Sarah's Last Day of 3-Year Old Nursery School

I can't believe its already time for my customary "last day of school" front porch picture...for Sarah at least!! She lost her babyface this year!!!!

FIRST DAY - SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

LAST DAY- MAY 13, 2010

Dance Recital

Okay- my turn to brag a little on my girls! They both did AWESOME at their dance recital. SO CUTE!! AND they had to do the whole thing twice - Friday night and Sunday afternoon, plus dress rehearsal on Thursday. I think Beth was more excited about getting flowers after the recital than she was to actually dance. Beth is built like a ballerina- all legs. I hope she continues to dance and the passion grows in her because I honestly think she could be fantastic. There were several seniors dancing their last recital before graduation and OH MY! They were AWESOME! I was in awe watching some of these "big" girls dance- truly beautiful. My girls' teacher, Ms. Elissa, was one of them. BEAUTIFUL ballerina and dancer. There is a picture of her below with Sarah's class - she's just beautiful! So - enjoy these pictures! Ballet is over (except for a small 2-day camp in June) till mid-August!

Beth:

Sarah:

Water

Yeah...water....lots of it!
I can't begin to tell you all how lucky I feel this morning. UNBELIEVABLY lucky. Some of you may remember that in the aftermaths of Katrina on August 29, 2005, our house flooded. While it wasn't terrible and only portions of house got water, it was still enough to send our lives into a tailspin for a little bit. The feeling I get in the pit of my stomach anytime a lot of rain is predicted is a feeling I wouldn't want my worst enemy to feel. I had that feeling ALL WEEKEND. We just watched and waited for the 10+ inches to hit us....We got lucky. We got 6 1/2 inches. It wasn't enough to flood anyone out of their home in our area. Nashville and middle-Tenessee- about 75 miles to our southeast - weren't so lucky. They got 18 (EIGHTEEN!!!) inches of rain in two days. That is 25% of their YEARLY AVERAGE...in TWO DAYS!! I'm hoping that those of you who aren't "local" are seeing images on your news of this flooding. Its unprecedented. Its never happened like this before, and probably never will again in most people's lifetime. The Opryland Hotel and OpryMills mall is flooded! Parts of historic downtown Nashville are flooded.The rivers are STILL rising, some won't even crest till late today. Its crazy! Several major interstates (I-24 and I-65) flooded BADLY on Saturday, with people having to evacuate and abandon their vehicles. Craziness, I tell you...insanity!! Here is a crazy video from the I-24 flooding:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5gYhLKwSp4&feature=player_embedded

Other videos/photos/stories:
http://www.wsmv.com/index.html
http://www.newschannel5.com/

And the oil spill in the Gulf is making me nuts too!! Our precious Destin beach is in jeopardy. Not cool....not cool at all!!! It makes me sick to my stomach.
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/

Happy Birthday Sarah Bear!

My Sarah Bear is 4 years old today!!!

4 years of birthdays:

4-20-06 just born:

4-20-07 1st Birthday

4-20-08 2nd Birthday

4-20-09 3rd Birthday

2010 - 4th Birthday!

Life Update, Easter, Keeneland....

OH MY! I didn't realize it been almost 3 weeks since an update! That goes to show you 2 things:

1) LIFE IS HECTIC right now, and

2) I rely more and more on Facebook to spread news about Family stuff, pictures, etc....sorry blog readers!

Since my last update, we've had lots of soccer practices, games, cheer practices, games, ballet recital practice, choir rehearsal, spring break, a week of Bob being out of town and more! Last night was the first time in 11 days that our family sat down to eat together! Oops! Bob was in Arkansas April 5-12 (he left the day after Easter) and its hard to pin the girls down to dinner at the table when he is out of town and also during that time, plus this week, it never fails that someone's practice/game falls at dinner time! I feel like I've been eating on the go for weeks now! Its frustrating and not helping my waistline! :-) We also did a quick run to Lexington last week - to Keeneland - and just to get out the house for a a few days.

Below are Easter pictures and Keeneland pictures! Enjoy! And I promise I'll try not to go 3 weeks before updating again. If we aren't friends on Facebook - find me - Katie Thomas Peebles!

