Eight Months!

Olivia is eight months old!  Here are some things that have happened in the past month.

She got TWO teeth!

Her hair is growing!  It's still a color that's kinda hard to describe.  Maybe it's just weird for me to think that I have a baby with light brown hair?  People ask what color her hair is, and I really don't know what to say.

She entertains us with all her funny faces.  This one earned her a new nickname...POPEYE!  She makes this face and blows little puffs of air through it, which makes her bottom lip go in and out.  Quite comical.  While we're talking about nicknames, I don't know that I've ever written them down, but she's got quite a few of them.  First, and most popular, is Ellie.  I knew this would be one from day one since it was a negotiating factor with the girls so I could name her Olivia.  Others include:  Mini Binny (when we used to think she looked just like Brynlee aka Binny), Babycakes, Ells Bells, and Bellie.

See the resemblance?  Yep, she earned that one.

She's mobile!  And into EVERYTHING!  The newspaper, magazines, or other paper left on the floor are her favorites.  The last victim was Landon's paper airplane.  I had to pull a wad of yellow cardstock from her mouth yesterday.  The airplane didn't fly so well anymore.  Shoes are another favorite, feet in them or not.  This has led me to institute the chore basket rule.  If it's left out on the floor and it's yours and mom picks it up so Ellie doesn't, then you have to do a chore to get it back.  It's been awhile since I've had to really babyproof since Trevor wasn't really a baby that got into things.  We never had a gate on the stairs because he never went near them on his own.  We've already had to rescue her a few times from certain doom...

She's still working on her Pavlovian conditioning when it comes to pulling the carbon monoxide detector out of the outlet in the wall.  She pulls...the alarm goes off.  Three times and still decides to pull it.  It's loud.  Ear piercing loud.

She's also become an escape artist which has led us to retire the Bumbo...

Funny(?...not really.) story:  We used the Bumbo as a "high chair" because we had gotten rid of the bulky one that took up too much space and basically I hated cleaning it.  It would just sit on the barstool (one that has a back and is attached to the counter).  One day she was in it, and I decided to put it on the ground since she was starting to squirm more and more in it.  I was in the kitchen and she was in the dining room (on the other side of the bar so I couldn't see her).  Landon said "Look, Ellie's getting out!"  Sure enough she was in the above position, so what did I do?  Ran to grab the camera while saying to Landon, "Make sure she doesn't fall on her head."  Two seconds later I hear a thump, followed by Ellie crying and her first nice bruise.  I felt like a loser mother...worrying more about getting a picture so I could, of course, blog about it!  Just so grateful she wasn't up on the barstool!  It didn't get put up there anymore!  The next time she did it, Rob was nearby with his phone and got the above shot.  It was the last time she was in the Bumbo and it was replaced by a booster seat with a tray where she is strapped in and the booster is strapped to the counter barstool.  Oh Miss Ellie.

Science? Who needs science?!

Last night Grandma and Grandpa Barton came over to visit and see the end of the year awards that the kids received.  We were talking about the end of level testing ones and "teasing" Brynlee that she didn't get 80% or better on Science.  Her response:  we didn't do a end of level test for Science, only Math and Language Arts.  Ooops!  Guess only 4th and 5th grade do all three!  So congrats to Brynlee.  I knew you were a smarty!  :)

And speaking of Brynlee, she came to me Saturday night and wanted her hair cut.  Like right then.  At 9:30 pm.  I told her maybe tomorrow (Sunday), but probably Monday.  She has always been one that I've kept her hair short.  She has the most sensitive head of anyone I've met and combing through her "rat's nest" that she would get after sleeping was unbearable.  For her and me.  We discovered a solution to her rat's nest....adjusting her pillow so it laid flat instead of propped up against her headboard.  Weird, I know, but that's how she always had her pillow at night and moving it worked!  So this past year she wanted to grow it out.  Normally on the day before the first day of school, I chop her hair almost to her chin.  Last August she didn't want me to so I think I trimmed maybe an inch.  I kept asking her throughout the school year if she wanted me to cut it.  Even a couple of weeks ago the answer was no.

