*ALEXA'S NEW ROOM*

Alexa had been begging for a new color for her walls for over a year now. She had grown out of her pink room, so we decided this weekend to re-paint it and turn it into her "tween" room.

I wish I took a bunch of before pictures, but here is one of Alexa working hard.

And after....

 

*SMYKAY'S MOVING PARTY*

It was the last week for the Smykay's to live in their Fairway home.  They finally sold it and are moving to San Francisco.  Lucky for us they can fly back often, so hopefully we won't have to miss them for long!

*FIRST DAY OF 5th / 1st GRADE*

The girls and I worked hard at getting everything organized and laid out the night before their first day. We had all their clothes laid our for the next two weeks, so we can be on top of things.
The girls seemed pretty excited about heading back to school, but I was a little sad. I enjoyed getting to sleep another 45 minutes in the morning. Not to mention the summer flew by quickly. Luckily, their excitement helped them jump out of bed in the morning and get ready quickly.
When we got to school, I ran Maren in first and then dropped Alexa off. Alexa is excited that she got one of her friends mom this year, so she was happy to get started for the year. She instantly went to her desk and started to unpack her supplies.
Alexa really didn't need any of my help, so I ran back down to MAREN'S classroom. She had already unpacked her supplies from her backpack and was sitting there, so I helped her get everything organized. She did seem a little sad. Even more quite than she usually is, but she seemed ok and was at the point where she wanted me to leave.
Hopefully their day goes perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*GIRLS' YEARLY CHECK-UP - 2012*

*GIRLS CHARITY GARAGE SALE*

Alexa really wanted to do something nice with all of her unwanted toys. At first she wanted to sell them and raise money to buy teddy bears for the kids at the local hospital. I thought it was a good idea, but I thought that it would be hard to know how many kids there were and how we would get it to them. So I told Alexa to pick a good charity that was close to her heart. She called aunt Erin and asked her about some of the schools fletcher goes to. After she got her list, she went through all of their websites and decided on lee Ann britains development center. Fletcher attended this school when he was little so it was a perfect charity.
The next steps were to plan the event. She decided to asked her friends to donate their toys and their time. This involved coming up with instructions on how to donate and a list of times that each kid could come and help. We came up with the name "Clean up 4 kids".
She even came up with the idea to have a lemonade stand called "lemonade 4 kids". She put Maren in charge of that.
We wanted to make sure that lots of people came, so Alexa wrote a letter to pv post and I put an add on Craigslist.
The rule was that the kids had to do the work. They put the prices on the items, did the negotiation and made the change. By the end, maren even knew how to make the lemonade. All the kids seemed to have a blast and asked to come back the next day for another shift.
A goal of $500 was set. Each day it grew pretty high. People were stopping just to donate to the cause. We closed the sale at $479. As we were cleaning up, someone drove up and asked if we were closed. I said yes, they are finally worn out. She said that it was ok, she had actually stopped by to donate some money. She donated $20 putting us at $499! A mom stopped by and noticed the sign as we were cleaning and donated another dollar to make it $500 even. The girls made their goal.
Funny part was that later that night, we were playing soccer in the front yard and a couple was walking by. They said that they had meant to drop by and donate money, but didn't get around to it. They ended up giving the girls another $13 dollars. Jay's work matches donations up to $500, so our total donation will be $1013!