We made it through another week and fortunately this one was short thanks to Memorial Day! The kids are so thrilled to be out of school for the summer and we’re already enjoying later bedtimes and sleeping in. I’m keeping my regular schedule and loving getting a few extra hours of sleep before heading into the office mid-morning. I was worried I wouldn’t love staying at work late at night, knowing the kids were at home, but it turns out it works perfectly for summer. We’re tackling a few more projects this week and next and then it’s vacation city for us all!
001 | KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION
It’s a little insane to think that Sophie’s already conquered kindergarten. Where did my baby go? As nostalgic as I get, I’m not one of those mamas that longs for nursing and rocking my babies to sleep. I have absolutely enjoyed every stage of growth and I look forward to every new thing they try or accomplish. I’m not gonna lie — I was a little worried about her at the beginning of the year. Preschool was a big adjustment for her. She thrived and loved it, but she was very nonchalant about learning and I didn’t want her to struggle with the transition to kinder. We couldn’t have been blessed with a better teacher for her personality and her classmates were so much fun. She grew leaps and bounds this year and I can’t wait to see her rock first grade!
Being a working mom makes school events that occur in the middle of the day a hard sell. The girls don’t always understand why I can’t show up and why I’m never going to have the opportunity to be a room mom or field trip chaperone. As flexible as my job is, I’m an hour away from school and it’s near impossible to go back and forth. Both girls asked me to come for their class parties last week, so I worked from home and made many trips to the school in between projects. Sophie’s class had a short program (in the blazing Alabama sun) and she was so adorable on stage with her friends. See her there in the hot pink bow?!
After getting her award, she stumbled down the “star lit path” with a very confused look on her face and I couldn’t get her attention for a photo. I snuck around behind her after she was seated and held her attention just long enough for a quick snap. Her reading has improved like CRAZY this year and she was one of two students in her class to get the “Rocking Reader” award for already surpassing the First Grade goals for reading. Like, woah.
They had a quick party in their classroom after, complete with a photo booth and props, so I got to hang with her a little bit longer. She skipped the pizza (darn you, dairy) in favor of some pretzels and showed me all around her classroom. Her teacher had a bucket full of fun summer surprises for them and I loved the t-shirts they painted in the class for the last day. Hello, Class of 2028!
002 | FIVE LETTER WORD GAME
Growing up, we used to play a game we lovingly referred to as the “5 Letter Word Game.” We learned it on summer mission trips with our church and, as high school and college students, became obsessed. Our mission in life was to come up with the best five letter word to stump our friends. I was constantly storing them away in my head for later use. The concept was to guess your opponent’s secret word by eliminating/isolating letters using a series of 5 letter test words. Even after Josh and I got married, we kept a stash of lined notebooks and pens in the camper (and next to our bed!) so we could play at a moment’s notice.
I joked a few years ago that I was going to make a printable game sheet so we didn’t have to write out the alphabet a hundred times, but I never actually did it. Just this week, we taught the girls how to play (obviously Sophie needs a lot of help) and I vowed to make a sheet again. Imagine my surprise when, thanks to the husband’s google skills, we realized this is an actual game?! It’s called Jotto and there are several printable versions of the gamesheet already floating around the internet. That’s never stopped me before, so I came up with this sheet to help us stay better organized and keep our hand from cramping after a marathon session! You can read the full set of rules here and download our super-cute “5 Letter Word Game” board here. Wanna play?
003 | DANCE FINALE
This was our last week of regularly scheduled practices and Ella caught a little break thanks to Memorial Day. She’s been practicing until after 8 o’clock most nights, so it was nice to only have one class this week. She’ll be in the studio every single day next week and will be practicing on stage Thursday and Friday before her recitals on Saturday. Since she’s on the competition team, she dances in all three recitals – multiply that times six classes and she’ll hit the stage a record eighteen times in nine hours. Wait, what?! Recital is one of my very favorite days of the year (just call me crazy) and I always love watching her take a deep breath and just enjoy herself after such a long season. I didn’t manage to grab any photos at the studio this week, so what do you say we flash back a little? Can you even? Also, my photography has greatly improved!
This is 2013, her first year of competitive dance.
Ella & Kynnedi their first year of dance together (2010) and earlier this year – SEVEN years strong!
004 | OURPACT APP
Josh and I have been talking for weeks about how summer would play out. We think our girls are pretty fantastic, but like most kids, they spend WAY too much time on their devices. We try to monitor them when it comes to bedtime and we have set up parental controls to limit access to age-inappropriate items, but we still felt like we could be doing more. Since the girls stay home with him several days a week (he works remotely since his office is in Arizona) and he’s often on conference calls, he was worried they would be on their own much of the time and default to pajama days with an ipad in hand. We came up with a list of chores for each of them, along with a few other activities they were required to complete each day (I’m working on a printable to share!), but we really wanted a way to monitor their use a little more closely. Enter OurPact.
005 | PINNING PARTIES
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, birthdays are pretty much my favorite. Several weeks ago, I was approached by a web magazine to share party favors from Ella’s mermaid bash. I had been working through updating old posts, resizing and watermarking old images, updating links and making any necessary edits. I tried to fix all of my most popular posts right after my move to WordPress, but it’s a bit exhausting. I was sending images over for the article when I realized that the party post needed a little love and also that it is my MOST SHARED POST EVER. While most of my party posts are shared a few hundred (sometimes a few thousand) times, this one is nearing forty thousand repins. Are you even kidding?! The funniest part is that the hoopla is all over inexpensive bubble wand favors we picked up at the dollar store. It is absolutely crazy the things that people will go nuts over! In case you’re curious, you can view that popular post here. And just so you know, I greatly appreciate it every time you pin something from our site. Every little boost in traffic helps keep things running smooth for us on the interwebs. Thanks for being our friends!
One more quick note before the weekend. If you haven’t already, you may notice a few changes on the blog with regards to advertising in the next few days. I am always working to make your experience a pleasant one while you’re here, but I also need to maximize ad revenue in order to keep the blog up and running and paying for itself. I’ve been unhappy with the pushdown ad at the top of my site for months, but I have been struggling with what to replace it with. You may notice ads moving around a bit over the next week, but we are working hard to keep them from being too intrusive or from interfering with the content. You may also notice occasional video ads within the content, but as long as you don’t click or hover over them for an extended period of time, they will not play any sound or obscure any content. I know this isn’t the best case scenario, but I really appreciate your patience as we try out some new things. If at any time, your experience at Taz + Belly is too frustrating to stick around, please let me know in the comments! I try not to complain about ads on my favorite sites, since I can usually close them and continue reading, but I know that some readers are passionately opposed to advertising and I certainly don’t want you to give us the boot. Happy weekend, friends!
