Mardi Gras Invitational

This morning was Lizzy's first meet of the spring in Az. Out of the 24 girls that competed, it was the first meet for 20 of them. Lizzy didn't have a great morning of competing. She did o.k., just not one of her better days. She did squeak out one medal, the competition was pretty tough. She was happy with her one medal, which is always nice to see. Kim showed up and the most exciting part of the meet was when she won the first raffle, the starbucks gift basket. Then she drew the next name and it was Lizzy! I put her name on the raffle tickets that I bought, because typically she is very lucky when it comes to winning stuff. She was thrilled to go up and get the scrapbooking basket. Of course, now we are negotiating over who actually gets the stuff inside, I think we will be splitting it. It was a fun morning, it is always nerve racking to watch. It is amazing how after watching her compete for a year I still get nervous. Beam is the most nerve racking, she fell off once today and almost fell a second time, which is hard to watch. Kim says she can't come again, to hard to watch, very fun, but too nerve racking. It is always amazing to see the girls compete, they train so hard and it is very intense. One gal on Lizzy's team pulled her hamstring halfway through her floor routine, it was really sad to watch her get hurt at the first meet of the season. Well, now we have a two week break until the next meet! We are proud of you Lizzy!

Pumpkin

Pumpkin was a good cat.
Pumpkin was a companion to Izzy, Zelda, Millie and Smudge.
Pumpkin lived through an apartment and two houses.
Pumpkin was a great cat to Lizzy, Markie and Bella.
Pumpkin survived several good cat fights.
Pumpkin was a friend to all who entered our home.
Pumpkin was happy up until the very end.
Pumpkin will be missed by all.

Lady Luck Invitational

Mark, Lizzy and I went to Vegas this weekend for the Lzdy Luck Invitational Meet for Lizzy to compete in. Mark and I were fighting the tail end of a bad stomach flu/food poisoning when we flew out Thursday night. Lizzy competed on Friday night and we were crossing our fingers that she would not get that stomach bug. Well, she never got sick, there were only 6 girls that went to the meet from her level 4 group. They all did very well. Three of them were 6 years old competing for the first time. It was great to watch. Lizzy had some of her highest scores ever. She looked very confident while she was competing. Such a difference from a year ago. We were very proud of her. Vegas was a great place for a meet. We stayed at the off strip hotel where she competed and never really left the hotel. Mark and Lizzy went over to NY NY and Circus Circus the day we left for the afternoon. I headed home early as Zelda has not been feeling well, she had a dental procedure to try to help extend her life on Thursday and had been out of it since, she was put under for the procedure. Anyways, back to the meet, Lizzy's team took 3rd place at the meet and Lizzy got her highest placement ever, 2nd on vault. (It is a big deal because if your first or second you get a different color medal.) We got some professional pictures to, to come on a later post when I figure our where Mark put them on my computer.

Go Cardinals!

We had some friends over for the game yesterday. It was a great game. The pictures are right after we won. It is unbelievable. It was a great day. We had lots of food and fun. Our last guests are still here, Ben and Avary as they had a sleep over after the party ended along with Holly from down the street who had to leave early this morning. We are all celebrating this morning with chocolate chip pancakes.

Parent Teacher Conferences

It is always still a shock for me to attend parent teacher conferences. It really hits home that I am the parent, and I have school age kids, two now! I am lucky, because somehow my kids are doing very well in school. I don't mind bragging a little, because they don't always do so well at home for me, so at least I can say that they are good for their teachers.

Markie's biggest problem is he wants to be well behaved all the time, so if even his table gets told to be quiet, he gets a little stressed. He is doing very well, Last report card most of his grades were DL, developing level, which is on track for early in the year in kindergarten. He only had one P, which is proficient, satisfactory achievement of this kindergarten goal. (Highest you can get.) This time he had 7 P's and 3 DL's. His teacher says he is the only one in the class with a P in "derives meaning from books using patterns and letter/sound knowledge." Whatever that means! Right now he is working on writing his last name, he still gets his p's and q's backwards when he writes them, he has a good concept of the math concepts, which are all using manipulatives at this point, and he listens well to the teacher. I am proud of Mark's behavior the most, he has done better than I thought he would with that.

