The Lee Family: April 2017

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Olivia's Soccer Photos

The Rockets had their last game on Friday at 5:30pm and we met at the soccer field early so I could take photos of each of the girls and a team photo. Throughout the season, I've taken photos during the games and shared them with all the parents. About two weeks before our last game I offered to Coach Matt to take the team photos since the photos the soccer association offers to take of individuals and the team are expensive and completely dorky (I think). I just prefer the real setting of the girls on the field instead of inside a trailer with a fake background. Coach Matt was excited when I offered and said he was going to ask if I'd do it, so I'm glad he was receptive to the idea and likes the more natural photos as much as I do. I took the team photo first and then did individual photos of each of the girls. They all turned out really cute and the girls are just adorable!

After the photos were done, the girls warmed up for their last game of the season. It's been such a fun season with a great group of girls and families and we couldn't ask for a better coach in Coach Matt and Coach Doug. They are both great with the girls, know a lot about soccer and are excellent at teaching the girls how to play. They are always calm and easy going and we are really lucky to have them! Everyone has agreed to come back in the Fall, which is great and Coach Matt has offered to continue practices through the summer so the girls can grow as a team and continue to improve individually and together as a team. We look forward to a great Fall season!

Coach Matt, Coach Doug and the Rockets

Silly photo

Olivia's "official" soccer photo

Olivia takes the ball

Giving Coach Matt a high five after scoring one of her goals

With Grandma! Olivia is so excited to have her here!

The final "Go Rockets" of the season

Team selfie!

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Olivia's Loses Her First Tooth!

Last night Olivia lost her first tooth, which has been lose for about six weeks. In the past few days her bottom front left tooth has become very lose and was barely even hanging in her gums! She was having trouble eating and would often have to move her tooth so it didn't get in the way of chewing her food. Even though it was so loose, she was afraid it would bleed so she didn't want anyone touching it or trying to pull it out. It was amazing that it didn't fall out sooner!

Last night we headed to Johnny B's for the girls' favorite dinner meal - grilled cheese and french fries before our Bible study at Kyle and Annie's house. The girls ate their food and then we loaded up and drove to Kyle and Annie's house, about 10 minutes away. As we walked into their house, Olivia had her finger in her mouth poking around and then turned to me with big eyes and said "It's gone!" Her tooth was gone and it was not bleeding. She must have swallowed her tooth during her dinner. She immediately started to cry because "the tooth fairy wouldn't come without a tooth!" I told her Sofia lost a tooth that we weren't able to find and the tooth fairy still came. I reassured her that once we got home she could write a note to the tooth fairy explaining the situation. She seemed satisfied with this idea and we had an uneventful Bible study after we worked out the tooth fairy issue.

Once we got home, she set down to write her note. She just asked me how to spell words and she wrote it all down. The note was very direct and to the point. It read: "Dear Tooth Fairy, I lost my tooth and I don't know where it is so can you give me some money. Love Olivia Lee" Once she finished her note, she put it with her tooth on her night stand and got ready for bed. She had actually fallen asleep on my lap during Bible study, which always makes for an interesting bedtime since she usually doesn't feel tired until close to 10pm. We tucked her into bed and told her to fall asleep or the tooth fairy wouldn't visit. After maybe 15 minutes, Olivia was out in the living room saying "I slept until I couldn't take it anymore!" She couldn't stand waiting for the tooth fairy! She finally fell asleep and woke up this morning to find that the tooth fairy had brought her lots of fun things! The tooth fairy also apparently locked her bedroom door. I tried to go in to wake her up in the morning and it was locked. She swore she didn't do it, so it had to be the tooth fairy's doing.

The tooth fairy brought her a $2 bill with pixie dust on it, a $1 coin, a pink and purple-winged fairy necklace, blue pixie dust in a little glass bottle, and a note that read "Dear Olivia, Congratulations on losing your 1st tooth! Sorry you lost it but look forward to more from you! xoxo Alicia (your tooth fairy)" She was so excited to get her tooth fairy goodies and especially excited to tell her class at Cowboy Up! She is so super excited to have lost her very first tooth! Plus, she looks so stinking cute!

