Another Competition, Another Birthday

This past Saturday was another competition day for Nina’s team.  We were back in Maryland, but this time we were at a high school which was a much different venue than her previous competition.  Saturday was also Mark’s birthday.  He was supposed to coach his boys’ team during the same time as her competition, but he got someone to cover the game, thankfully, so he and Lyla got to come this time.

 

As is the usual routine, we take Nina to meet up with her team, then we really don’t see her until after the team performs.  They are busy getting together as a team, warming up, practicing, etc.

They had a great performance on Saturday.  You could tell that they had more confidence having gotten their first competition experience behind them.  

 

 

Nina was especially excited because Mousey came to see her.  It was much appreciated because she had to drive a little over and hour there and back to watch a short routine, but it meant so much to Nina that she came.  

Thankfully, Nina’s team performed much earlier in the day this competition (as compared to their first one), so we got home with half of the day left to enjoy.  We finished the day off celebrating Mark with a dinner of ribs, coleslaw, cornbread, sweet potato fries, and cake.  It was a full Saturday, but a good one!

  

 

 

Birthays Continued

My birthday started out pretty well on Saturday.  Since Mark’s travel team had late games on Saturday evening, we did a fun dinner on Friday, then he made a delicious breakfast on Saturday morning.  I started with a spinach, feta, and turkey bacon omelet...

 

…then that was followed up by homemade Cinnabons.  They were amazing!!!  It was a delicious way to start the day!  The rest of my birthday was business as usual with both girls having practice, Mark having games, etc., but we got to continue the birthday celebrating for the March birthdays the next day at Mousey and Poppy’s house.

  

Before dinner, Lyla got her present from Mousey and Poppy.  It was hidden in the garage under blankets, but as soon as she saw what it was, she was so excited!

 

She proceeded to ride it until the battery went dead.  It’s easy to say that she LOVES her new Pocket Mod Scooter!

 

 

While Lyla was riding, the girls were running, trying to get the attention of the horses, and taking a turn on the scooter.  When they stopped for a minute, I looked at these two and realized how grown up they’re getting so quickly.  They are beautiful girls on the inside and out!  Time needs to slow down!!!

We came in from scooter riding and had a fabulous dinner to celebrate Bo, Lyla, Mark, and I.  It was a great way to cap off a week of birthday celebration!

Lyla's Birthday

After getting home very late the night before, Lyla didn’t have a hard time getting up the next morning on her birthday.  She woke up, came out of her room and started singing, “It’s my birthday, I can do what I want to..” (to the tune of It’s my party I can cry if I want to…) and that’s pretty much how the day went.

 

She and Cayenne crashed Nina’s room then she had donuts and got to open one small present before going to school.  I had to teach in the morning, then I brought Lyla McDonalds (her request) for lunch at school.  After school, she got some treats from friends on the street, had a lovely day to play outside, then we had Bo and Brittany over for make-your-own pizza dinner that evening.  

 

Before the evening, I tried to put the finishing touches on Lyla’s cake.  Every year, the girls get a special cake on their birthday of their request, and this year, Lyla wanted a chocolate cake with some blue icing and lots of gummies and jelly beans.  So…the result was a Gummy World cake.  

 

The blue icing is supposed to be water, and there are gummy sharks and fish in the water, the jelly beans are rocks, and on the green icing (grass) are gummy bunnies watching.  Crawling in the earth (in between the layers) are gummy worms.  While it clearly wasn’t my finest decorating job in all the years, it made our birthday girl very happy, so that made me happy too.

  

After pizza dinner, she opened up the rest of her presents, and then we had cake.

March 8th is a special day because we get to celebrate both Bo and Lyla - two people I love so much!!!   It’s a fun tradition to have these two together to celebrate their day!

So, Happy 9th Birthday to our sweet, smart, funny, kind, and lovely Lyla!  We love you so much!!!!

Soccer Celebration

For Lyla’s birthday this year, she really wanted to go horseback riding.  We were given a couple recommendations to try the trail ride at the Marriott Ranch in Hume, VA as supposedly it’s an amazing experience.  So, I called about doing that, but the trail rides don’t start until April.  I got reservations for us to do the trail ride, but we wanted something special for Lyla to do around the time of her birthday.  

 

We found out that the US Women’s National Team was playing France in the She Believes Cup the night before Lyla’s birthday, so Mark got us tickets to go to the game.  Since Mark couldn’t go (work and training for his travel team), Lyla got to invite a friend, and she chose Ryleigh.  The girls got out of school early, we picked up Ryleigh, and we got down to RFK in time to see the second half of the first game - Germany vs. England.  Thankfully, we had warm, dry seats in the Mezzanine because it started raining during the first game and never really completely stopped the rest of the night.  

 

The US team played pretty poorly, unfortunately, but the girls still had a great time!  The only bad part of the night was trying to get out of there after the game.  We left our seats with 8 minutes left in the game, but it didn’t do us any good.  We were stuck in a mess in the parking lot for over an hour after the game, but once we finally got free, I took three tired girls back home, and yes, they had to get up for school the next morning, but it was a great experience for the girls to go to their first national team game.  

   

Nina's First Competition

This past Sunday was the first competition for Nina’s cheer team.  This has been a season of firsts for us.  This is our first experience with anything cheer, so we’ve learned a lot.  First of all, we learned that this is not cheer with pom poms and standing on the sideline of a football field.  These girls are are tumbling, stunting, and doing some dance in a routine set to music.  It’s competitive, athletic, and it’s what Nina likes at the moment, so this has been a good experience for her this year to be on the Dynamite team at FitWize.

Unlike playing other sports that I’m familiar with, it's a whole thing when it comes to the hair and the cheer bow.  We were given video tutorials on the hair and bow and the challenge is to get to not only to look good when you get ready to leave the house, but it’s got to look good after 2 hours in a car ride, wait time, warm ups, and finally the real thing.  Needless to say, it takes a little time in preparation, but Nina is good with it, and even though she’s told me this look isn’t “her style” (and not mine either), she looks lovely and the hair held up great!

This past Sunday’s competition was at Towson University, so we drove up to Maryland for the second half of the day to be there at the competition.  The girls did great.  They took second place in their group.  Nina was a little disappointed about the second place finish, of course she wanted first, but for their first competition together, I thought they should be proud, and Nina did a fantastic job with her part, her tumbling passes, etc.  

 

It was a late night by the time it was all said and done, then there was still the 2 hour ride back home and school the next day, but Nina said she had a lot of fun and enjoyed the time hanging out with her team and her first time performing in front of judges.