Lizzy is really surprising me, her teacher says that she is just doing amazing, I guess her reading has just taken off, they do a lot of testing with reading and comprehension as part of Bush's no child left behind. Her fluency went last quarter from 126 words to 147 words, is that a minute? I can't remember. Anyways, all of her scores are up from last quarter. Her report card was all 4's. (they don't do A's and B's etc, it is now 1 - 4. Her teacher says my biggest problem will be keeping her challenged through school. This is a change for Lizzy, she has always been at the top of her class, but this year she is really getting smart. Once again, I am proud of her because although she is smart, she can be quite the nightmare to deal with at home, and I deal with that every day, so taking a moment to enjoy her shining at school is a luxury I will allow myself. Lizzy has a phenomenal teacher, she just finished reading Artemis Fowl, a book that is over 350 pages, she loved it and actually it is quite a good fantasy novel.

One final note, they are both nominated for student of the month for one month this fall and will both be honored in an assembly this coming Friday morning. Unfortunately Markie will be the only one there, the rest of us will be in Vegas at Lizzy's gymnastics meet. (Markie is staying with his Aunt Kim.)

Letters by Lizzy

Dear Tooth Fairy,
I know my tooth is
under my pilow, but
I'm not here I am
in my mommys room.
So that covers it
for my tooth I just
lost. But the last tooth I
lost actually got lost
or thrown away. So please
count that tooth.

yours truelly,
Lizzy


Dear President Obama,
I am a girl named
Elizabeth Phipps and
I am concerned
about the cutting down of
trees in Brazil. And I love the
environment, so I think that
you should stop the cutting
down of trees. You can do
this by setting down a law that
says, "No cutting trees down in
Brazil." Thank you very much
for reading my letter.
Yours truly,
Elizabeth Phipps

Jelly Making can get sticky

I came home from Yuma on Christmas night with a bucket of pomegranates from my dad's tree and a handwritten recipe for jelly. The jelly making had officially been passed off to me. I was the chosen one. The next generation of pomegranate jelly making. About a week later, after going to four stores to get my supplies, I began squeezing my pomegranate seeds at about 1:30, Bella was down for a nap and the older two were at school. I figured I'd have some nice jelly for the kids to try in about two hours when they got out of school. What I had two hours later was a cup and a half of juice from about 7 pomegranates. I needed four cups of juice before I could begin my jelly. Lizzy chipped into help while it looked interesting, that lasted for about ten minutes or so. I was finally ready to make the jelly about 8:00 that night. After a few consults over the phone with my dad, I began to boil the mixture. Soon enough, I had a bubbling red pot of liquid that looked like an excellent witch's brew. As I was enjoying this unique boiling process, it began to grow and grow, and my dad's last bit of advice came back to me, "Make sure you have a really big pot." As I realized my pot was not big enough, it began to boil over. I screamed at mark to get Bella out of the kitchen, removed the mixture from the heat, and began pouring it into my jars. Soon enough, I had 8 jars full of red liquid, not to mention another jar's worth of jelly all over my flat top stove, and was ready to do the final step in the canning process, reboil the jars for five minutes. Well, to make a long story short, my jelly did not jell by the next day, and I had to re-boil the mixture, re-sterilize my jars, get new lids, and pray for some jelling. The second batch seems to have jelled, at least the first jar I have opened has jelled. Kim reminded me part way through this two day process that grape jelly was on sale at fry's for 88 cents. However, how many people can say they know how to make jelly????? The most exciting part of the process is when you take the jars out of the boiling water, and they start popping, as the jars seal. THAT is an exciting sound. I think I am going to try jalapeno jelly next. As soon as I get all the stickiness out of my kitchen!

Ushering in 09

Another New Year's Eve at the Phipps House. Loads of fun, what more can I say? Wether or not we are ready, it's 2009!