What’s that floating in our kiddie pool?
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Oh, it’s just a $500 Walmart gift card I received yesterday in the mail from my online offers! 🙂 I’m at a grand total now of $4,000 in gift cards/gifts on my little hobby! 😉 This offer was my fastest one yet. I started in mid April, and so it took a little under 2 months AND I only spent about $40 to get it!
If you are interested in how I do these offers, please click here. (Or ask me!)
I realized that Asher hasn’t made an appearance on the blog in awhile! Well, let’s check in to see what the Busta’ Man has been up to!
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| splishin’ and a splashin’ |
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| He said, “Cheese!” for this picture |
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| What boy doesn’t love sand and water? |
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| Now what on earth is this boy doing? |
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| Just drinking some water! (Yep, he totally slurped up this water like a dog and tried to go back for seconds!) |
Prepare yourself…I had some really bad sweater days. And sometimes it’s fun to laugh at yourself, so here you go!
We will start with the worst offender. (You may also remember this picture, another example of some great fashion sense.) This picture was taken with my aunt and my cousins. I’m almost surprised that we didn’t have the boys in matching sweaters with mint pants.
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| I’m not sure why my mom thought pastel sweaters was
a good color for Christmas (let alone any time!) And yes, I had a bad home-done perm for about 3 years of my awkward preteen years…sigh. |
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| Again, excuse the perm. I totally remember loving
this sweater that I got for Christmas. The squiggles were ‘raised up’ too, which added to the cool factor. |
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| just another bad sweater day |
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| It’s not so much the sweater in this picture. I think the
pants speak for themselves. I couldn’t even include my face in this picture it was that bad. |
And finally, let’s not forget to give our proper respect to the puffy-painted sweater. I had lots of these, but the picture I found today was the lucky Christmas lights one. Look how I rocked the Christmas present earrings!
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| I can’t claim I was talented enough to make this sweater.
My best friend’s mother did the honors-thanks Linda! |
Rilyn got to choose one friend to bring with her to her birthday dinner on Thursday to Gattiland and she chose Cole. Very sweet. Rilyn and Cole ride to school together every morning and of course we see them all the time since Cole’s parents are our best friends since college and they live on the street behind us.
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| Ella, Rilyn, and Cole |
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| Rilyn is finally tall enough to ride the bumper cars! She didn’t quite go anywhere,
but got bumped around a lot! |
On Friday, Rilyn had a birthday sleepover. When the girls were over we decided to let the butterflies fly free that emerged from their cocoons the previous day.
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| Ella with the butterfly |
At Rilyn’s sleepover, we did crafts, went swimming, ate Happy Meals, had ice cream sundaes, painted our nails, and watched movies! It was a fun-filled girly night and everyone had a good time! Rilyn was the last to fall asleep at about 11 p.m.!
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| ice cream! |
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| sleepy time! |
The next morning was her paint-your-own pottery party. I made a very special cake for her too that I was excited to cut into!
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| Ceramics N More |
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| Rilyn very carefully painting a rainbow unicorn |
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| getting ready to open presents |
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| The top of my 6 layer cake |
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| I love Rilyn’s friend’s face in this picture as James cuts open the Rainbow Cake! |
Rilyn is all about rainbows so making this cake for her was so fun! I learned about it from this blog.
Rilyn is six years old today! She is our precious first born. She is a leader, sensitive, a people-pleaser, and rule-follower to the core. She loves Jesus and the Bible and we are praying for her one day soon to accept Him into her heart. She is responsible, smart, and beautiful. We love our Rilyn Jalie!!! Happy 6th Birthday!
We start every birthday off with walking into their room to wake them up holding a donut with candles in it and singing to them!
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| wake up! |
Rilyn is on the top bunk and as I reached the flaming donut up to her face while taking a picture, part of her hair singed in the flames! Oops! We decided 5 candles will be the maximum limit in a donut!
