Tree Decorating

We put up a Christmas tree in our new house for the first time.  We all helped Mommy decorate it while Daddy put lights outside.  That is Luci's friend Ella who was over at our house today.  We didn't have 4th kid in our family.

I'm excited that Christmas is almost here.  I hope that Sparkle stays with us at the new house.

Happy Halloween

So I did the poodle skirt girl again for Halloween this year.  And Luci did a 50's girl thing too.  Her costume is a diner waitress girl.  This year, we did a bunch of different trick or treats.  First, we went to the IU halloween and it was pretty good.  You got to play games and get candy and then you walk down on the basketball court and take pictures with the team.

The players are so tall that they stand on the round while the kids stand on a stage.  One player (Daddy said his name is OG) was messing with me and tapping me on the shoulder.  The players were nice to the kids.

Luci had a Halloween 1st grade party so Daddy took me and Julian to the trunk or treat at Our Lady.  The cars there had lights and stuff and handed out candy from their cars.  I hung out with my friends from school.  It was fun.

Then finally it was the Halloween night trick or treating.  This was the first time in our new neighborhood.  Lyric and Jenna went trick or treating with us.  We did most of the neighborhood and stopped once it was dark.  I handed out candy with Gram for a little while.

Whew, that was a lot of Halloween stuff.  I still like trick or treating okay but it isn't like when you are a little kid.

Run Mommy Run

 Mommy ran in the Chicago Marathon and I was so proud of her.  I can't believe that she can run that far.  It is 26 miles.  Really far.

The McAfee's mom ran in the marathon too (and so did Mrs Lori) so we went all over Chicago with them to see different parts of the race.  And we stopped and at some donuts!  Yummy!

We got to see Mommy four times.  Every time she would stop and hug us but I wanted her to keep running!  Maybe she needed a break?  Gram and Papi and Grandma met us for a couple stops too.  Then we spent some time walking around Chicago and going to the American Girl Doll store and some other shops.  It was a great weekend.

OMG! I am Nine!

Now that I am nine years old I only have 1 year before I add a "1" in front my age.  That is so crazy to me!  I already had my parties but I got a stool for my new but old vanity.  Miss Lori gave us the vanity from her daughter. And I got a nice jewelry box today.

And Luci gave me some earrings and necklace with a "R".  The best part was that she put in a flower jewelry box that she made for me.  We went to Earth & Fire a few weeks ago and she made a blue flower for me right in front me and I didn't even know it!  

At school, Mr. McGuire gave me a hard extra (pretend) birthday spanking.  He did one to grown on with his hand but it was hard and he said I must be growing a lot this year.  I hope that I do grow because I am almost as tall as Grandma now.  

I picked Cluckers for dinner and Gram and Papi joined us.  Then we got ice cream at Graeters.  That is a good birthday!

Surprise...A Bowling Party

I had a bowling birthday party with my friends...well Luci and her friends too.  And it was a surprise! We were supposed to be going bowling with Daddy and then when we turned the corner in the bowling alley it was a surprise...I was so shocked!  I didn't know what to say for a minute.

We had fun bowling and eating pizza and playing with the goody bag toys.  I was thankful for my friends that came and Mommy and Daddy for surprising us.  

Back to School, Back to Football

When school starts that means football starts.  And cheerleading starts again.  Me and Luci are cheering again for the Pioneers.  This year we supposed to be cheerleading for basketball too.  I hope there are cheerleaders for the girls games.  Then Luci might have to cheer for me!

A Week On The Beach

We are on vacation this week in Florida.  The last time I was in Florida was when I was only 6!  This time I have all of my cousins here: Landon, Jack, Rowan and Maggie.  There are 3 different condos for each family.  Plus we spent the night at Gram and Papi's house one night too.

We spent a lot of time on the beach making sandcastles and burying ourselves. 

Here is a picture of me in the ocean that Daddy took from the condo.  I like the beach and ocean but I always want to go to the pool more.  I can't get enough of the pool even if we have them in Indiana.

One fun thing we did is get out glow sticks after a walk.  And we had a little dance party.  Jack was so funny how he was dancing.  

My third grade teacher is...

