Katie Performs at the Oldham County Arts Center in "Annie"

Katie performed this weekend with the North Oldham 6th grade chorus. Her group sang "It's a Hard Knocked Life" from the "Annie" Broadway Production (happens to be my fave off that soundtrack). She did great! When you look at the video she is in the 2nd row on the left hand side. You can see her better in the middle & end of the song. We are so proud of her! I know it sounds biased but I thought they were the best. Their group was so animated and very clear.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO

Her group also ended the show with a 70's song. For this performance she had to wear 70's attire. A special shopping trip was in order to find a groovy shirt so Katie was ecstatic. Since the fashion trend now is more groovy attire it was not that difficult...I was thrilled it only took 30 minutes..yeah!

This picture was taken right before we left our home. She was really excited and I thought she looked the part with her hair all long and she wore earthy toned bangles to match her shirt. She looked so cute.

The next picture was taken at the performance and her look is priceless. I quickly remembered feeling the same way when my parents started snapping pictures of me around my friends during concerts. Needless to say, I stopped.

And Lily's Choice Is.....Car Care?!

I love Springdale Automotive (especially when I'm not having to pay them for car service)!! And I want to tell you why. When you reach the Junior Level of Girl Scouts each girl is responsible for one meeting in which they plan and choose the topic of discussion/learning to earn a badge. Lily was in charge of her first Junior meeting. After she reviewed a very thick book of topics she announced she was focusing on Car Care. I was first a bit shocked BUT her great grandfather was a mechanic and I was told by a guidance counselor in high school that all my personality tests came back as being in a profession of 'mechanics.' What?! I always read manuals when I buy products (before turning the device on) but I don't think this qualifies.

Anyhow to earn the "Car Care" badge you have do several items to that cover this subject.

She first interviewed my mother because my mom was in charge of a fleet of cars when she worked for Roche Biomedical. My mother told her about maintenance schedules and the like which she really enjoyed.

So she taught her troop about schedules and emergency bags for the winter that all cars should have. The kit included kitty litter! Did you know that you are supposed to have kitty litter on hand so that if you get stuck in snow you can sprinkle it in front of your tires to give you more friction? I am SO learning.

The best part of her meeting was the trip to Springdale Automotive off US 42 near Goshen Elementary. Jeff, the very kind manager, offered to give a safety inspection on my car (which I happened to fail in 2 categories). The girls were enthralled to say the least. I've been with these girls for at least 3 years and this is the most excited that I've seen them.


Jeff was FABULOUS! He taught the kids how to check the oil, tire pressure, radiator fluid, brake fluid, and many other things. I was learning too! After all I did have a headlight out AND my tire pressure was low!


After the safety inspection Lily interviewed Jeff and he answered the questions with such honesty. One of the questions was, "Has their ever been any girl mechanics at your store?" and Jeff replied that yes indeed there had been. She had been in the military working in maintenance so when she got out she came to work at Springdale. She has since relocated out of the city but Jeff said she was a GREAT mechanic. Lily confessed in the car that she really liked fixing things and that she may want to be a mechanic too. I told her.."You go girl...Whatever you want to be just be a good one"....one of my most favorite quotes from Abe Lincoln.

Gave The Kiddos $20 A Piece To Pick Out Their Outfit...Here They Are!

First of all I cannot believe I spent $60 on Halloween costumes!! Just goes to show you how much our children have these days (am I sounding like my grandparents?).

Lily and Ben designed our pumpkin and Michael went to work carving it just like they wanted it. I thought it looked great glowing on our front porch.

So back to the costumes...what do you get for $20? According to Katie twenty bucks does not buy you THE BEST costume. I could tell where this conversation was headed so I decided to make it a challenge for her and her friend, Samantha. Wouldn't they love to make their costume? Since they both love to shop I decided to take them to Goodwill to see if they could find any ideas there.

As soon as we got there they found 2 long sleeved red shirts for $2.50....and the idea emerged...Thing 1 & Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss'. As you can see from the pictures they were "jazzed" it up a bit. I thought it was very original and they stayed within their budget.

Lily won the prize for most money saved. After much thinking she decided to be a Kentucky Lottery Winner. We found her dress for $13.00 and pinned Monopoly money all over it. Then we grabbed a lot of my old costume jewelry and printed out a "fake" KY Lottery Check with her name on it. By the way, she won $50 mil.

Ben had his costume a month before Halloween...a clone trooper named Rex from Star Wars. I had to scrub the grass stains out of it at least two times before October 31st. Alex (his buddy 4 doors down) had the exact costume so there were two Clone Troopers in intense battles in our culdesac for weeks beforehand. Ben did awesome on his budget until...he needed a gun...$5 over after that decision. Where is the gun in this picture you ask? "It's too heavy and I might lose it," Ben said. You owe me $5 buster!

Our ritual for the past 4 years is something the kids look forward to every year. Tim, our neighbor and lawn service owner, hooks up a wagon (that keeps getting bigger every year) full of hay to his tractor. He takes us trick or treating throughout our neighborhood. The kiddos love it and so do the adults. Katie and Samantha did bale on us after the first stop. "The wagon is too slow, Mom. Can we go by ourselves so we can run," Katie pleaded. We didn't care. It was exactly what we wanted to do at that age. So they took off and were home by 8:45...gotta give them some independence! Happy Halloween!