Jared & Carrie's Wedding

It's always so much fun getting to spend time with family, but it is even more fun spending time together while adding (officially) another member to our family.  Yesterday, my mom and I were looking back at a small wedding album that she had made of Wes and I's wedding and it had a picture of Jared and Carrie in it.  At that time, who knew that nearly 11 years these high school sweethearts would be celebrating a wedding of their own?

I can't wait to see all their professional wedding pictures, but for now, I thought I'd share all the ones I took from my handy Iphone 4.  :)

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Gateway Gymnastics Spring Fling Meet

Early Sunday morning after an exhausting (but fun) weekend of wedding festivities we loaded the van to make our way towards St. Louis (Maryland Heights) for the Gateway Spring Fling.  This was the girls very first USAG Competition.  We knew going in to the meet that the competition would be much better than anything we had seen and even though the girls are on a rec style gymnastics team only practicing 1.5 hours per a week, they were excited about the experience of the competition. 

Addy had a very good morning receiving first place on her floor routine, 4th on the vault and 5th on the beam.  She started out and finished well on her bars routine, but fell midway on a skill she normally gets and this unfortunately took her out of placing on this event.  She finished 5th out of 10 overall. 

While Jaidyn's overall scores weren't as good as we had hoped, she completed all of her routines nicely.  Artistically, the other gymnasts were much better and they were much more polished in their routines than she was.  She did receive a 4th place ribbon for her vault, but didn't place in the top six on any other of the apparatus.   Jaidyn being the competitor that she is is hoping that she will have a chance to compete again in the future as she too knows that she wants to top her previous scores and find herself on the medal stand a little more.

 

Hadley & Grandma Penny made a long trip to support the girls at their meet.


Love Jaidyn and Addy's gymnastics fan club!  They all made a huge effort to be there after a long weekend of wedding fun!


Addy's Level 3 Team


Jaidyn's Level 4 Team


Completely Exhausted!  Good thing her competition was earlier in the day as she didn't make it through watching all of Jaidyn's. 

Kids Spring Sports

Sunday - Tball Practice
Monday - Tball Practice
Tuesday - Gymnastics
 Wednesday - Soccer Practice
Thursday - Soccer Practice, Gymnastics
Saturday - Soccer Games, Gymnastics Meet
Sunday - Church

The kids spring sports are in full swing and the above schedule is what a typical evening looks like for our family.  Add in trying to get in practice for spelling tests, reading time, dinner and baths for four kids usually makes for a crazy evening.  And we need to factor in an occasional spring concert, a friend birthday party or a doctor/dentist/haircut appointment.  In my effort to stay organized and keep up, I had to go out and buy a new weekly planner to write down everything in because my old one was a huge mess of scribbled scheduling and I decided I needed to take the time to write a little neater and smaller in attempt to fit it all in to one block of space.  And you should see the back of our van as it has become a traveling sport locker.  Seriously, if you forget your kids shin guards or tball bat, I am pretty sure I have one stashed.  Agh!

Regardless of the hectic craziness, I LOVE watching the kids compete.

Before rushing to their afternoon soccer game, both Jaidyn and Addy participated in a local tumbling meet and both received a 1st place trophy for their routine in their age division.









Jaidyn &; Addy with Grandma Penny!  She was their good luck charm!


The girls with their #1 fan!


Addy's "Advanced #1" Routine


Jaidyn's "Advanced #2" Routine

Next weekend should be an eye opening (hopefully good) experience as they will be competing with their competitive team on Sunday near St. Louis on all gymnastics apparatus including floor, beam, bars and vault.

Wes unfortunately had to miss the girls meet as we had to split ways as Levi's first spring soccer game was at the same time.  I'm pretty sure Levi has the game of soccer figured out!  Granted their isn't a goalie in the age 3-4 age group league, but Levi's team won their game 5-1...Levi scoring 5 goals!  I told Wes to text me while I was at the gymnastics meet if he scored or did anything really good and it felt like I had a text coming through every few minutes.  :)








While the girls didn't come out on the winning end it didn't keep them from getting in the middle of it all.  Addy took a shot to the face, but it didn't stop her from volunteering to be goalie the next quarter.


Addy at the coin toss meeting to start the game.





 Earlier in the week sitting through Levi's soccer practice...



Wes and I had the opportunity for a night out with great friends as their guests to the C.R.A.P (Colon Rectal Awareness Party).  It was a very nice event and it was great to see so many doctor's banding together to raise money for the cause.

I even endured my first spray tan for the event!  Yes, a friend encouraged me to suck it up and let go of all modesty for a few minutes and let someone airbrush me with cold (very cold) spray.  So please tell me how "golden" I look in these pictures!  And while the experience comes in to a close 2nd to a visit to the gynecologist, I have already scheduled another session next week before my brothers wedding. 







Grandma helped Jaidyn create her banner for her 1st Communion coming up in two weeks.  She had her work cut out for her with the hot glue gun as Jaidyn didn't go for a "simple" design and wanted to fit or rather cram in as many pieces from the banner kit as she could.  It does look really good and I can't believe this date that she has been preparing for all year in her Sunday morning religion class is almost here.




Levi is so excited about starting Kindergarten next year. I think he is most excited about riding the big yellow bus!  Gee, I wonder how long that excitement will last? 
 

 

 

 

We are looking forward to next weekend and celebrating with both Jared and Carrie their (long awaited) marriage!  I'm looking forward to spending time with my most awesome relatives!  Good time to have and memories to be made! :)

State Capital & Winter Snow & Egg Dyeing

Jaidyn's "Owl" art drawing was on display during the month of March at the state capital for National Youth Art Month.  Her drawing was one of four chosen out her school to receive this recognition.  Papa volunteered (or rather was talked in to) keeping the boys all day so that the rest of us could enjoy a full day at the capital. The exhibit was really neat and it was neat to see the artwork of some REALLY talented kids in the state of Missouri!




















 

Nana working with Reid on mastering the potty.  He's had some successful go-abouts in the last week and is in fact wearing some Mickey Mouse themed underwear around the house (I told him I am out of diapers and he didn't have a choice).  I think he just likes reading stories with her and therefor hangs out much longer than necessary.




Earlier in the week the kids winter wish of snow happened!!  The girls had a 2 hour late start to the school day due to the snow and it was the perfect opportunity for building some snow friends and sliding down the hill on the side of our house with their sleds.  And they took advantage of the opportunity to get a few snowballs thrown at their dad!

















Easter egg dyeing fun with friends!



The boys all decided they wanted to be shirtless so they could be completely messy!


 



So I am pretty sure it wasn't the most exciting way to spend a birthday weekend, but Nana came to help one day with my garage sale and we got in a tiny celebration with some chocolate cheesecake and a birthday song serenade from the kids.


Jaidyn's teacher is going to be spending several weeks of July in Guatemala working with kids of the Shadows of His Wings Orphanage.  Jaidyn (and Addy helped some too) worked hard and long at her soda stand during the garage sale so that she could contribute her proceeds from the sales to her teachers trip.

My camera phone isn't working and Wes had to do all the picture taking from the Easter weekend festivities.  Hopefully, I'll have a chance to download them soon and post pictures from Easter.