Hadley is 3!

Hadley celebrated her 3rd birthday in Alabama! She absolutely loves her birthday and just wants to hear 'the song' over and over. She got to be the star of the week at school and have cake for a week. She was so excited to get so many packages and cards in the mail and to FaceTime with everyone. It took her about 5 minutes to tear through all her gifts but she had a lot of fun.

Now that the terrible 3s are upon us, she is definitely testing her limits and has quite the attitude at times. Some of her favorite things include: music from the show Hamilton, sleeping with as many stuffed animals as possible, eating mushrooms, eggs and avocado, taking things away from Ally and riding bikes. She isn't really into TV or movies but loves books and taking care of her Chickie.  She knows the ABC song, days of the week, months of the year and a little bit of Spanish. She has grown a ton in the last few months, especially her feet! She is tall and lean!

We are now fully potty trained, sleeping in a big girl bed and very smiley.

Birmingham Bound

Its been a long, long time since I have updated but with so much change... its time to get back to posing regular updates. We officially became Alabama residents in late February and the adjustment is ongoing.  I started a position as Associate Athletics Director for Marketing at UAB on February 1. Karl's xenotransplant project has been relocated to UAB and he began his official duties on March 3. We moved out of our home in Brownsburg and into our new place in Hoover so its been a lot of unpacking and getting adjusted to a new place. Ally is finishing up kindergarten at Deer Valley Elementary, which is one of the top rated schools in the area. Hadley is going to pre-school at Odyssey learning center and both transitions have gone very well.

We selected a home in a very large neighborhood that offers a ton of great amenities and so far we have been beyond pleased with our choices. To have pools, playgrounds, restaurants, hotels and more right in the neighborhood has been even better than we hoped. The area is full of adults like us with kids like ours and already the girls have made a lot of friends. The main pool and playground is one block behind our house so we are there a lot.

 

To read more about Karl's project and the real reason we made the move south, visit this story http://www.uab.edu/news/innovation/item/7206?+er20160412.  We are missing being close to our families and friends but technology has helped that a little. Its been a challenge for me to go back to working so many hours and every day of the week but we are getting into a new routine. Summer is coming so we are excited to have visitors and make plans to spend time up north when we can.

Cold Halloween

The weather was miserable for Halloween, very cold with strong wind and freezing rain. Ally went out for a short time with the neighborhood kids but Hadley just dressed up for fun. Neither was very cooperative for pictures!

First Baton Competition

Ally competing in her first baton competition on Sunday, October 5. It was the Indiana State competition and was hosted by her teacher right in Brownsburg. Very convenient! She started taking lessons in late January and started working on competition routines a few months ago. She competed in modeling, basic marching and one-baton solo at the novice level. I was not sure what to expect from her and Miss Veronica and I did our best to prepare her for the setting of the day. She does fairly well at her weekly lesson since she does it with a pair of sisters that are her same age but have been twirling about a year longer and have competed before. I wanted to get her a nice costume for her birthday as a surprise but I was hesitant to invest a lot, especially since she refused to practice for me. And when she did, it didn't go very well leaving us both frustrated. I was able to get a beautiful custom-made costume at a great price and grandma Julie took care of the shoes and a special warm up outfit as well for her birthday. She looked the part of an advanced twirler and was so excited. She wasn't nervous at all but asked a lot of questions about all of the girls she saw when we got there. There were about 70 kids participating and she had between 6 and 8 girls in each event she competed in. I knew three of the four judges, one being a girl I used to twirl with and former Purdue Golden Girl (Ann Loppnow). For all the whining about practicing at home, she was very serious about it during the day. She wanted to practice each thing before she took the floor and was interested in what every other girl was doing. The first thing she did was modeling and I knew it was going to be her best event. I was right! The first thing she did was near perfect and she took 2nd place. The second modeling she did wasn't as good, she was a little distracted by some other girls. Next we put her hair up like the big girls and she set out for two rounds of basic marching. This did not go so well. It involves marching in a perfect square and she is used to following lines on the floor. I honestly have no clue what she was doing. She wanted to practice more before one-baton solos and I was really worried about how this was going to go. She was having a hard time remembering the sequence and was very easily distracted all day. The first one she did was so good! I was shocked and then the second was even better! She got 3rd and 1st place medals. For her last one, we didn't have the time to practice and she definitely got distracted and forgot a lot of it. She ended the day with 4 medals: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and then a small trophy for placing 5th in the overall combined event Miss Autumn pageant. She was so excited and happy! I was absolutely shocked at how well she did for the majority of the day. She may not like to practice but she already knows how to turn it on when its time. I received so many compliments about her costume and her excitement throughout the day. Definitely a lot of things to work on but our main goal was to try it and see if she enjoyed it. Now we are on to the next one!