After Grandma and Grandpa left last night, she begged again for me to cut it.  I cut off 5 inches.  At first she told me she wanted it to her chin.  I was a little doubtful since she needs to be able to pull it back for gymnastics so I went a little longer.  After cutting it and asking if she wanted more off, she said she liked it that length.  Now there's the Brynlee I recognize.

Before:

After (wet):

After blow drying it....so pretty!

Awards for my Amazingly Awesome Ashlee!

Ashlee just finished her last days at Hillcrest Elementary.  Wow.  She is excited and nervous to start middle school, and I think my feelings are the same....slightly more nervous, though!  I know she'll be just fine if the previous 6 years of school are any indication of how well she'll do.  The last week of school was full of awards for her.

First, she received an award for scoring 80% or higher on her end of level tests. She did that in all three areas (Science, Math and Language Arts). Last year the award was for 90% or higher but there were some major changes to the core curriculum so for whatever reason they lowered the percentage for the award.   Her teacher told her she got 97% in math, but I don't know the exact score for the other two.



I'll stick Brynlee's award in here as well. She scored 80% or higher on her end of level tests in Language Arts and Math.  (oops...better work on her Science!)



The next award was the Great American Award.  Back in October, the 5th graders were given the challenge of completing the requirements for achieving this award.  The requirements were:
1. Recite the Gettysburg Address
2. Recite the names (first and last) of the 44 Presidents in order

3. Recite the States and their capitals

4. Recite or sing the National Anthem - “The Star Spangled Banner”

5. Recite the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

6. Write the Pledge of Allegiance with no spelling or punctuation errors

She had done all of the requirements except the Presidents by Christmas break.  We got to listen to the Animaniacs sing a song about the Presidents multiple times on our trip to Arizona, lucky us!

Fifteen out of the 78 5th graders at her school achieved this award!

With her teacher, Mr. Reed Olson...

With her BFF, Rachel...

Another award she got was a team effort.  Her teacher is a HUGE Harry Potter fan.  And is, in general, an awesome teacher!  Her class was divided into houses, and they received points for different things throughout the year.  Her house, Hufflepuff, won the House Cup!

The last and perhaps most prestigous award came on the last day of school:  The Hope of America award given by the Kiwanis Club.  One girl and one boy were chosen by their teachers from each of the three 5th grade classes.  The award states "Presented to Ashlee Barton who has demonstrated during this school year the capacity for leadership, the ethical and moral character and the outstanding academic accomplishment which represent the HOPE OF AMERICA."

All of the teachers (that are still teaching at Hillcrest) that she had came up to me and told me how proud they are of her, what a wonderful girl she is, and how they are not surprised she received it.  Much of her achievement is thanks to their teaching, encouragement, and support.  She had amazing teachers during her 6 years at Hillcrest.  I can't wait to see what great things the future has in store for her.

2012 Logan Fun Run

Last week Ashlee ran the mile in the Logan School District Fun Run for 4th and 5th graders.  She ended up coming in 4th place for the girls for our school. 

