Olive's Regional Reflections Awards Ceremony

We found out a few weeks ago that Olive's photo from Reflections that won a prize of excellence at her school had also won at the regional level and is moving on to state. This is a really big accomplishment and we are so proud of her. To win at the region level means that she was competing against all the other kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders in the whole district. It is very prestigious. We honestly had no expectations of her photo moving on because she was going to be against such older competition so when we found out we were shocked. There are roughly 15,000 finalist at the state level but if they win there they go to Nationals. Crazy right? The awards night was very impressive and extra special because we got to go with just Olive. 

Here she is in front of the display table with the other visual winners.

Her awesome photo!

She had lots of love and support there, we are so glad Grandma Lulu and Grandpa Kerry could make it. 

We had to take a photo of the proud parents. 

And a selfie!

There was a really great program of all the winners. There is some major talent in these schools. We were all so impressed. Olive liked watching the film winners and music winners. Then it was time for the awards. Here she is receiving her medal, announced by the superintendent of the district. 

I think this picture is cute because she looks adorable bouncing back to her seat but also because, see that little boy in the background? He was in her preschool class and he was so excited when he recognized her and saw her win. 

Winner winner!

Here are all the winners in a picture to be put on the school district website and be featured in the Murray Journal. Doesn't she look like a little peanut? 

Grandma Kathleen and Grandpa Tod admiring her new bling. 

I was such a proud mama that night. This girl never ceases to amaze me!

MLK Weekend

For MLK weekend we tried to make it as fun as possible. I mean, it is January which just sucks in itself so we need some extra fun. It helped that Olive had almost three days of school off for the weekend so that we had lots of time to play and do fun things. She attends afternoon preschool but randomly they had school in the morning on that Friday (because public school schedules are crazy). So I decided to go to the dinosaur museum for lunch and some good old play time. We hadn't been in over a year so the kids loved it!

Here is the picture that I sent to Scott to rub it in that we were having a fun lunch date without him but really it was to tell him we missed him. 

The had a "Tinkering" exhibit that had all these cool stations with different cause and effect things. They also had a station that had a stop motion movie maker and so we made a funny little movie. 

The kids always love this part where you get to build your own dinosaur. Since it had been so long since our last visit everything was new and very exciting to Milo. 

Olive doing her best dinosaur roar! Isn't she the cutest thing ever?

Olive was really impressed and surprised by how big all the dinosaur bones were and asked a lot of interesting questions. I love to see her little mind work and her world grow. She is one smart cookie. 

Milo loved the giant sand table, of course! But he hated that little apron (it lasted for 2 seconds)

The kids did their own thing for a really long time and then Olive came over and found Milo. She was impressed with the big pile he had made and then they worked on it together for a really long time. It was so cute. 

A cute little moment while we waited for Olive to wash her hands off. 

These two are sometimes great friends and I try to remember those moments (which I am not very good at) when they are being terrible friends. In all honesty, it's not Olive at all. She loves that little brother of hers to death. It's just Milo being 2. 

Ahhh....there's a giant shark behind you!

We had to dig for fossils! It was pretty crowded in there but the kids still loved it. 

On Saturday Olive had ski lessons of course. Then on Monday we went out to lunch with some friends and played at the playground. Always a winner. After that we headed to the indoor pool which was jam packed, as expected, but since it was free for us it was perfect. We swam with our cousins for a few hours and then went home. It was one of those days where Milo asked to take a nap. That is always a good day. 

 Our kids had school off on Tuesday also so we decided to go to Midway and see the Ice Castles. We had some friends go up on Monday and they said it was crazy crowded and nuts. I think it was good we went the day after a holiday. It was SO cool! We had so much fun!

Here are those kiddos at the front entrance.

I really had pretty simple expectations for this ice castle because, I mean, it's man made out of ice. It was way cooler than I thought. There were all these pathways and like hallways made from the ice and it was beautiful. 

This was the middle which was big and open.

They had made an cute Olaf. We have been loving Frozen around here and so Olive was so excited to see this. She asked me "Is this like Elsa's Ice Castle?". We may or may not have been singing Frozen songs while we walked around. 

Crawling through a little ice tunnel. 

Olive and Tanya being so dang cute. 

Milo went and stood by this ice wall and asked me to take his picture. Yes! He is getting trained early. 

Here we are in one of the maze pathways. It was so fun and definitely a great way to spend our days off school. On the way home we stopped for treats, what else you would expect? Aggie Ice Cream!!