Olivia's VERY loose tooth!

Olivia and her missing tooth!

Olivia busy writing her note to the Tooth Fairy

Olivia's finished note

A tired girl is ready to leave her note for the Tooth Fairy and go to bed

Th Tooth Fairy came!!

Someone is excited to show off her missing tooth to her friends at school!

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Sofia's First Lemonade Stand!

About weeks ago, we learned that the Frontiers of Flight Museum on Love Field is hosting a Gala on May 18th to honor Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise and Sofia was beyond excited at the prospect of going! CK brought home a flier for Sofia from his flying club meeting and she happened to notice the information on the Gala. I looked on the museum's website and discovered that just to attend the Gala it costs $5,000 for a table of 10. That did not include meeting, talking to or taking any photos of Jim Lovell or Fred Haise! In order to meet them, the ticket's were $10,000 for a table, which worked out to $1,000 per ticket!! At the bottom, it stated that "individual tickets would be available for sale starting on May 1st." Sofia begged to go and said she would do anything to pay for her ticket.

So, before we got ahead of ourselves, I wrote an email to the museum to double check that individual tickets would be available on May 1st. I explained that ever since we visited NASA over Spring Breaks, Sofia has read the book "Apollo 13" and researched all she could on all of the various NASA space missions. For the writing portion of the STAAR test, one of the questions was "Who would you most like to meet and talk to?" and she wrote about Fred Haise! Jim Lovell and Fred Haise are Sofia's main heroes and she couldn't believe she might be able to see and possibly meet them. Mrs. Perez responded and said she would be happy to sell individual tickets to us for $250!! Immediately, Sofia said she would sell lemonade and do just about anything to raise the money! At first, we decided CK would take Sofia so we would spend $500 total. However, I was soon emailed again and told that the museum's focus is on encouraging the next generation to pursue science, math and space exploration. They asked if we would be interested in attending the VIP portion of the Gala, where Sofia would be able to meet and get her picture taken with her heroes! So, we decided to all go to the Gala, since it really would be a once in a lifetime event! Sofia is so super excited too.

Today after the girls got home from school, Sofia got busy making lemonade in the largest stock pot we own, as well as a plastic pitcher. A few days before, Sofia made her "Free Lemonade" sign as well as a sign explaining why she is hosting her lemonade stand. After we were ready, we loaded up the car with our lemonade, table, signs and cups and headed to the grocery store to buy ice. After we loaded up our ice chest with ice, we drove to the soccer practice fields and set up. We knew the practice fields are full of kids and parents nearly every night during the week, so we figured it would be a perfect place to set up. Setting up at the game fields over the weekend would be even better, but there is a concession stand so I knew we couldn't compete with them and not get into trouble.

Sofia set up her stand and called out to everyone that her lemonade was free, trying to get some business. It took a few minutes before anyone showed up, but soon she had a stead stream of visitors, especially after each of the practices ended. Sofia sold for just over an hour and made over $60! I couldn't believe it. One of the mom's gave $20 for two glasses of lemonade. I told her we'd get her change, and she said that she wanted to be sure to support Sofia and her efforts. It was so thoughtful! Besides selling lemonade and making money for her goal, she loved talking about the event and her heroes. It was really fun and turned out to be incredibly successful! Of course, she proclaimed that we should set up a lemonade stand every afternoon.

Sofia's lemonade sign

With her biggest helper, Olivia

All set up and ready to sell!

One excited "Nerd" (her favorite shirt)

Enjoying her goods

Her first sale!