See those two girls on the right side in the next picture? I laugh (not like a mean laugh!) that I caught this on camera now that I see this picture after what happened during/after the race.   It looks like a serious discussion going on, right?  So here's the story.  About a week after the race, they had an awards ceremony at the school for different end of the year awards.  They handed out 1st, 2nd and 3rd place medals for the Fun Run.  They announced that Ashlee got third place.  I knew that wasn't right because Jenny (the taller one) came in 3rd and Ashlee was 4th.  After the awards ceremony, I talked to Mrs. Maria (PE teacher) and she even showed me the printout with the timed results and it had Ashlee as 3rd.  At the end of the race, the kids hand their sticker (you can see it on their shirts) to a person after the finish line and someone is there with a stopwatch that they click each time someone crosses.  They later match up the stickers with the stop watch time.  Jenny wasn't on the list, which meant all the times were bumped up by one person.  Somehow either she didn't hand them her sticker or they skipped over it.  I talked with Jenny's mom on the phone later that afternoon (for an unrelated reason and she hadn't gone the awards ceremony so she didn't know anything about the mixup) and asked if Jenny came in third.  She said yes and that Jenny was so ticked because she was so determined to take first for their school but got a major sideache during the race.  She trained alot for it and was so mad after the race.  I told her about the awards and she was like "Oh no!  I wonder what Jenny was thinking."  I talked with Ashlee after school and explained what happened (another mom even had video of the race and sure enough, Jenny came in third).  She immediately said she needed to go to Jenny's house to give it to her.  Wow.  Is she awesome or what?!  Just wait until I post about the other awards that she DID receive!

At the starting line...

Ready to start the race.  The three girls in green on the right hunched down took the top three places (in order from right to left) for Hillcrest.  It was serious business for them!  I love how Ashlee is just looking at them, all chilled and relaxed  :)  In fact, Ashlee wanted to do a little prep run the day before with me.  I told her I don't run as fast as her (she ran about 8:30 in her timed mile run at school and I'm about a 10 min. mile) and to go ahead and leave me in the dust.  When we started she was going really slow.  I told her she needed to speed up.  Her response:  I have to pace myself.  And that she did, and she totally took off after about 2/3 of the way done.

And they're off...



Ashlee sprinted to the finish line so fast that I barely had time to get a picture.  The kid in yellow is a high school track team member.  A bunch of them ran with the kids to motivate them.  She finished with a time of 8:01.

Eye of the Tiger

Brynlee had her last soccer game last night and her coach gave out award certificates to all the girls.  By their record of manylossesafewtiesandnowins, you would think they didn't have a good season, but it was fun to watch them play.  There were quite a few close games but they just couldn't pull off a win.

Brynlee's award was "Eye of the Tiger." Her coach said before every game, Brynlee would run up to him, give him "the look", and say "We're gonna win!" Can't say she didn't have a great attitude, even if they never did!

And yes, Ashlee and Landon did play this year as well.  Did I take any pictures?  Um, no.  The camera never seemed to make it with me as I basically just survived this season getting everyone to their games on time (many times going from one game to the next, being a one woman show with Rob working/having YM activities three evenings a week).  It's a good thing one of Brynlee's friends has a mom that remembers such things.

CVSB Year End Performance

Last night (yes! I'm caught up on the blog...just don't come look at my house!) was Ashlee's end of the year ballet performance.   She finished her 5th year of ballet and hopefully decides to continue (there has been talk amongst her friends of maybe not doing in next year)  They did things a little different this year and I really liked it. In past years, all the classes go through their technique (black leos and pink tights) and performance (costumes) dances, but this year the Cache Valley Civic Ballet performed Sleeping Beauty Act III and the classes each did one performance in costume.

The video, as always, is not the greatest because of the lighting and distance.  She is the third person that comes out on the right side and crosses over to the left (and for most of the dance is the third one from the left)

N.O.V.A. Graduation

Ashlee recently completed the N.O.V.A. program at school.  Remember the D.A.R.E. program you probably participated in?  This is like that, but more.  The Mission of N.O.V.A. Principles is: “Nurturing youth to seek out positive Opportunities, internalize good Values, and to accept Accountability for their choices in life.  They had weekly lessons in their 5th grade classroom from Detective Bird of the Logan City Police Department.

The mascot is a wolf, Polaris.  They learn that a N.O.V.A. Lone Wolf is a person who has the strength not to follow the crowd when they choose to do wrong.  They also learn that there are two wolves inside each of us, one good and one evil.  The (one size fits all) shirts the kids are wearing have a wolf and the question, "Which Wolf Are You Feeding?" 

Which wolf is stronger?  The one you feed.

