiting and we had a nice time with her! Thank you Mom for coming out to see us! We miss you!!

After Mom left we took a trip to Geneva, NY. We met Todd's family there. We had so much fun with Jason's girls, Eleanor and Julia. It was great to see everyone else too and we celebrated Noel's (Todd's dad) retirement. Thank you everyone for a wonderful weekend!! We miss you all too!

Noel, Debbie, Me, Todd, Emily, Colleen, Julia, Callie, Erin, Christopher, Jason and Eleanor. What a group!!

The four Beard Granddaughters!!! Em, Eleanor, Callie and Julia!

Noel and his boys!!

I just LOVE this picture of Jason and Eleanor walking in a field of dandelions!!! Makes me want to sing, "Let me tell you about my best friend...." from Eddie's Father. Who remembers that show???
This ones for you, Debbie!!

Last night Callie had a sleepover birthday party at her friend, Alexia's. It was a rock star party and the kids had to dress up like a rock star. I will post pictures from that next. So until next time.....We love you and miss you all!!!

Father/Daughter dance

Last night was the Father/Daughter dance. It was a fundraiser for the school. It was held at a dance studio where they teach ballroom dancing. Emily was so excited about it!! The day she found out about it she was so excited and couldn't wait to ask her daddy if he would take her. Of course he said he would!!! So yesterday we went out and found a new pair of shoes (her old ones were a bit snug.) and her first pair of real nylons. She took a long shower and we painted her toenails and fingernails. She looked beautiful!!! Todd gave her a corsage right before they left and I gave her a little purse with some lip gloss. Very cute!!!! Callie and I had a special night with some friends bowling and out for ice cream. We then all drove to the studio to spy!! But they were already gone and having ice cream with some other dads and daughters. Apparently there were lots of moms spying. We were very discreet just driving by but other moms actually walked up to the window and peeked in and waved. They had a great time!!! Emily made a comment to me last night that she felt very lucky to have a dad who really wanted to go. Some of her friends dads told them that they would think about it or get back to them and never brought it up again. Very sad! Callie was a bit sad last night that she didn't go but she will get a chance next year.

Destination Imagination is officially over!! The state tournament was awesome! They gave their best performance ever. I was so proud of the team!! They placed 6th out of ten. It was kind of bittersweet. It is nice to have my afternoons and evenings back! We had a party Friday after school to celebrate.

Spring has finally made an appearance here! But....we still have some snow in our yard. It is almost gone. Woo Hoo!! With Springs arrival brings on the allergies. Ugh!

Todd leaves tomorrow for a trip to California for 11 days. I think this is the longest trip for him since we left the Air Force. The girls and I will be busy though with Girls Scouts and School activities. Emily has a big project coming up for Gateway. Callie will be working on her school musical that will be coming up in May. Emily had her musical a couple weeks ago. I will post pictures of that soon.

That is all for now. Love to all!!

Destination Imagination has been quite an experience for us!! Two weeks ago we went to the Regional Tournament in Nashua. It was a long, loud, fun and in the end VERY EXCITING day! Like I said before, Callie was on a Rising Stars team which is a non competitive team. They performed their challenge but didn't compete against the other Rising Stars teams. Callie's team did an awesome job and won a DaVinci award. It was a surprise to all of us since Rising Stars teams do not normally win this award. Above is a picture of Callie's team right after they performed their team challange.

Emily's team, the team that I coach, also did an awesome job!! Out of 9 teams they placed third which put them into the state tournament. The last two weeks we met as a team and looked over what they scored low in and made some changes. These seven fourth graders have been so much fun to work with. This week I watched them become more comfortable with each other and the improv has really come out in these kids. Unfortunately so much improv that they went over their 8 minutes that they are allowed to perform their challenge. Not to mention the silliness that has come into play now. I just hope they can pull it all together tomorrow for the state tournament. It has been a long road of hard work on the kids part and also for the coaches. I am coaching with two other moms. But it was all worth it to see their reaction when they announced the team had made it to state!! Still not sure I will do this again!!! I am told that it is like childbirth...I will forget the pain and want to do it again.

Last night Emily and the rest of the fourth graders did their musical as school. Emily had a talking part and did a great job. She said last night that she shouldn't have waited until this year to try out for a part. She really enjoyed it. So I guess she has overcome another fear. woo hoo!! I will have some pictures up soon from her show. But for now I am signing off. I will post after the weekend the results from the State D.I. Tournament.

Oh...by the way.....we are home AGAIN today b/c of snow. UGH!!!