Easter April 4, 2010:

Keeneland onApril 14, 2010

A horse of a different kind - that night at PF Changs for dinner:

This picture of Sarah was taken after dinner, when I finally just scooped her up and took her outside, after she knocked half the contents of the table onto the floor and broke all the sauce bottles....fun times!

Youth sports

Through the years, we've tried lots of things with the girls. Beth tried soccer when she was 4 years old and wasn't a fan...not at all...and she has no desire whatsoever to try it again. She tried Gymnastics later that year. The year started great with only 3 people in her class so she got plenty of time with the teacher and plenty of times on the beam, bars, mats, etc...but by March, there were 15 kids in the class and her impatience grew into major frustration and a fight just to go to class each week. We were done by that point. She is doing ballet this year and just hasn't enjoyed it and begs me to let her try Gymnastics again. Problem is....well...the only two remainign gyms in town both have some majorly competitive cheer squads. The cheer squads are basically the next step up from tumble classes and the tumble classes are where they basically "groom" their next cheerleaders. First let me say- I don't have a problem with Beth being on a cheer squard if she is good enough to make the team. HOWEVER, I DO have a problem with all the traveling they do to go to competitions and the $500 that families probably pay out each weekend they have to go to Chicago, Memphis, St.Louis, Nashville or wherever for a competition. OUCH!!!! So, I'm stuck between a rock and a hardplace. Do I let Beth take a tumble class at one of these places next year, knowing full well what the outcome "could" be?? I can tell you - I'm not a "cheer mom." :-) And I can tell you, if Beth is anything like me (I never "got" gymnastics- I just couldn't do all that tumbling and flipping and stuff)...she may not do well at gymnastics either. I'd really like to see her stick with dance, but she is driving me bananas wanting to do gymnastics again. And in all honesty, she really did LOVE it when her class was small and she got to do all the activities and not sit on the mat and wait her turn like it was at the end of the year.

Okay - all that brings me to my original reason for posting - Beth is a YMCA cheerleader this spring. Her squad is made up of girls 7-10 years old that cheer for the YMCA U-11 Flag Football teams. This is the first time we've done YMCA cheer...and probably our last. While I think its awesome and it gives everyone who wants to be a cheerleader the chance to try it, I think it teaches absolutely ZERO fundamentals. NONE. They even had to go to a 2 hour "cheer clinic" where they learned cheers and a dance, problem is no one bothered to correct any of the girls if they were doing something wrong and show them HOW TO DO IT. I completely understand that YMCA sports are all about fun and being a team, but I'd like for her to learn SOMETHING!!! Its frustrating to watch......

Sarah Katherine, on the other hand, is my athlete and wants to do it all! She is currently in ballet and loves it. She played YMCA U-5 soccer last fall and is playing this spring, too. While she LOVES soccer, she isn't learning a thing this spring. We have a rather disappointing coach who knows nothing about soccer and doesn't really care. Again...frustrating to watch. However, Sarah could care less and just loves to be out there running around kicking the ball. She is getting faster as she grows and can totally get in there and play with the boys! I have no new pics from this spring soccer season yet, but she is on the same team as last fall....

Beth's party...

I had somewhat of a "social experiment" with Beth's birthday "not-so-slumber PJ party", I guess you could say. She wanted to invited ALL of the girls in her class + 3-4 others from her FUMC Kindy class last year. Since the party was at our house and I wasn't necessarily paying "per person" for the party, I went with it, thinking that at least I would FINALLY get to know the little 1st grade girls she was always talking about. I'm so glad I did it, but I'll never do it again! It was a lot of different personalities and it wasn't necessarily a great blend...but again, it really helped me get to know the girls that I did not know. I already told Beth that next year, when she wants to have her "real" slumber party, that we will have no more than 3-5 girls at the most and we would keep it an EVEN number people! :-) I didn't get many good pictures because 1) it was chaos, and 2) I was also using the video camera option of my phone for most of the "big" moments like blowing out the candles on her cookie cake! Oh well!

Beth and her "BFF" Maggie:


Eating pizza and actually sitting still for 10 minutes!


Eating cookie cake!


Impromptu Limbo game...