In order for students to earn a certification of achievement from the N.O.V.A. program, they are required to write a personal constitution. This constitution becomes a governing document to give them direction and focus in life as to what they wish to accomplish

Here is what Ashlee wrote:
*note to self...enter this when Ashlee brings it home from school   :)

7 Months Already?

Didn't I just blog about Olivia turning 6 months?  Oh.  It was a month ago?  My bad.  I guess I will accept the fact that time is flying by and my baby is now one month closer to being a year old.  Bring out the tissues, stat!

Olivia continues to be the center of attention in our home with her happy disposition and big, blue smiling eyes.  Oh, she makes me melt like a popsicle on the fourth of July.  She is starting to be mobile, though not crawling just yet.  I'm amazed when I put her down far away from something on the floor and she ends up playing with it.  How'd she get that??  Definitely time to remind the kids to keep their chokables off of the floor!

Ashlee was trying to get her to crawl, tempting her with a little giraffe that was made for her when she was born...

She'll lean forward into a hands and knees position like she's going to crawl....

And then ends up superman style...

Let's try with a ball...

Ohhh, stttrrreeetttcccchhh...

Gotta take a break and think this through.  This is exhausting.  But I still got my eye on you, little ball!

This is my favorite face she has been making lately.  Complete with sound effects.  (*cue her rapidly blowing in and out through her nose)

My friend, Brittney, took these pictures of her.  If you're ready to ooooh and ahhhhh, continue on...

Finally. A Lost Tooth.

Landon has been so patient while waiting for this day to come.  He FINALLY lost a tooth.  And not just one, but two!  He lost the first one during dinner on Sunday.  The one next to it was quite wiggly as well, and we kept telling him if he lost it that night, the tooth fairy would only have to remember ....errr, make one visit. 

A bite into a hamburger made it loose enough to pull...

The second one didn't make it out Sunday night, but Monday morning he was working on it before school.  When he got home from school, he still hadn't lost it.  I tried pulling it, but he got made at me because he wanted to do it!  Ha, so different than my girls!  It finally came out so the past two nights, the tooth fairy made a visit and brought him a dollar coin each time.

Mendicant and Abattoir

What do those two words have in common?  It doesn't matter how you pronounce it or whether you know the definition.  All that matters is that you spell it correctly.

The pesky letter "e" proved to be Ashlee's downfall yet again.  She added an "e" to the end of abattoir and that little mistake got her 4th place in the Logan City School District Spelling Bee.

Let's back up a bit.  The day before I left for Arizona, Ashlee came home upset and crying that she wouldn't be able to participate in the school spelling bee.  There was going to be a class spelling bee the next day and top three(?) class winners would participate in the school spelling bee.  The other kids were given the practice list of words on the Friday before Spring Break...the Friday my kids didn't go to school since we left for San Diego.  She didn't think she would do well since she got the list that day and hadn't been able to study.  My advice to her:  Well, no use crying over it.  Do your best and that's all you can do.  Maybe a bit harsh, but I think she needed to hear it.  She's an extremely bright child and needed confidence that her best would be good enough.

I was in Arizona when I got the news that she came out on top for her class.  The school spelling bee would be on Monday, the day I was coming home from Arizona so I would miss it.  After 26 rounds, Ashlee ended up taking 2nd place (misspelled "mendicant"...again that darn "e" that she put in there instead of the "i").  That's alot of words!

The district spelling bee was the next Monday.  This time she was out in round 9.  I think they only went to 12 rounds before a winner was declared...who happened to be the #1 from our school.  The second place finisher was also from our school.

The top 4 kids from Hillcrest with Principal Markworth...

Grandpa Kerby's 100th Birthday!

Now that is one big reason to celebrate! My Grandpa Kerby turned 100 years old on April 14th! It's not everyday you get to celebrate a 100th birthday so I made sure that I was there to wish him a happy birthday in person. Olivia and I took a quick weekend trip down to Arizona to be there for the big day.

We stayed at Jeremy and Clytie's house.  These two cousins became little buddies.