Last week's update

We have been super busy at the Bush household!  I am so thankful for a day of not having to be anywhere for a change!  I love the kind of busy we have been - lots and lots of family and friend time!  But I'm not going to lie - it's 10:30 right now and I'm still in my pajamas and I'm loving it!

But now I have lots to share!

First: Dance!

K had her first experience at a national competition.  She had so much fun!

Love how serious she was with her VERY early morning stretching!

The Pilgrim girls came to see K perform and she was so excited!

Love these little rockers! 

Waiting for awards.  Each girl got a "spirit stick" to wave during the awards ceremony. 

These awesome girls had to wait until around 1:30 before they got to eat!  They inhaled some Chick-Fil-A and were so excited to play with their spy watches while waiting in the lobby before the 2nd award ceremony.

The mini company ended up taking platinum rankings on both of their dances and the entire company dance scored platinum as well.  They also took first place in their category for lyrical (that's what the trophy is for) and then another first place for the whole company dance!  K was so excited she got to take a trophy home!

Later that night we celebrated Cody's birthday at home.  He wanted dinner at Spring Creek so we headed there and came back home for cake.  K and I gave him a new clip for his video camera, a Slingbox so he can tap into our cable when he is away from the house, and an Apple tv converter for his tv in the man cave.

The next morning (Saturday) K had a birthday party for her friend from school, Lane.  It was so sweet to watch all the kiddos from her school run and hug her when she got there.  I seriously love the community we have at our school!

Skee-ball has always been my favorite arcade game and I love watching K enjoy it too! 

All these sweet kiddos were in K's kinder class this year!  Love them!

Sunday we went to church and then headed to a family lunch at J. Gilligans (Irish nachos = YUM!) to celebrate all the Bush family birthdays that were in May and June.  Later that night I finished up one of Jen Hatmaker's older books about bible study.  So.  Good.  I love when K joins me in my room while I'm reading.  This time she was working on her kindergarten summer workbook that her teacher gave her.  If she completes it this summer and brings it back to school, she gets a special treat from her teacher.  She has over half of it finished already and I have to limit the pages she does a day so we can make it last!  If it was up to her she would have finished the whole thing the first day she had it!

Just ignore the empty picture frames in the back that I haven't filled yet.  Pretend they are already full of  beautiful family pictures and hung on the wall.  ;)

On Monday we "saved" Leigh Anne from having to sit at Starbucks while Matt had some work meetings in Arlington.  We picked her up and of course had to get some Starbucks to go while we headed to shop.  Our first stop was at the Kendra Scott store in Fort Worth so I could use my 50% off one piece for my birthday.  Yes, please!  I picked the Rayne necklace with the slate stone.  :)

Then we headed to Gracie Lane, which has several boutique booths filled with clothes, jewelry, and home decor type things.  We of course had to pick out some bows for baby Caroline that's due in August.

We found some clearance bows that would be cheaper to buy than make.  Score!  It was fun trying to get a pregnant Leigh Anne off the floor as well!  ;)

Then we found these bows at another booth.  WHOA!  Do people actually put these on their children??

I mean, really???

Of course we had to make sure they looked just as ridiculous on adults too!

We then headed to Hobby Lobby to plan some decor for Caroline's nursery.  Leigh Anne picked up the cutest giraffe wooden sign that her sister had seen.  It works perfectly in the nursery and bonus that it's Leigh Anne's favorite animal!

After that we headed to Matt's office to drop Leigh Anne off and just to see where he worked.  K loves Mr. Matt so much!  He's going to make a great girl daddy!

K and I then headed to Souper Salad, which is one of K's favorite places to eat since it basically has all her favorite foods!  After dinner we picked up my friend Maggie and headed to surprise Cody by watching his softball game.  The weather was so perfect and I always love watching my guy be a stud on the field!  The game ended in a tie, so Cody was bummed, but we had fun anyway!

The next day Nicole and her girls picked up K and me and we all headed to McKinney to see Leigh Anne's new house.  It was so beautiful!  I just wish it was closer to Arlington!  :(

We all ate lunch at La Madeleine and then headed to the new Nebraska Furniture Mart.  That.  Store.  Is.  Huge.  I mean, it seriously needs it's own zip code or something!!!  We all had fun looking at probably a 1/4 of the store before we headed to get a strawberry cream bundt cake since it was the last day of June.  (We might all have a problem.)