...Mr. McGuire. It is like I'm going back to kindergarten!  I just found out today.  I am really excited because that is the teacher that I wanted.  I am happy that Abigail and Lyric are in my class and I'm also excited to know who else is in my class.  Mr. McGuire has an auction with McGuire bucks at the end of the semester. He also does science which is one of my favorite subjects.   But I'm still not totally ready for summer to be over.  I want to see my friends but I am not ready for homework!

Kindergarten Graduation with Mr. McGuire

Champs

Like always, Champs is the day before we went on vacation.  And it is a long, long day with a lot of races.  We hung out with the McAfees.

In the closest lane getting ready for 25m butterfly.

I did 5 races and I got 5 medals.  I won my heat in backstroke and I got a ribbon that you could show at the tent for a popsicle.  I ended up with three 4th place medals (2 relays and individual 25m backstroke) which were yellow.  I also got orange and brown medals for my other races. Uncle Tim said I looked like a rapper with all of my medals.

And my team, the Seacats, won again.  We won last year too.  So we got to push the coaches in the pool at the end.  Then we got in the van and drove to Florida.

The Neighborhood Pool

I looovvve having a pool in our neighborhood that we can swim every day.  We don't go every day but we go a lot.  There is a shortcut by our neighbor's house and then we cross the creek on the rocks and we can get to the pool really quick. And I see a lot of my neighborhood friends there too so we usually have kids to play with.

We did a movie night at the pool that was a lot of fun. We floated around and watched Zootopia.  I ate so much cotton candy and popcorn too.

Father's Day

For Father's Day, Daddy picked that we could go to see Finding Dory.  It was a good movie and it was a good day to spend with Daddy.

And She's Off!

I really am good at riding my bike without training wheels now.  Mommy was working with me last week and I was just taking off.  I have been riding my bike up and down our street.

Go! Go! Go!

 We had a party for the Kentucky Derby and we made fancy hats to wear.  They even had lights on them.  Ohhh!  I was made that my horses didn't win though.  The Lord boys' mom won for the adults and my friend Lyric won for the kids.  Maybe next year.

First Communion

I made my first communion at church today!  Let me tell you, the wine and the bread are not that good.  They are just okay.  We got to taste them at our communion retreat day on Friday.  Some of the kids in my class made faces after tasting the wine.  But I didn't.  Like I said, it was okay...not good really or bad.

At the retreat we got to make bread ourselves too.  It was kind of plain to eat. And we decorated the banners on each row at church. We got to do with our parents and Mommy and Daddy helped me.

That is the row that we sat in and we were close to the front by where the choir sits.  I liked dressing up and wearing the veil.  It was fun to do it with my class.

 

Children's Museum Trip

On Spring Break we went to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis.  I never there before.  Mommy and Daddy said they went there when they were kids...not together but each of them went there.  You know what the building is because it has this huuuuuge dinosaur climbing on it.

There was a lot of cool stuff there.  They had Egyptian rooms and these old Chinese soldier things that you got to put together.  The scientists found a whole room of these soldiers in China and they had pictures of the real ones.  Oh yeah and they had a lot of dinosaur bones and skeletons.  And some rooms with dress up things that were kind of like Bellaboo's by Grandma's house.

It was a lot of fun things to play with. I even got my driver's license and a race car!

Daddy liked the water clock because he remembers it from when he was a kid.  You can tell time by how the water fills up the circles.  I watched it empty when it turned to a new o'clock.  It is a pretty cool clock. And next to the clock was a chocolate slide.  Here is a video of me and Daddy going down the slide.

Daddy Daughter Dance

Me and Daddy

Finally Some Snow

We didn't have any snow for Christmas but we finally got some snow this week. We had 2 snow days from school.  Actually, I only went to school 2 days this week!  Because we had Martin Luther King Jr Day off.  He was an important guy that made African Americans be free from having different schools and stuff.  So you don't have to go to school on his birthday, which was Monday.  Then it snowed on Wednesday and it snowed again on Friday for no school.

Me and Luci played outside in the snow.  Then today we went sledding.  There were a lot of people out sledding on the hill.  Aunt Sissy and Uncle Steven brought Rowan but he didn't stay out for too long. My friend Lyric met us there too.  There was a big bump on the hill that would bounce you in the air.  And some kids made a snowman at the bottom of the hill.  It was fun to finally have some snow.

Watch this video of me and Mommy going into the tree!