February 24th

Jack had a cheerleading competition today at the High School. It was an all-day affair for him that started when we dropped him off at 9am. While the rest of the family went to church, Jack had some practice time with his squad, and then they cheered for the boy's basketball team who were at a tournament at the High School as well. Then we came back in time to see the cheerleading competition in the afternoon, and finally were able to go home and relax after 3pm. Whew, what a day! Jack did awesome, his squad came in 1st place for their dance routine. He will receive a medal, and there will be a trophy in the school's trophy case for the cheerleading squad's achievement! And now, with cheerleading, spelling bees, and mathletes competitions behind us...on to Drama Club. The fun just never ends around here!

February 23rd

Tonight is the Daddy Daughter Dance at school. The girls have been looking forward to this for weeks, and Russ made a special trip to town (two weeks in a row even!) The girls each got a new dress and shoes, and even wanted Mom to curl their hair. I have some other pictures, but I love this one because of Carmie's face!

February 21st

Well now THIS is more like it. We had a much better Spelling Bee tonight at Cowherd Middle School here in Aurora. They were definitely calling words from the right list. The dictionary they were using was not quite up to par, but don't let me get started on that! Jack lasted 19 rounds and got stumped on ERRAND which he mis-heard and didn't ask for it to be used in a sentence. The final outcome was a 3rd place victory for my little man...and we are just on cloud 9 here at the Russell home. All 12 participants got a medal and a framed certificate, and the top 3 each got a trophy, as well. In addition to his mom & sisters, Jack's buddy Keith came along to cheer him on and his teacher and the assistant principal were there, too. Way to go, Jack!

February 20th

There was a total eclipse tonight. We noticed the full moon on the way to church for Awana around 6pm, and while I was there, another mom mentioned the eclipse, so on the way home, the kids and I tried to watch it through the van windows and got home just to see the last sliver of bright moon disappear...you could still see the shape of the moon, but it was not as bright as earlier. We were impressed, and after getting the kids all tucked in bed, I tried to take the tripod out and get a picture. There was way too much camera shake without the tripod, and then even with it, it shook a little when I pressed the shutter button. But this is as good as it got. It didn't look this bright in person, but the shutter stayed open a long time looking into the night sky. As the moon started to reappear, I tried again, but the camera didn't want to lock in focus like it did when I took this picture. One of these days I'll take a photography class...

February 15th

Well this cold is really knocking me out. But I fond some cough syrup that works, and got a good night's sleep thanks to some NyQuil, so today I was actually functioning. It was a busy day, too. My class had their first field trip of the year along with the 1st graders and so Gina and I got to see a play at the Paramount in downtown Aurora. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of either of us there. In the evening though, was Jack's big county-wide spelling bee. We were kind of surprised that it wasn't just 5th graders, but it was including kids from 4th grade on up to 8th grade...eek! To make matters worse, it seems we did not have the correct list to study from...and while Jack was quite comfortable spelling words like ubiquitous, prerogative, and metamorphosis....there were countless other words that were asked that we had never thought to study like contraband which was the word they asked Jack in the first round. It was such a disappointment, but we are trying to keep our chins up and just start studying all over again for next week's district-wide spelling bee. My picture of the day is Jack introducing himself to the judges at the beginning of the spelling bee.

February 14th

Well I didn't take any pictures on the 14th, so this was taken on the 15th at the spelling bee, too. I thought it was cute though. Russ was supposed to come into town on the 14th but missed his flight. So he didn't arrive until Friday afternoon. The kids were thrilled he made it, of course, and are looking forward to spending the weekend with Daddy.

February 12th

Spelling bee champ AND math whiz! Jack and one other boy represented Allen School at the Mathletes competition tonight and the two of them beat all the other (12 total) schools in our district to be the 5th grade champs! This is him holding up his participation trophy. The school will have a plaque to put up in the front of the building for the 1st place win. We are not sure about his score for the individual test, he didn't place for that, but what a rush to see him succeed like this again! I'm just one proud mama tonight. Wahoo for Jack!

February 11th

Well darnit, how did I fall behind? That's what I get for being sick I guess. I will just have to post a couple of pictures from tonight and vow to never fall behind again, haha. Tonight the girls were excited to make their valentines for their classmates. I remember doing this with Gigi when we were growing up. :)



And this picture is proof of me being a mean mom. They are opening a magnet school in our district and I am "making" Nora apply (only kids going into 5th grade are eligible for the first year.) So tonight, Nora had to start writing an essay about why she wants to go to the magnet school...and she doesn't want to go. But she's going to at least apply, to make her mother happy, and then we will see what happens from there.

February 7th

I took a personal day today in order to spend some one-on-one time with Carmella and chaperone her field trip to Chinatown in Chicago. I had never been there, so really enjoyed the opportunity. We had a little tour/history lesson (indoors because of the weather and slushy mess that was out on the streets) and then enjoyed a delicious lunch before walking around a little and shopping for souvenirs and taking lots of pictures. This is one of my favorites.

February 6th

It's all coming down, just in baby steps!

February 5th

This picture cracks me up...Gina with her big toothless grin & our neighbor Angie with those eyes wide open. They were listening to the kids' choice music channel and dancing to whatever teeny bopper was singing at the moment. TOO CUTE!

February 4th

Well it finally came - 100 Day at school. Gotta love these glasses!

February 3rd

Whoops, didn't take a picture today. Good thing I took a couple yesterday! That was Jack playing out in the snow. Yes, he has 2 different gloves on. You can't see it, but he also has 2 different shoes on. Boys!

February 2nd

One photo today was just not enough. Thanks to all that snow and our SNOW DAY, the kids got to go out and play. Well the big kids anyway, poor Gina was sick. And if you were wondering how a girl with a broken foot and a fracture brace goes out in the snow, I thought I would show you...we call it the plastic bag boot!

February 1st

It's a SNOW DAY!!! Believe it or not...my school district with no busses has only had 3 snowdays in the last 10 years (or something like that) and they actually called a snow day. When I got outside to shovel the driveway though, I'm glad they did. There was at least a foot of snow out there, and here you can see the pile on one side of the driveway. I don't know why these kids didn't want to sleep in though, every other school day it's like pulling teeth to get them out of bed! Poor Gina was upset because she was sooo looking forward to 100 Day, but Monday will be here before we know it.