K decided she needed this bed at Nebraska Furniture Mart. I think she mainly just wanted the pink, glittery bedspread. ;)

On the ride over to McKinney and back, one of Nicole's daughter's, Allie, was making friendship bracelets.  She taught K how to do it, and K was in love!  She begged me to take her to get some supplies for herself.  How could I say no to something that would keep her occupied and wasn't expensive??

I love that K made a list of the colors she wanted before we headed to the store!

I need to take more pictures with my real camera!  The difference is amazing!

Wednesday, we had a playdate with K's friend, Claire, scheduled.  Then my friend Kristi, who teaches kindergarten at our school, texted and said she was wanting to take one of her students who was sick the day of the field trip to the aquarium.  I taught this student's brother and it was so funny that both Kristi and I texted her mom the day she was sick and said we would take her daughter to the aquarium sometime in the summer!  We decided to make a fun day out of it together, but she only had a few days to do it.  I asked Claire's mom if we could take Claire along instead of our original playdate and she said yes.  K was so pumped!  We had so much fun!!

We met Claire at Chick-Fil-A for lunch before we headed to the aquarium.  K watched the window with such anticipation!

Here is our fun group of kiddos at the Dallas World Aquarium!

K got to feed a bird a blueberry!

Claire and K hanging with the penguins

Fishy faces!

After our time at the aquarium, we stopped at Sonic for happy hour drinks and Claire came back over to our house to play for a few more hours before her mom picked her up.  

The next day, K and I had a pretty calm day (thankfully!) that was filled with laundry for our weekend trip to Paris for the 4th of July.  We also went to the store to get some supplies for the weekend as well. I'll post about our weekend later.  :)

Sometimes I let K eat in the living room and watch tv - especially in the summer.  It cracks me up that she doesn't need her stool at all anymore, but insists on still using it!  Of course I had to snap a picture!

We did have a really yummy dinner that night too!  My friend Natalie made this really awesome dish of baked beans with ground beef for Leigh Anne and Matt's baby shower cookout.  I looked at several Pinterest recipes and went off of what Natalie told me and just winged it.  It was sooooooo good!  I was proud that I didn't use an actual recipe and the dish actually turned out great!  

Like our fancy presentation?  Ha! This dish was so perfect with cornbread!

Yum!

I think the three of us liked it!

I also painted K's nails that night for the 4th of July weekend.

I love my girly girl!

Whew!  I am thankful we have a less busy week this week!  

Thursday Randomness

Look at me blogging three times in three days.  I deserve a cookie.

Or maybe a bundt cake.  ;)  Because these June featured flavor ones are soooooo amazing!!!  We bought a variety of the bundtlets for Leigh Anne and Matt's baby shower and the strawberry cream flavor was part of that variety.

Um.  Wow.

As Leigh Anne said, "It tastes like summer!"

So I might have just had to get one the other day before I headed to my parents house to help plan their Disney FastPasses. (Oh, I'm a Disney vacation planner too, but that should for sure be another blog post.)  I bought both my parents one, one for me, one for K, and one to take home to Cody later.

So yeah.  I was the girl that went and bought five bundtlets with lots of people in line behind me probably judging me.  I don't even care - they are soooooo good.

Okay, I think you get the idea.  ;)

I mean that icing!  Come on now!!

Darcy got her normal summer haircut too.  We usually cut her "skirt" off once a year just to restart it and because it's just more comfortable for her when it's super hot.  I think it's safe to say that Darcy hates going to the groomer and the groomer hates Darcy being there.  Her progress report this time said she was very difficult and they recommend we take her to the vet to get groomed next time.

Awesome.  We have THAT dog.  

Good thing she's sweet at home!

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Last night Cody (after devouring his bundt cake), K, and I headed out to a local concert.  Arlington has this really fun pavilion called the Levitt and in the summer they have a free concert series.  There was a group called Vocal Trash performing last night and all their instruments were made from recycled materials.  They weren't anything amazing, but it was a fun night out.  I even saw one of my sweet first graders and her family out there.  The weather was perfect and it was fun to be outside as a family.  