 

The one thing I didn't expect was ho hard it would be for me as a mom this time. I've been a twirler and a judge but having your kid try it is a whole different level of stress. Mostly exciting but taking the whole day in as a parent was a little overwhelming for me. I almost wish I didn't know so much about what was going on. It was great being able to help all the moms and daughters with hair and makeup and cheering them on but its just odd without my team and family there. I was really proud of Ally and the effort she gave. The fact that she wants to do it again is good enough for me. I really wanted our family there to see her so hopefully we can find one close to home before regionals in July. We called Grandma Julie after every event and she showed off her awards on Skype but its just not the same! I cant say enough about the impact baton has had on my life and seeing the second generation getting started is so strange.

Ready for modeling

Marching and solo time

Posing with her practice buddies Chrystin and Kaitlyn

Miss Veronica's students- the Starlight Twirlers

So proud of her first medals

Ally and mommy day

Happy 5th Birthday Ally!

 

Last week Allyson turned 5 and celebrated with a full week of festivities. We started the weekend before with a tailgate birthday party at the Purdue vs. Iowa football game. Ally got to see her favorite Golden Girl, Whittney and meet the Iowa Drum Major (the cutest boy she has ever seen) and also share a birthday cake with Grandma Sharon. Grandma Julie and Grandpa Dew came to visit so we all took the day off on Monday for lunch at her favorite Mexican place and presents. Monday evening, Grandma Sharon, Grandpa Henry and Susie came down for dinner, ice cream cake and more presents. Tuesday was the big day and Ally was so excited to wake up and be 5! She kept staring at herself in the mirror to see if she looked different. She picked donuts for her school treat and got a fun book, sticker and certificate. She felt very important!
Tuesday evening was a quiet celebration at home where she requested her favorite breakfast for dinner. She got to open a few things from Hadley and us and also presents Grandpa Joel left behind from his visit the weekend before. The finale was her Frozen themed party on Saturday for some friends, mostly just the neighbor kids she has become close with and a few of our good friends with kids she likes to play with. Ally and Hadley both helped with the party prep and made some fun Frozen themed snacks like snowman mix and blue party punch. It was a small party but she had a great time. I was very proud of my theme skills with this one, all the snacks fit the color scheme!

By now, everyone that knows Ally knows her personality. She is a lot of fun but also has a independent/bossy side to her. She says and does the craziest things, sometimes surprising us in a good way and sometimes not so good. Her attitude is getting a little defiant lately (lots of back talk)and we are working on concepts that are tough even for adults to understand- patience and gratitude.

About Ally at 5:

• Can count as high as she feels like but sometimes forgets a few once she gets into the higher double digits- 80s are tough to remember. Working on identifying double digit numbers more consistently.
• Can recognize all upper and lower case letters. Working on using sounds to read simple words but prefers to say the letter rather than its sound.
• Writing has improved and can do basic proper nouns from memory.
• Can navigate the monkey bars at school and hang on just about anything.
• Likes riding her bike around the neighborhood and wants to try without training wheels next summer.
• Getting too big for a bath and has started to take more showers but her thick and long hair makes it tough to manage on her own.
• Cannot wear enough dresses and skirts- does not like jeans at all. Needs more shoes since she is so picky about what she thinks looks good. Wants to only wear heels!
• Still loves the same blanket she has had her whole life. She never uses a pillow but has the have the blanket under her head.
• Same bed routine which includes 2 books. Favorites are LadyBug Girl, Fancy Nancy and Pinkalicious.
• Moved away from cartoon shows and movies and is now on to the teenie-bopper dramas on Disney Channel. Her favorites are Jessie and Austin & Ally. We usually only let her watch one show before bed but weekend morning ritual includes watching on Netflix.
• Still loves to watch movies. Also moved away from the cartoons but has a regular rotation of Pitch Perfect, Mary Poppins, Rio and Muppets. Mostly just on the drives to Wisconsin but she loves movie nights at home with popcorn.
• Barbies, barbies and more barbies! Fashion is her thing and she cant leave a Barbie in the same outfit for more than 3 seconds. The shoes are her favorite part.
• Can color extremely well. Over the last year she has really excelled with her abilities to stay in the lines and color all of one picture instead of just the main thing on the page. She loves to draw too.
• Seldom takes a nap but we try to enforce rest/reading quiet time at home.
• Loves to dance and sing- anything that has music is her favorite thing. Always wants to listen to the radio and sing along or make up her own songs. We have a "no singing at the table" rule because she doesn't stop!
• Gymnastics, baton and dancing are her favorite activities she has participated in. Also wants to play volleyball if she can.
• Loves being a big sister and having someone to boss around at home.