Happy Happy Birthday to Kelsey!!!

WOW!! It so hard to believe that this little one right here is 11 years old today. Where does the time go? One minute she is playing with Teletubbies and the next minute she is asking for a cell phone. She is still my sweet baby girl no matter how old she may be. Today she took chocolate chip cookies to share with her class to celebrate her big day. Friday she will have a sleep over with a few girls plus Landry if he gets his way. We are going to go to Bucca di Beppo for dinner, yum! I hope she has a great day at school!!! We love you Kelsey!!

Relay for Life 2009

We celebrated with others in Frisco the fight against cancer at Relay for Life. Our team is Team Ashley and this was our second year to participate. It is hard to explain to some why this is so important to me. First all the money goes directly to the American Cancer Society to help find a cure and to help people who are fighting right now to become a survivor. Our team is named in Honor of Ashley Piltz a little 5 year old girl who is a cancer survivor. Ashley was in my class last year and we have become good friends. Kelsey and Landry love her and she has a wonderful family. Wendy, Ashley's mom, is an amazing person and I am so honored she is a friend. We also have another good friend on our team, Melody, who is a teacher at our school and is a cancer survivor. She is young also. At 26 she is a mother and has battled cancer on a couple of occasions. So those two beautiful people keep me returning to Relay. And also to walk in memory of my mom. I can not believe that this will be the 10th anniversary of her passing. Sometimes it feels just like yesterday and others like a life time ago.
Our date for Relay was originally set for May 1st but as you know there was a flu traveling around that caused lots of things to be cancelled or a date change and Relay was no exception. With so many lowered immune systems I get the idea of a date change, but with the date change meant a lot of our team could not help us out or walk with us. We were so sad that Ashley and her family could not be at the Relay on the new date, but with good reason ... she was on her Make a Wish trip to meet Elvis in California on a beach! Yes Ashley loves Elvis!! :)

This is our team outside of the AWESOME castle that Tiffanie and her husband Rocky made. So cute but oh so heavy to move and set up. They did such a great job and we won "Cutest Camp Site". Also you will see our popcorn popper - we sold popcorn for our own site fund raiser. In front of the group you see sacks and those are the Luminaries that people purchased in Honor, in Memory of, for a caregiver - when it got dark the Luminaria ceremony began and the bags were lit while a bagpiper played and on the video screen they showed the names listed on all the bags. Such a movie time.

Through out the night there were bands playing and contests. One of the contests was the people mache - each team could only bring newspaper and duct tape and create something on a person. Debra was awesome with her princess idea and guess what ???? We won first place!! Look how awesome Kelsey looks in her paper/duct tape dress - oh and this was at 2 am.

I was so excited to see some friends stop by, Pattie and Todd Wilson, came out from a town over - so fun to see them!! They are both from my home town and get this - Todd and I have known each other since Kindergarten, now that is a while, and Pattie since 6th grade.

Did I mention that Ashley was the Honorary Chairperson for Relay for Life Frisco ?? She was and they made a video of her to play at the ceremony since she could not be there. It was great to see her on the screen since she could not be with us.

A bad storm started brewing around 230 am and the winds were blowing so hard. The City of Frisco decided we needed to shut down and get out fast. It was amazing how we got the camp down and packed up so quickly. We were out of there by 315 am. We did have to go back this morning to pick up the castle. It was too crazy to get it when the storm hit so they let us leave it and come back for it. We shall see what next brings for us ..... hope some of you join us :). We appreciate all of the wonderful donations that were given to us all!!!

Guess who Lost a tooth???

On Mother's Day, Landry lost his very first tooth. I really did not think we would loose one for some time because they all felt pretty secure. Then all of a sudden Sunday morning he had a loose tooth - out of no where. He worked and wiggled it throughout the day and then in the evening he just pulled it out. He did let me take a picture. And he was very excited to put it under his pillow.

Student of the Week ....

Landry was so excited recently to be named Student of the Week in his Kindergarten class. Part of the fun was his friends traced him on paper and helped color his person. Landry thought that was so fun! Then each child got to say something about Landry and his teacher wrote it on the "Landry" drawing. Some of our favorites were "I like his hair", "I like his eyes." , "He builds great with blocks.", "He is respectful to his friends". All so cute!! We have the "Landry" on the wall in the office. I got to go read a couple of books to the class that Landry picked out. He was on cloud 9. He has grown so much since starting school. He is learning and having such a great time. He has made lots of friends. What a big boy I have now. It will be sad next year with Kelsey in middle school and Landry by himself in elementary school. I really think they have enjoyed being in school together.