K really wanted to use her binoculars even if we were pretty close to the stage.

We giggled about this picture because my arm looks weirdly skinny because of the way it is against the chair.

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Today K and I headed to the local children's theater with Candy, Cadie, and Chloe to see their production of Sleeping Beauty.  The cast was all 9-12 year olds and it was super cute!  We walked over to Fuzzy's for lunch after, and later ended up at our house so the girls could play together some more.  They are moving back to Paris (Paris, Texas friends - don't get too excited) and we will miss being able to get together like this! 

Give these girls some crayons and paper and they are good to go!  Notice the dance costume on K and the Elsa costume on Chloe.

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K has also been trying to be very independent in pretty much everything she can lately.  While I love some of it, some of it just breaks my heart because I know she won't need me for as much once she gains that independence.  :(

One thing she's been trying to take on is putting her hair up.  She's even practiced her ponytail skills on me.

Oh my ow!

But today she was practicing in her bathroom and then skipped out so proud of herself with this hairstyle.  She was so cute with all her proudness!

Apparently Darcy wanted to show us her backside too.  ;)

Cody was later coming home today because he went to help his mom get a new piece of furniture from an antique store.  I tell you what, there is nothing more attractive than a man who comes home with his dress shirt from work all untucked with the sleeves rolled up after he has helped his mother move something heavy.  I so love him. 

I digress…

Since I didn't know what time Cody was coming home, I needed something quick and easy for dinner tonight.  I went to one of my go to dinners and thought I would share it for the blog world in case anyone else needs a quick and easy dinner as well.  

I'm not even sure you consider this cooking.  It's really just heating things up.  All you need is:

*A bag of your favorite frozen meatballs

*A jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce

*A can of Rote

Dump it all in a pot and cook it until the meatballs are finished.  So simple and so good!  Put some parmesan cheese on top, make a side salad, maybe some bread, and you're good to go. 

I don't normally take pictures at the table, but I know one day I'll want to remember moments like this, and because blog.  ;)  Also, don't judge the pot on the table.  It's one less dish to wash by not plating the meatballs on something else!

Tomorrow is when K finally competes in Nationals.  I honestly don't think her mini group will place.  It's their first year together and the competition is tough!  I'll be thrilled if they do, but my main hope is that they will have a blast tomorrow!  I think their line dance with the entire company has a really good chance of moving on.  We'll see tomorrow!  

Tomorrow also happens to be my groom's birthday!  :)  Happy early birthday Cody Bush!!!  I love you so very much!

Office Supplies and a Little Music

Office supplies and music aren't normally lumped together are they?  Oh well, it's my blog and I can write if I want to, write if I want to, write if I want to, you would…..

Okay, I'm stopping.

Back to office supplies and music.  Those are two of my favorite things in the world.  One of the saddest parts of teaching is that you can't listen to "your music" during the day.  I sometimes envy people who can listen to whatever they want at work.  But then summer comes and I can listen to music all day long!  Happy Dance!!!

Oh but first - office supplies.

I worked the first week of summer "deconstructing" the math TEKS for first grade.

I'm just that fun y'all.

Honestly, it was one of those things where the math coordinator asked me to help and I really don't like saying no to people in those types of positions because I want them to keep asking me to do things in case one day it's really super fun.  Well, as much fun as working on any type of curriculum can be I guess.

Anywho - several other teachers from all of the grade levels met and we worked all week on the standards.  It was some of the toughest work I've ever done with curriculum, but in the end I was pretty proud of what we accomplished.

The best part of the week was I met my new favorite markers.  I have a love for office supplies, and man, the markers we used just made my heart happy.

I am such a teacher nerd.  So much so that I actually texted my best friends about said markers.  Yep.

Cody was at youth camp with our church and K had been at dance camp and staying with my parents during this week so that I wouldn't have to drive her over there super early in the morning before going to work each day.  So I wasn't really feeling the summer loving just yet.  All my other teacher friends were posting pictures of their lunches out, their time at the pool, or their vacations.  Props to those teachers who can plan a vacation right after school is out.  You go with your awesome self!

