Maggie the Triathlete

It's literally been so long since I've blogged that Blogger has changed the format for posting and I'm having a hard time figuring it out.  Sorry for some of the sideways pictures.  I can't figure out how to rotate them and why they are appearing sideways in the first place.  Oh well.  I'll add it to the list of things to do.  : )

Maggie participated in her first triathlon.  It was a kids only triathlon...50 meter swim, 2.5 mile bike, .5 mile run for those 10 and under.  For the 11-14 year olds it was a bit longer.  Anyway...she ROCKED IT!!!!!  She was in the 7-8 year old age group (she's 7) and I think there were 66 of them total with about 30 of them being 7 year olds.  Anyway, she came in 16th overall with the highlight being that she came in 4th overall out of the 7 year olds and 1st in the run portion for the 7 year olds.  She was tied for 2nd in the entire 7-8 year old age group for the run portion and only lost 1st place by 4 seconds!  She lost a lot of time in the transition putting on clothes and got a bit lost finding her "parking spot" in the transition area after the bike portion so she could have done a lot better with her time.  Oh well, we live and learn and won't put on so many clothes next time.  She had fun and we are so proud of her. 

 

 When we arrived we checked in and got body marked and the whole bit, just like the real thing!

 Then we had a long 2 hour wait until her heat started.  We watched all the older kids so she'd know what to expect and tried to stay cool. 

 All ready to start!  Nervous but excited. 

 Finally her heat was called.

 She was 2nd out of the pool in her heat and then was off to her bike.

 After finally finding her parking spot she was off to the races!

Hot and red faced she finished!!!!  Thankfully potato chips were waiting at the finish line...maybe that's why she ran so fast????? 

Shake that

There is really no excuse for my children sometimes...the dancing skills of the Kelly children are definitely NOT top notch. Gymnastics - yes...dancing and singing - not so much. But they LOVE to dance and sing, especially Maya. She's our little rock star. : ) Enjoy! I hope this brings a smile to your face the way it does to mine every time I watch it.

Beads

I know, I know...I have been a delinguent blogger. I looked at the date to see that it has been over a month since I last posted. Oops. Honestly, we really haven't been doing anything interesting enough to take a picture of...that and I got a new iPhone and just tonight figured out how to get the pictures off of it. : )

Here's a snippet from the other day. Maya got out these beads and was making designs. Then she asked me to play with her and I was instructed to count all the beads in the bucket. I decided that this should be a teachable moment and put the beads in groups of 10 in each square in the table.
Then we got out the sticky notes and wrote out the numbers, by 10s and put them in the squares next to the beads.

Easy lesson on counting by 10s! She's been practicing ever since. : )

Goldy Gopher

We went to the U of Minnesota women's gymnastics meet last night. Maya was in fine form as per usual, wearing her bouncy suit and doing full on beam routines on the bleachers. Gotta love this kid!

Micey Monkey

Maya's latest dance/gymnastics routine. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t10wKSf7EKE

Found

Sorting clothes the other day I found ALL this in Maya's dirty clothes hamper. Brace yourself...

2 skirts from the "too small box"
3 clean, and still folded T-shirts
5 pairs of clean and still folded pants
1 clean summer dress
1 clean sweatshirt
2 dress up tu-tu's and 1 dress up shirt
4 swimsuits
1 American Girl doll hat and dress
1 pair of rolled up clean socks
2 plastic bracelets
1 random paper butterfly

This could possibly be her biggest haul ever, although I have found some amazing things in her dirty hamper. Gotta love this kid.

Lazy Sunday

Beauty shop-ing

Snuggling
Begging

Pouting

Working

Lego building

Fort constructing

Sleeping/TV watching

Now that's what I call a lazy Sunday!

I'm so glad Santa brought the girls these Rudolph noses in their stockings. The only thing better would have been if they actually blinked red like they were supposed to. This is one of my favorite pictures from Christmas!

