Lost Tooth

Audrey lost her first tooth last night. It was very exciting!! Her bottom tooth had been a little loose for almost a month - she came home from school one day saying that it hurt when she was eating an apple.  Since then it had not changed much until Wednesday when I noticed that it was looking really different and at an odd angle.  So I thought that a visit from the tooth fairy may be in our near future.  But I did not know that it was going to be the very next day.

After dinner, she reached into her mouth to get out what she thought was a piece of food.  Instead the picture below was what she had rather than food:

Unfortunately D and I made the (rookie) mistake of telling her that we were going to have to pull it so that it did not fall out in the middle of the night.  Well after we finally got her calmed down, we explained that really all we were going to do was wiggle it.  In fact D told her that it would probably fall out after only 20 wiggles.  Here is a video of most of the tooth pulling experience.  Please excuse my horrible singing voice and ignore the fact that both of the girls are running around without their shirts (everything seems so normal until you see it on film!).  I can't seem to get the video to upload from my phone, so I'll put a few more pics up:

 Here we all are in the bathroom working on wiggling the tooth.

 So happy and proud of herself!

 Showing off her new space in her mouth

 Posing with her dollars and note from the tooth fairy.  It may not be visible but the money is sparkly from the tooth fairy.

Birthday Party

The girls have LOVED their birthday this year!  I feel like we have been non-stop celebrating for ages for this one.  Saturday was their party.  We had it at a local place (which seemed totally sketchy - but we didn't feel like asking a bunch of people that we don't really know to drive down into BR) that is really a daycare center but they set up bouncy things in their gym on the weekend for birthdays.  And it turned out to be fine (thank heavens!).  The girls selected who they wanted to invite to their party and I went with it - though I did convince them that our neighbors in 10th grade and 6th grade probably did not want to come.  In a crazy whirlwind of, well, craziness we did let the girls open their presents at the party.  Always a risky move with 5 year olds, but the kids get so excited to both open and see their presents opened.  The rest of the day, the girls played with almost every single present.

 Taking a drink break

 Almost all of the kids

 Blowing out the candles on their cupcake cakes

They are just so cute!

On Sunday we had church, then went to lunch with 4 other families.  The adults sat at a table, the girl kids all smooshed into a booth - 7 of them in one ordinary booth.  And the 3 boys in another booth.  It was fun times.  Then we gave the girls their big present - a trip to build-a-bear with a friend.  They loved it! Audrey picked a cat and named him/her Jewel.  Brooke (and both of the friends) picked reindeer.  Brooke named hers Reiny.

So so happy making their animals!

Monday, their actual birthday,  the girls got to have cupcakes with their class.  And let me tell you they certainly look at you funny at the grocery store buying 40 cupcakes on a Monday morning.  Then for dinner the girls selected their favorite restaurant, McDonalds.  Nice.  Though after the build-a-bear bill, that was a nice treat for me :) And as a special surprise treat one of our friends met us there.

 Waiting for the bus - of course with their new guys!

Veteran's Day and Pep Rally

In honor of Veteran's Day, the girls have been learning some patriotic songs at school.  Here is a little video of them singing them....though I will say that they were doing a much better job earlier in the day when they did not have their silly boxes turned on :)   Audrey has really enjoyed singing these songs and she has been one of the leaders in her class to be up front doing the motions.  She has been very proud of herself!

Totally unrelated video - except we were having so much fun doing videos!  The schools had a community pep rally a week or so ago to celebrate Zachary being the number one school district in the state for the 8th year running.  Each school had a time to cheer and this is what the ZELC did for their turn to show their spirit. (the last part says I'm a pony and I know it - supposed to be sung to I'm sexy and I know it)

Here are some pictures with their teachers from the pep rally too:

 With Brooke's teacher Mrs. Favaloro and one of her classmates Gracie

 With Audrey's teacher Mrs. Mestayer

And after the pep rally, Audrey posing in her pimp hat (though she calls it her cowgirl hat)

They are 5!!!

New Orleans Trip

This past weekend, D and I took a little trip to New Orleans.  D was running a half marathon and I was just along for the ride!  It is so great living so close to my family cause Gramma and Gary are just a quick drive away and are eager to watch the girls and help out.  Match made in heaven as we are eager to have the girls watched :)

We had a great time and and ate a great amount of food.

 Listening to some random, excellent opera singing off of a balcony in the Quarter

D's favorite part of New Orleans

My favorite part of New Orleans

The actual reason that we came

Our fancy night out

Happy Halloween

Every year we take the girls to get their pictures taken in their Halloween costumes...and take our birthday pictures too!  This year the girls selected their costumes on-line.  I was a little concerned how they would turn out, but they both ended up totally adorable!  Audrey really loved her little flamingo - though she frequently would not hold its head up and it was therefore flapping around her knees.  But they both made it through boo at the zoo (for 5 hours!) and being worn to school all day and a full evening of trick-or-treating.

 

Love this picture of Brooke the Tiger!

On the way to school dressed in costume!

At a party before trick or treating.  Only the in costume adults were pictured.  I planned for me and D to be in costume but my costume was an epic fail...twice.

We trick or treated for a little while with the Musselwhites.

During trick or treating.....note the sad little flamingo head hanging down :)

An action shot during the trick or treating

Second Dance Performance

The day after the homecoming parade, the elementary schools had their Fall Fest (which was hard to classify as fall at all as it was BLAZING hot outside). There were lots of games, food, and booths for the kids.  And the girls' dance class was invited to perform again.  The girls were adorable again!  Here are some pics:

Homecoming

Homecoming is a pretty big deal around here.  The theme for this year was Hooray for Hollywood.  Each school is responsible for putting together a float.  Since I have done a little volunteering at the school with the PTO, I have gotten to know Ellen, the person in charge for the early learning center PTO.  So I was part of the group of people working on and creating the float.  The theme that we chose for our float was Finding Nemo.  Due to various issues, we did not start working on our float until the Monday before the parade on Friday.  But in a surprising turn of events, our float won first place!!  And even more exciting was the girls and I got to ride on the float and throw out candy.  Which was hilarious to watch cause all the crowds got very close when they saw a float full of little kids - but those kids had some arms on them and were whopping people in the heads!!

Here are some pics from the parade:

 Lots and lots of pomping!

 This picture is with Audrey's teacher Mrs. Mestayer