I checked the mail the afternoon before my last session and found this from my precious, precious friend Nicole.

You know you have found some of your people when they bring office supplies to your mailbox.  That is true friendship in my book folks.  

My next discovery isn't exactly an office supply, but more of a crafty type utensil.  :)

I know chalk markers have been around for a while now, but I hadn't bought any until last week.  I finally bought some thanks to some Amazon gift cards from students.  (I'm getting better at not keeping my gift cards for so long!  That is such a bad habit I have!)

I read a bunch of reviews on the various types and finally decided on these.  

I love the colors so much and the pen size is just right for the type of things I need.  I used them to decorate two chalkboards for a baby shower we had at our house for Leigh Anne and Matt.  Then I did this one to celebrate Summer.

As you can see, even though it says all it takes is wiping it off with water, I can still see some of the last writing I did after several attempts at washing it off.  The funny thing is the colored chalk came right off, but the white didn't.  It could just be my chalkboard, but it still frustrated me.  Not enough to not use my chalkboard though.  :)

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Now to music.  I just had a few thoughts about it when I was driving home from dropping K off at dance practice this morning.

1.  Spotify is about the best app ever invented.  Add songs from your favorite artists (unless you like Taylor Swift because she won't share her music there), create custom playlists for your moods, people in your family, events, etc. and you can even play a radio station based on the songs in your playlists.  I love you Spotify.  Thank you for being born.

2.  Dave Matthews Band music will always make me smile.  It will always remind me of junior high and high school.  Thank you Lance Ray for being the cute 9th grader who I liked when I was in 8th grade, therefore I decided I needed to share common interests with you.  I went out and bought Dave Matthews Band cds after you told me how much you liked the band.  Our few month "dating" relationship might not have worked out, but Dave and I are still very happy together.  

3.  I could never be a radio dj with today's music.  Sure, some of it is fine, but they would want me to play all the new stuff and I would probably be fired.  That, or my ears would die.  When somebody called in and requested a horrible song I would probably tell them they should not consider it good music and suggest alternatives.  Again, I'm pretty sure my chances of being fired would be high.  I realize that people are going to like what they like.  Hey, some people may hate Dave Matthews Band.  I am sad for those people.  But I just wouldn't be able to do that job every single day and watch our culture spiral downward.  

So there you have it.  My random thoughts on office/craft supplies and music.  I realize they have no real value or merit to basically anything, but that means I'm not busy with teacher stuff and I'm truly starting to enjoy my summer, so I kind of love it!  

Summer Update

It is once again summertime where I can update this sad little blog with random happenings.  Let's face it, during the school year, it seems this blog is only updated when I REALLY want to share something importantish.  I say that with the -ish, because it's important to me and others could probably care less.  :)

But I still kick myself for not journaling more about what is going on in our family because I LOVE LOVE LOVE looking back on posts from years ago.  You think you won't ever forget the details of certain things, but my goodness you do!

So here we go again with me trying to keep up with the blog.  Let's pretend it will last longer than the summer, but we all (and by all I mean the two people that actually read my blog when I don't post it on Facebook) know that won't happen.  ;)

I had another birthday last week.  33 this time.  For some odd reason it doesn't sound as old as I thought it used to.  :)  I was so blessed by sweet friends early in the week who gave me sweet presents and even took me out to lunch.  Then on my actual birthday it rained buckets.  I would have loved to stay in my pajamas and just curl up with a book and enjoy the rainy day, but K had a dentist appointment and we were in serious need of food at our house so we had to go to the grocery store.  The perk was I got to rock my cute rain boots that morning!

Later in the day I had the best tea party ever from the cutest daughter ever!

She is always into creating parties for any and all occasions, so she was extra pumped that it was actually my birthday.

Later in the day, after Cody got off work he spoiled me with gifts as usual.  He didn't use to be great at giving girly gifts, but man is he good at it now!  Love that man!

