Honors Day and January Mobile Moments

Autumn had a couple of big weeks with her violin recital and then her very first honors program! They don't start doing this until second grade at her school so Autumn was super excited. And trying very hard not to talk. Here she is doing some finger exercises I gave her to help when she feels like moving around but can't!

Autumn held out just fine and afterward we had to take pictures. I just realized she looks super tired here. I wonder if she was nervous?

Lainey got to come! And, as you can see, the certificate didn't make it very long in mint condition. :)

Awwww, she's getting SO BIG. I am not ready. T_T I'm glad she got to do this. It was exciting for her. I'm not sure how this semester is going to go because she's having a bit of a tough time (harder math + dealing with boredom--we're working on it!) but I know she is a super hard worker and is going to do a great job whether or not it ends in "highest honors."

I thought I'd also wrap up some January mobile shots in addition to celebrating Autumn's honors program. January seems like it was such a long, busy month and even looking at the photos at ALL THE THINGS we did I think we were pretty packed. Hopefully this month will be a little less crazy. Autumn did some ambulance repair last month. I was cracking up when I saw her with the "lift" she set up to work on the bottom of the car.

She sent a letter to the kiwi crate people (if you ever order a kiwi crate, use my affiliate link at passing pinwheels!). The letter was really cute and I took this picture to send along to explain who Kiri is and how we got Kiri and gave her a backstory before they named the crate mascot. The company sent her a nice postcard with a handwritten note really quickly. I was impressed and Autumn was beside herself! She's been carrying it around.

Letters and pictures are really Autumn's thing now. I guess she's always been into that but now she's turning her talents to begging. For a dog.

Desperately begging. In details. And in color.

We'll see. For not she has to make due with this little furball. And Kiri.

I think Autumn is coping okay although I get wanting something a little more friendly than Molly usually is. There's just a difference between actively playing with a dog and having to go cat fishing with a stick and a catnip ball!

Anyway, in other news, Autumn made the swim team! I'm so excited for her. She was kind of wanting a break from ballet so I encouraged her to take the chance to try out for swim. Autumn wasn't so sure but I took her to the pool to practice for a couple of weeks and she had such a great time that I knew this was the right direction. She was evaluated and made it! Autumn was so nervous before the first practice but afterward she asked, "can I come again Wednesday?" Hahaha. I said, "see, mama is right sometimes!"

And I think that wraps up January! Have a great week and we'll be back here next time!

Autumn the Level 11 Paladin

We're doing a ton of transitioning right now. A lot of it is around aikido but I'm also making some changes to my fitness schedule but that's a post for passing pinwheels! One of the bigger transitions is that Autumn taking a break from ballet to try the swim team! I figure this is a good time for her to experiment a bit so, even though ballet has been going well, when Autumn asked if she could try swimming, I said yes. I have taken her a few times to practice for her evaluation just to get used to swimming laps again. She has done a fantastic job and is already improving with regular laps. Plus she's just so happy in the water. Today alone she spent a full hour alternating laps and playing alone.

Friday, Emma came and swam with Autumn and these ladies played for two hours! Autumn was so tired she kept asking to go to bed, hahaha. Friday was the first time Autumn did laps in the deep end. It's SUCH a long way and she was scared but Autumn hopped in and did it with her kickboard and then without it. Today she did something like 6 full laps (in addition to the ones in the shallow end) and made it end to end freestyle and backstroke without having to rest or float.

Mike and I started playing warcraft again, much to Autumn's delight. She likes watching us play and she has a paladin that she plays, too. It's been cool to watch Autumn put together costumes of her character Leenda. There's a square of paper on her weapon because Leenda has a giant hammer right now!

Autumn also made hearthstones which characters use to go back to their home inn or base. How fun is this?

This is her map, too! She has a backpack and she carried all this around along with water and a dog because her character has a little dog.

In other news, it's been warmer lately. But for a while it was SUPER COLD. Molly decided to hole up in Mike's dresser thing. It has drawers on one side and shelves on the other. Once he left it open and found THIS:

I'd be in there, too, if I could fit. I spent my evenings like this, with the occasional visiting kitty:

Oh, I just ran into this...Molly needs some redemption with all these pictures of her looking like a friendly, fluffy cat.