Maya's Christmas Program

Maya had her Christmas program on Thursday. It was pretty much a repeat of what we saw 2 years ago with Maggie. Same anges, shephards, wiseman and Mary and Joseph, same songs.
Not that it wasn't totally cute though. How can 4 and 5 year olds NOT be cute when they're wearing these adorable angel costumes.

I mean..come on...isn't she the cutest little angel you've ever seen!

She belted out the Christmas carols, changed to fit her classes theme of going "Around the World". To us it was like deja vu, but she thought it was great.

Even the same teachers....who are fabulous by the way. And the nicest people you will ever meet. They are the ones who should be wearing angel suits...there are some characters in Maya's class that definitely require the patience of angels. : )

What we've been up to...

We've been busy...as is obvious by the lack of blog posts. As you can see from the pictures below, we've been busy!

First it was Bella's birthday. Our little lovely is now 9 years old. She got a new (on clearance from Halloween) spider which she promptly tore apart and destroyed the squeaker. She also got homemade pupcake treats that were a hit!
The Christmas tree was found, purchased and decorated...after about 3 trips to Target to get lights. Sigh.....

Maya's been quite the little performer lately. We've been attending LOTS of performance, both of the singing and gymnastics/dance variety. Very entertaining.

Here she's singing a Christmas carol, but usually its one of her kids CDs and let me tell you - she is quite the diva!

Maya and her BFF Lily have been playing...ok, mostly dancing and dressing up.

One day when Lily, Meghan and Chase were over, I set this sensory tub for Chasey so the girls could do a craft at the table without him drooling all over everything. Lets just say the girls liked the tub as much as Chase did.

Ahhh, they finally got to the craft...decorating Christmas shapes with stickers, glue and other stuff found in the craft bins. : )Here are the results of multiple crafts.

I found a couple of recipies for chocolate goodies and were just begging to be tried, so I enlisted Maya and Lily to help. Good thing Maya went and found those little aprons. I know the table looks clean in the picture, but trust me, it was COVERED in chocolate, as were the girls for the most part. : )

These Giant Mallow Cups and Christmas Krunch bars were super yummy!

So that's what we've been up to. Today we traded in the girls too-small ice skates for new ones that actually fit and headed to the rink. Their skating is much improved from last year already on our first time out. We are crediting it to their roller blades, but who knows. Pictures to come. : ) Tomorrow we're off to the Macy's display and the Holidazzle parade. Good stuff!

False Start

False start to Christmas. Maya found her Santa gift in the office closet tonight while I was at work. She and Aaron were playing hide and seek until she spotted that pink beauty in the closet. He said she was NOT to be denied that car! : ) I knew it was THE gift this year for her since she just got her American Girl doll for her birthday from Grammy and Poppy! Aaron said it was all he could do to get her not to go to bed with it! Gotta love it, even if it means I need a plan B for her Santa gift. Hmmmm.... : )

Maya turns 5!

Maya Brynn Kelly is 5 years old!

I know its hard to believe, but its true! Since her real birthday was on a Monday, we celebrated on the weekend. First up...presents!!!!

The BEST PRESENT EVER!!! A new balance beam from Grandma and Grandpa and mom and dad!
Next best, a new workout outfit from Auntie Callie. She LOVES it!

Is there any doubt she likes it?? : )

No birthday would be complete without one of mommy's famous princess cakes.

With her birthday being on a Monday and since we were unable to celebrate that evening due to me working and Maggie being at gymnastics, we picked up Lily and headed out to the Mall of America to ride the rides! You used to get in free on your birthday...to all of you who are thinking this as I was...not true anymore. Bummer.

They had the Diego bus all to themselves!

Giddy up horsey!

Their favorite..the swings!

Ready to ride the frog hopper (or whatever its called!)

The looks on their faces were priceless!

Choo-choo!

Ready for the hot air balloons to lift off.

Checkin' out the sights at the top of the ferris wheel, sporting her new shirt Lily got her. They visited Winter the dolphin on their trip to Florida. So cool!

Another favorite, the little roller coaster. It got an "this is awesome!"

Oh yeah! Hands up!

Add in a trip to look around the American Doll store and lunch at McDonalds and you get a great 5th birthday!