We also went out to eat at one of my favorite local Mexican restaurants and then went to Lowes to get a new fan for our bedroom and K's playroom.  You know you're a total grown up when you get excited about picking out fans on your birthday.  I love doing anything to update our house so I was seriously giddy when Cody told me he was going to put one of the fans up that night.  I love being married to such a handy man.  He seriously can do anything in our house and I think that is just so darn sexy.  (Yes, I said sexy and it's weird, but I'm talking about my husband so I'm totally allowed to.)

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In other news….I am a total dance mom now.  Seriously.  I can make a nearly perfect bun with or without an accent braid in about 4 minutes flat.  I used to cry over those stupid buns and now it's not a big deal at all.  Now, those fake eyelashes that I have to put on K for every competition and I aren't exactly the best of friends yet.  They just tick me off more than any other inanimate object.  I hate them.  There, I said it and I don't care that they know it.  They have caused me to yell at them like an idiot in front of my husband and daughter so they deserve my hate.  And don't give me tips if you have them.  I've googled and read them all.  I'm just not good at them.  We all have our strengths and I'm telling you putting fake eyelashes on my kid is not a strength I have.  

But K has LOVED dancing on the competition team this year.  She didn't like all the practicing at first, but once they actually started competing she was hooked.  It's a crazy world at competitions and those episodes of Dance Moms aren't too far off from the truth for some studios.  But mark my words, I will never be one of those moms who lets my kid get up on stage in less fabric than a Barbie doll wears and scream, "Work it girl!"  If you ever see me doing that, you have permission to beat me over the head with something.  I mean, for the love!  It's so sad to see what some of those girls are encouraged to do!  I am so stinking thankful for our studio with our awesome director and teachers.  I just didn't realize how thankful I needed to be until I saw what else was out there.  

K went to dance camp the first week of the summer and now we're in the middle of Nationals.  She has practiced twice this week and has practice again tomorrow.  She competes with the mini company this Friday.  Here she is about to leave for practice Monday.  

My goodness she keeps growing up too fast.  I hate it - maybe even more than those stupid eyelashes.  

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K's cousin, Cadie, invited her to twin day at her church's VBS today and they were so very cute.  So you get another picture because cuteness.  

13 days apart and the best of friends!

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Now on to what has taken over my daughter's heart as far as toys go.

These guys.

Meet the Shopkins.  

I don't know where they came from, but man they came in strong.  I first saw them in my first grade classroom when a few of my girls started bringing them to school.  K eventually found out about them and was hooked.  She actually got two books about them before she even had a single Shopkin, and she learned all there was to learn about each one in the book.  Then we gave her some for kindergarten graduation.  She LOVED them and I loved that even though they were small, you didn't have to put anything together or change parts, etc.  She uses her imagination to play with them all the time and I love it!

Whoever made these things is very, very smart.  They make some really hard to find, they make the same ones in different colors, they put mystery ones in packages, and even get you (I totally mean your kid) wanting to find the super hard to find special edition ones.

So then K yells at me from the other room the other day, "Mom!  Come quick!"  Thinking there was some kind of emergency I ran to the living room only to see that K was watching a Shopkins commercial on tv.  Now they had "fashion spree" ones and one of those was even a ballet set. 

Oh, come on now!  K loves dance.  K loves Shopkins.  Guess what she really, really, really, really wanted??  

This might be a good time to tell you that I have zero will power when something is hard to find and my kid wants it.  I become a hunter and the hunt thrills me.  Judge me if you will, but I just call it a hobby of mine.

So today after dance I drove my kid to Burleson.  Now, Burleson is not exactly that far, but I usually won't drive 25 minutes to get a toy.  But the Target there had it in stock according to the website, so to Burleson we went.  When we got there, we immediately looked for the ballet set, but we didn't see it anywhere.  We almost left the store, but the silly mom in me went to customer service and asked them if they might have it somewhere else. 

Three incredibly nice and helpful employees later, this happened.  

All the way home she was giddy.  Seriously.  

"You are the BEST mom ever!"

"Oh look!  The lipstick is pink!"

SQUEAL!!!

"Seriously Mom.  You are the best!"

Totally worth every mile we drove.  

So, there you have it.  Summer update #1.  We'll see how long it lasts.  ;)