That's more like it.

A couple of weeks of miscellany

Autumn has a loose tooth. Mike and I are freaking out because teeth are gross. To both of us. WHAT WILL WE DO. One thing we did do is order some rainbow tooth fairy dust. She's been writing letters to the tooth fairy letting her know that instead of money, she wants pixie dust. Autumn actually drew a better one but it's on her desk in her room and I don't want to go in there and potentially wake her up. Although she usually sleeps like a stone so it's really that I'm lazy.


Oh! Autumn started swim team! I didn't post last week because it was my birthday and I decided to take the night off, haha. But, she has been amazing!! Seriously, even Mike is impressed and he's pretty much never impressed. I take her one night and Mike takes her the other night. I got this one this past week. They had to swim with a weight forward, kicking their legs, with one hand straight up. SO CUTE.


I wasn't sure she was going to make it to the first day. Autumn came down with a fever two Sundays ago. I should have known something was wrong when she woke up and started crying because she couldn't sleep. Poor thing was like fire in the morning when I woke up. She missed two days of school with the fever but only looked **really** pitiful like this for one day. Usually even when she's sick she's all bouncing and silly but, no.


In other news, a friend of mine from kali back in the day took Autumn and me on a tour of Brussel's Bonsai in Olive Branch. He had an easy to care for bonsai that someone had given to him and gave it to Autumn! We had a great time. The bonsai were amazing and, frankly, I had no idea there were things like BONSAI FORESTS. Autumn fell for a couple of bonsai and I told her that if this bonsai stays alive until her birthday, I'd buy her one that flowered.


And, to wrap up, have a happy day picture. :) Autumn is very happy about the first day of Autumn. Unfortunately, the lighting was really harsh so you get an Autumn in sepia.


NEXT WEEK: Kiri the Kiwi!!

Labor Day Fun

Autumn stops doing it every time I try to take a picture, but right now she's going around the playroom pretending to be a warcraft paladin. She and I made a character today and we did 2 quests. It was so fun! We've actually had a fun holiday weekend even though we didn't go out of town. Friday, we got to go to a Mexican restaurant I like and Saturday we went swimming!


We had a great time and before we left, Mike and I threw one of those fuzzy balls that you catch with a velcro frisbee looking thing. While we did that. Autumn took a raft, stacked some stuff on top and crept around the pool pretending to be a silent sea monster. When anyone would see her, she'd put a finger on her lips and go "shhh."


It was this kind of raft in case anyone is wondering how she managed this sea creature business.


Mike joined Autumn for a while. It was funny and weird with Autumn creeping around but with Mike it was kind of scary, hahaha.


After swimming, we made waffles! HELLO KITTY WAFFLES! I forgot how many tiny waffles one batch of batter makes so we had about a zillion. I don't know if it was the afternoon outdoors or not but they were AMAZING.


AND, this week, Miss Autumn starts her pre-competition swim team! She's both excited and worried but she's going to be great! Her first time is during my aikido classes so I won't get to go. I'm so sad! But hopefully Mike will get a lot of pictures. When the swim cap and goggles came in, Autumn was pretty excited.


The above picture is funny but this one is cute, too:


Oh, and in case anyone is interested in trying it out, one gym has hired me to teach a class! I'll be at the Germantown United Methodist Owning's Life Enrichment Center on Tuesdays, 9:30-10:30 starting September 10. We're going to try a new class called PowerKick which is a combination of fitness kickboxing and strength exercises. It should be fun! We'll see how it goes for 6 weeks and then evaluate. The first two classes are free so I'd love it if people would come check it out. After that, the classes are really reasonable. I have some other interviews lined up, too, so hopefully I'll have more classes to tell you about!

Haha, right now Autumn is gathering items to be like her paladin--she has a sword, a fan for a shield, and the warcraft plush gryphon our community group gives us. Why did I just now get her to make a character??