Summer's First Gymnastics Meet

Summer participated in her first gymnastics meet yesterday.  It was really fun to watch her on the bars, beam, and floor doing "tiny" routines and getting a feel for what gymnastics competitions are like.  Groups from all ages and ability levels participated, however she competed against kids in her age/ability/class.  Each participant was scored by a judge, and awarded ribbons for 1st through 8th place (in her age group's small group) for each event as well as overall, however the main goal of the meet was to introduce the kids to gymnastics competition in a fun and encouraging environment.  With Summer's love of performing for others and loving to have people watch her, it was fun to watch her participate in an event that allowed her to individually perform for a crowd ;).  Here are a few pictures as well as videos of her very basic "routines".

She got 4th place on bars.

 Video of Summer on bars:

She got 7th place on beam.

 Video of Summer on beam:

Getting ready for floor

She did great!

 Video of Summer on Floor:

She was so excited to get 2nd on floor.

She placed 4th in the overall category.

 Video of Summer in awards ceremony:

With her group of gymnasts

Go Summer!

The family

With her super supportive and sweet lil bro.

Auntie Kristin, Teddy, and Grandma came to cheer on Summer too!

Thanks for coming to my gymnastics meet, Teddy!  Love, Summer

Watching the summer Olympics will be even more fun this year after this experience!  I can't wait to watch the gymnastics with Summer!

P.S. Summer lost her second tooth (the other bottom one) this week!  She already has her new big kid tooth coming in behind it (which pushed her baby tooth out), so there isn't a super big gap, but nevertheless, she has officially lost two teeth now!  The above pictures demo her first day with her new smile :).

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

 Paul's birthday was yesterday, May 23rd.  We don't have a lot of time to celebrate on Mondays (Paul gets home from work at 6:15pm and I tutor at 7pm), we chose to celebrate all weekend!

On Friday, Paul took a half day and we went on a long birthday date.  First, we went to a shooting range (Paul's choice) to practice.  It was my first time...Paul was a good teacher.  I learned a lot!  It was really fun!

We then went out for burgers, fries and shakes at Five Guys.  Mmmmm!  We did some browsing at the outlet mall, and then headed to the Twins game.

 It was a really fun date day!  Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa K for babysitting!

On Saturday, we let Daddy "sleep in" (i.e. stay in bed...hard not to be awake with three excited kids!) while we decorated Daddy's door and made him breakfast in bed.

We then headed off to a family activity (Paul's choice) to go hiking at Lebanon Hills.  I was very impressed as both older kids hiked the whole trail around the lake!  It's fun having big kids!

For dinner that night, Daddy picked to go to a new Mexican Restaurant where our friend from church is the chef.  

On Sunday, Paul's parents drove down to have lunch with Paul for his birthday!  We also got to see many brothers/sisters too!  They took us to a delicious Mexican restaurant that is one of our favorites.  Our Daddy loves Mexican food!  That afternoon, we opened presents/cards.  Daddy got a new watch, as well as some fishing stuff and quite a few freezie pops!  Both older kids made him super sweet cards!

On Daddy's actual birthday, Monday the 23rd, we celebrated with ice cream cake, candles and singing :)

We love our Daddy!  Happy birthday Paul!

Random Pics

This past month or so has been so busy!  I have struggled to keep up this blog, largely because one of my tutoring students has been so time consuming as he is preparing for his AP Calculus Exam.  Anyway, life is finally starting to slow down a bit, because that student took his exam last week, and while I still have the rest of my students for one more month, my workload is cut probably in half!  I have so much more time in the evenings!  So, I am hoping I will be updating this blog a bit more often.  Anyway, here are a few pictures I never got around to posting...

I love when the three of them read together!

I love watching the three of them interact together!

Colton is SUCH a sweet brother!

Larkyn has so much personality and makes us all laugh!

Headed to the zoo!

How daddy SAID he dressed the kids for church while I was away on our church's women's retreat....;)

reading.

a favorite memory during this phase of life - Saturday morning pancake breakfasts (made by chef daddy!) we ALL look forward to it!

Kids with their bouquets of dandeloions they picked for me!

These two spend so much time in the sandbox!  I love that I can watch them from the kitchen.

First time the younger two came to have lunch with Summer at school!

Lunch with Summer at school!

Summer's school had a fundraising carnival - the kids and I ran a duck pond game (Paul ran a wheel of fortune game).  The kids did a great job!  Colton took tickets, Summer gave prizes/stamps, and Larkyn swam with the duckies...(or tried to...) :)