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| blow! |
So after we stunk up her bedroom with burnt hair, she walked into the kitchen to find it all decorated for her!
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| This face is worth all the effort! |
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| Have to wear your birthday shirt! |
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| She got to open one present before school (from Ella)-a Strawberry Shortcake doll! |
Today is the last day of kindergarten too, so we brought cookies up to her class! How fun!
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| Rilyn and Ella |
And when we got home, the cocoons her Oma and Papaw got her for her birthday started ‘hatching’. What perfect timing! Rilyn and Cole got to watch butterflies come out of their cocoons! Very neat!
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| Rilyn and Cole looking into the butterfly house |
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| inside the butterfly house |
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| Rilyn watching the butterfly emerge from it’s cocoon |
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| monarch butterfly! |
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| As we celebrate Rilyn’s life today, we also celebrate God’s creation of new life! |
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As promised, here is Ella’s dance recital routine to Someday My Prince Will Come. Hope you get a few laughs, (Ella is the center dancer)!
We had a great weekend with family here to see the girls’ dance recital yesterday.
Here is James and Rilyn’s dance to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire. This was the finale and it did not disappoint! We will post later some of Ella’s dances that were really cute (mainly because she was bossing girls around the stage!).
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| our family |
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Later that evening, we went to the Oasis to celebrate James’ mom’s birthday!
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| James’ family |
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| sunset capital of Texas |
I had fun taking pictures of the girls that night!
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| ella’s freckles! |
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| brown eyed girl |
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And this is what I caught Rilyn doing on one of the decks at the Oasis. A true girly girl who was probably wishing on a star and dreaming…
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Have you ever had a moment where you wanted to cry and laugh at the same time? Well, I could kick myself for not bringing my video camera to the girls’ dance rehearsal yesterday! And, I’m so glad for rehearsals because Ella would have been MORTIFIED if the same thing happened at the actual recital. You see, we discovered at the rehearsal that the stage floor is very slippery for tap shoes and my poor Ella tried her hardest, but fell while tapping to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” like 4 times! Each time she fell, her face got more grimaced, until finally, it was too much and Ms. Jen came out to rescue her from her tears. I felt so bad for Ella! She was really embarrassed and told us she wasn’t going to dance on Saturday because everyone will laugh at her. 😦 After seaching with my swagbucks last night though, I discovered that duct tape on the bottom of her taps will simply solve the problem! Here’s to hoping and praying! (And if not, I will have my video camera rolling this time!)
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| Jen tries to comfort a sobbing Ella |
Another “glad it’s rehearsal” moment for me:
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| Ella’s boa liner tore off of her tutu at rehearsal (you can see it hanging down a bit)I’ll be fixing that tonight! |
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| Anna and Ella dancing to “someday my prince will come” |
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| so precious! |
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| Rilyn is on the far left. About to dance to Defying Gravity from the Glee soundtrack |
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| another reason rehearsals are good for Rilyn! 😉 |
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| This picture was taken before the tap shoe debacle. Ella in the center. |
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| The finale is a dad/daughter dance to Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack!James and Rilyn at the far left. |
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| James and Rilyn at the center front |
If you live in the Austin area, please come to the recital! Saturday, May 29th at 4 p.m. (lasts 30 minutes) at Manor Middle School cafeteria!
Rilyn had her kindergarten awards ceremony today! Her best part of the day? Getting her first trophy (she got a medal for soccer this season), for being in the top 5 for AR (Accelerated Reader) points in kindergarten! Yay Rilyn!!! (And I have to give myself props too, because I’m the one who stayed after school and read her books and quizzes on the library computer so she could get points!) 🙂 Rilyn’s last day of school is on her birthday, Thursday, June 3rd! I’m betting it will be a good day!
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| Rilyn getting her name called. |
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| Certificate of completion of kindergarten! |
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| Good Citizenship award too! |
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| so proud! |
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| first trophy |
the paquettes 