In Like a Lion

March is here and we still have snow. We got another storm last week on the first day of March. Today Cleveland got hit hard but we just got rain. Lots of rain! If this had been snow today.....well, I don't even want to think about it. I posted some pics I took out front after last weeks snow storm. The first one is of Todd testing out the sledding hill he has created for the girls. The other two as you can see are the girls standing in front of and on top of the hill.

This was a busy week as usual. We had D.I. practice just about every day. Thursday night was Invention Convention night at the school. Both girls came up with an invention and presented it at the convention. I also posted some pics from that night. Emily's invention is the Bowl Holder and Callie's is the DVD Warmer. The picture of Emily is with Mrs. Janiak, her Gateway teacher. In the picture Emily is explaining her invention to Mrs. Janiak. There are also some pics of the girls with their friends.

This week, Todd and I celebrated our 15th anniversary. Tonight we went out to dinner and a movie. The girls had a fun evening with their friends at our neighbor's house.

That is all for now. I am heading up to bed. We have another busy week with D.I. ahead of us. The tournament is next Saturday.

Have a good week!!!

February Vacation Week

I am typing on my new computer!! So exciting to be able to go from website to website in a matter of seconds and type on my blog with out a long delay. It is amazing. We were way over due!! I tried to blog the other day and it took me half an hour to type it all out. I was just about to click to post what I had typed and my computer blacked out on me. Ugh! No more of that! I did manage to get a new picture on the top of the blog. I took that this past weekend. Yes, we had more snow and even more yesterday and into the night. We will still have snow in our front yard in June. I just know it!!

So we are off this week for our Winter Break. We haven't done much but managed to get the girls hair cut. Yesterday we went to a place called, Bounce U. It was a building with tons of bounce things like bounce houses. They had all sorts of slides and things to climb on. We spent an hour in one room and then they took us in another room for another hour. It was great!!! The girls ran around and jumped for two hours. We went with some friends so they enjoyed being with friends and I enjoyed catching up with my friends as well. They haven't been able to be outside much this Winter so it was great to have the kids just let loose for two hours. They were exhausted when we left. The nice thing about this place was that it was CLEAN. It even smelled clean. I still made the girls wash their hands when we got home and take a shower before bed.

Today we head down to Burlington, Mass. to our favorite mall. We will meet up with my aunt and cousin and her little boy, Brady. We do this every Winter and Spring break and really look forward to it. We always enjoy it. It is such a bonus to live near them!!

The only other new news we have here is that Todd has signed up to be on the Merrimack ballot for the April 8th elections for School Board Budget Committee. There are 4 seats open. We will find out soon how many people have signed up. It isn't a huge commitment but a good way to get involved. He will have to be at all the meetings and probably need to attend most of School Board meetings so he knows what is going on. If he makes it that will be awesome but if he doesn't that is ok too. If more than 4 or 5 people sign up we may have to get some lawn signs. I will campaign from my computer with emails out to everyone I know in town. Very exciting!!

So that is all for now. As soon as I can get my pictures on my new computer I will post more pictures.

Callie

Callie gave us a real scare this week! We thought she was over the pneumonia but when she woke up Tuesday morning she had stomach pain and throwing up. At first we thought it was a reaction to the Zithromax and then thought maybe she just caught a stomach bug. The vomiting stopped in the morning but the stomach pain continued along with a fever. She spiked a fever quickly that night so I spent the night on the floor beside her bed with Todd and I checking on her all night long. By Thursday we were at our wits end. She was sleeping so much, barely eating anything and the fever would not go away even on Motrin. So back to the doctor we went. Apparently, the pneumonia was still there and it was causing the belly pain. The fever was trying to fight it I guess. Yesterday (Saturday) was the first day she went all day without a fever. Woo Hoo!! So back to school tomorrow and back to the rat race.

As for other news.... The girls both got their report cards and did very well this quarter. Emily improved greatly from last quarter. So good news there. D.I. is going strong and Emily's team is amazing. These kids have so much creativity! Callie has only been able to meet with her team once so far but will be back in it this week. Emily is starting to work on her big Gateway project. She will be doing a report on Cleopatra and then presenting it in front of many people at school on Eminent People night. She will dress like Cleopatra and give her report AS Cleopatra. Invention Convention will be coming up soon and I believe Emily has to participate in that as part of her Gateway class. Callie is thinking of some inventions herself.

So that is about all that is going on here. The weather is still messing things up with school delays and our ski club was canceled Friday night. That is ok though b/c Callie wouldn't have been able to go so we will all go next Friday night to make it up. It will be our last ski club night. This week we will get up into the 40's.....woo hoo a heat wave!

Have a great week!!