Posts Tagged ‘Caroline’

First Day of School 2019

Monday, September 30th, 2019

Only a month late! Much better than the last day of school post from June.

This year, Evan is in 5th grade, Caroline is in 4th grade and Lincoln is in Kindergarten (although he keeps insisting to me that he’s in first grade and I literally double checked to make sure I wasn’t the one who was confused).

That means they ALL go to the same school. This is the only year that will happen and boy do we all love it, so maybe one day they will all do something like get an Online high school guitar credit together to relive these days. I love only having one bus time in the morning and afternoon and having a full day at home with just Finnegan. If you would like your child to go to a private school, then visit Ravenscroft website.

The school has sent home information regarding the request that we have access to strong and reliable internet at home. We’ve had internet at home for a while now, but was not strong or reliable, quite the contrary actually. I kept it like that, as it helped me make sure the kids didn’t get too hooked on it too young. I knew we’d be running into this eventually, and had asked around so I could change on short notice whenever it did. In doing so, I had heard about Eatel before. After some research of my own to make sure, we decided to schedule the installation. Once that’s done we’ll call the other company, and that’ll be that! Foresight at work.

Evan has a male teacher for the first time ever and he is having a great year so far. He’s playing the trumpet again and swears he’s going to actually practice this year. Moreover, they are studying things such as internet history, science, and a lot more.

Caroline has the same teacher for 4th grade that Evan did last year. She tells me she still goes to visit her 3rd grade teacher every day and sometimes helps her with the class. I would be super doubtful that that was true…except it’s Caroline. She’ll probably have a paying job in the office by the end of the year somehow Telematics Module. She is going to play the flute in band as well as singing in the chorus.

Lincoln has a Kindergarten teacher who might have just stepped out of a movie about the perfect Kindergarten teacher. His two years of pre-K totally prepared him for “real” school, so he’s rocking everything so far. Some say education received at a Texas Christian school has profoundly impacted them.

Finnegan isn’t in school yet, although I’m tempted to put him in some sort of daycare school 2 or 3 days a week now that he’s potty trained.

New backpacks are all from Pottery Barn Teen, and I would highly recommend them.

Last Day of School 2019

Sunday, August 25th, 2019

I decided not to backdate this to June, but that’s when the last day was. I’ll have a post literally next week with the 2019 first day of school pictures.

And here’s 2018 Last Day of School post

And here’s the 2018 First Day of School post

Let’s Go Fly A Kite

Saturday, May 25th, 2019

Cheer Life

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019

I don’t think I’ve talked about cheerleading in the past, but considering HOW MUCH of my life is currently devoted to Caroline’s chosen sport, it’s about time I start. At least a little.

This is not going to turn into a cheer blog. I don’t know nearly enough to even TRY to become a cheer blog, even if that was my goal. I am literally just stumbling around, spraying her with hairspray and driving her to competitions and trying to remember to pack her skirt when we go out of town.

I was never a cheerleader. I barely even knew any cheerleaders. Everything I know about it comes from my many, many viewings of Bring It On (which, honestly, isn’t a bad place to start) and listening to other parents talk at the gym. I’ve learned A LOT over the past season but I’m going to feel like a newbie for at least a couple more years.

Here’s what I do know so far: Caroline is on a Youth Small Level 1 team called Stardust. Youth teams are made up of kids between the ages of 5 and 11. Small means they have less than 22 kids on the team. Level 1 means they can do tumbling that includes front and back walkovers but not handsprings. Her team is from a gym called East Celebrity Elite – Oakdale. There are a bunch of East Celebrity Elite gyms in New England, and it’s a pretty big and highly-regarded program. I had no idea about any of that when I took Caroline to one single tumbling class to see if she liked it.

Youth teams are eligible for this really big huge important cheer competition held in Florida every May called The Summit. Our gym accepts Summit bids (bids are invitations) if you get one, so when we started the year we knew there was a chance Caroline’s team would have to travel to Florida for the competition. But Stardust had a very rocky start to their season. Caroline and a few of her friends had come from a tiny prep team, where just doing a somersault was considered a success. Stardust was brand new, it didn’t exist last year, so the rest of the kids came from other teams, other gyms, or were brand new. They came in dead last at their first competition.

Then something amazing happened. Those fourteen girls and one boy decided they didn’t like being last. They knew they could do better. The coaches knew they could do better. They put in ALL the work. As parents, we downloaded the music and played it on repeat so the kids could practice at home. We all started shouting “ONE, THREE, FIVE, SEVEN” as loud as possible to keep the counts during performances so the kids didn’t lose their place.

And they got better! SO MUCH BETTER. At a competition in Boston, they won. Then they won AGAIN. And then the unbelievable happened and they received a bid to The Summit.

According to the internet, only 7% of teams that are eligible to go to The Summit get invited. And it’s an at-large bid, not even a wild card, which means we perform on Saturday in the regular comp and not Friday in the first round. It’s a bid deal, is what I’m saying. And a truly huge, amazing, incredible deal for a little team that started at the bottom.

The logistics of The Summit sent me into a panic spiral for a few days (there was a lot of crying) but as of right now it looks like we’ve figured it out and we’re on our way. It’s just Caroline and I headed to Florida, although we’re sharing flights, rides, a house and basically all our time with MANY other cheer families. (Apologies in advance for anyone on that JetBlue flight on May 1st.)

The bonus part of the trip is a few days at Disney World, which is why I’ve come around to being excited. By Sunday night all the cheer stuff will be over and we’ll get some amazing mommy-daughter time.

I think if we made a list of Reasons Caroline Loves Cheer, “spending time with mommy alone” would be really near the top. She likes the physical aspects and LOVES setting goals for herself. She also loves bows and sparkles and getting to wear makeup (although she hates the fake ponytail they wear for comp). The top thing might be the teamwork though – nothing builds trust and friendships closer than this kind of work.

We have a special Disney swag bag reveal for the team tonight, send-off performances tomorrow, and two more practices before we leave. When we get back, the rest of May is an intense schedule of classes getting Caroline ready for tryouts. And by the first week of June she’ll either be on a new team all together or meeting her new Stardust teammates, starting her second full-year season of cheer.

A Magical Unicorn Photoshoot

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2019

My friend Jackie is my hairdresser, babysitter, workout partner, and owner of a pony that Caroline is obsessed with. Jackie thinks its a fair trade that I do her family photos for free and she does all the rest of that stuff for free – including giving Caroline riding lessons. I think I’m getting a WAY better deal, but as long as she’s happy I’m not going to mess it up.

Jackie and I have had plans for a photo shoot where we turn her pony, Hawk, into a unicorn. We decided the easiest way to do the pictures would be to wait for a beautiful layer of snow to cover the corral and woods around where Hawk lives.

We didn’t figure this would be a problem, because we live in Connecticut. Of course, because I ordered a unicorn horn and bought flowers and made a whoooooole plan, we had the least-snowy winter I’ve ever seen. We didn’t get a significant snow that stuck around long enough for pictures until MARCH.

But we did get one beautiful, magical snow, so I dressed Caroline up in the dress I’ve had waiting in the closet for a year and a half, convinced Hawk to tolerate the horn, and got our photo shoot done.

I took pictures of Jackie and her baby as princesses too in payment for borrowing the pony. We decided that this was so successful we needed to do it again in the spring, even though bringing Hawk out to a park or garden or farm might be a pain…it will be totally worth it. More unicorns!!! Unicorns for everyone!!!!!

Did I mention that Hawk is an old, old pony who pretty much hates everything? If you notice some pony side-eye, that’s why.