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Happy Easter 2017

I woke up early to get started on the Easter meal, which is always one of my favorites. I make scalloped potatoes in the crockpot that turn out perfectly and are honestly better than dessert, to me. I have to slice the potatoes, parsnips, onions and make everything for the sauce. The parsnips are the secret to the dish, I think. As I arrived in the kitchen to make my coffee I noticed that the Easter Bunny had made his way to our house. The girls had their baskets full of goodies! The girls seem to always get a few of the same Easter staples, including Peeps, jelly beans, a chocolate Easter Bunny, and a swimsuit. The baskets also included the girls' very favorite Easter sweets which are Sees chocolate eggs that have little white chocolate chicks inside. They love those chocolate eggs and were heartbroken when they weren't in their baskets last year. This year the girls had cute bandaids, a small bird house with paints and an gem excavation kit. It looked like great Easter baskets.

As I put together the scalloped potatoes, Olivia came out of her room, still pretty groggy. When she saw the Easter baskets on the table, she suddenly remembered that it was Easter and woke up a little more. She headed straight for her basket and started looking through all the goodies, slowly taking everything out and figuring out what everything was. She noticed that Sofia had a basket and Papa had a large chocolate Easter Bunny but my place was empty. She asked me if the Easter Bunny brought me anything, which I found to be so thoughtful and sweet! I told her he'd brought me a chocolate Easter Bunny too but I'd taken it to my bedroom already to put it in a safe place. I couldn't believe she noticed.

I finished preparing for our lunch meal and Sofia was soon downstairs going through her Easter basket. She loved her new swimsuit and all of the fun stuff she got and loved going through everything. She was especially excited by the See's chocolate eggs in her basket, which really are her very favorite. It's always so fun to watch the girls go through their goodies and see how exciting it is for them.

Soon we were ready to head to Meeting and took a few family pictures before we headed out. Sofia, who is outgrowing all of her clothes faster than possible, wore a new pink dress that I found at Target that looks really cute on her and that she loves to wear. Olivia wanted to wear the dress my Mom made for Sofia, which is my absolute favorite dress of them all. I was afraid it wouldn't fit in the sleeves, but she put it on and it fit her perfectly! So excited she can still wear it and it is so adorable on her.

Meeting went well and we socialized for a bit before heading home for our meal. We've had two visitors in our meeting the past few weeks and asked them to join us for our Easter lunch. We also asked Ken and Lorena and Judy. We hoped to include Kyle and Annie, but they were up visiting their daughter at college. So it ended up being a good group with Phil, Eric, Lorena, Ken, Judy, and us. Once we made it home, I finished up on the remainder of the meal. We basically have the same thing every year, which is such a fun tradition but also easy to remember what to do to get ready. We had honey baked ham, those yummy scalloped potatoes I woke up early to make, salad and homemade rolls. We also made our own cake, which was a pineapple coconut cake that was in one of the Southlake magazine and looked amazing. It was all delicious! Lorena and Ken brought a box of chocolates, and two great Easter baskets for the girls! Of course the girls tore into their baskets and loved the cool erasable gel pens and coloring books. It was very sweet of them and we've been so lucky to have Ken and Lorena in our Meeting. Unfortunately, they were planning on moving to rural Washington state.

While we got everything ready to eat, Sofia and Olivia headed over to Antonio's house for an Easter egg hunt. I really wish we had a group of kids to host an Easter egg hunt, but since it's just the two girls we were more than happy to accept an invite over to Antonio's house to join he and Luca for a hunt. We also had about 40 eggs that we planned to put out in our backyard after our meal and our company had gone home. The girls were super excited to start their hunt with Antonio and Luca. As soon as Stacy let them go, they ran off and got busy hunting. They not only had a great time, but they collected a ton of eggs! I took a picture of the four kids after all the eggs were found and then headed back to our house to finish up our meal while the girls stayed behind to go through their things. Stacy had stuffed the eggs with toys, candy and money and offered to pay for eggs of candy that anyone wanted to turn in. Since Sofia is busy trying to raise money to visit the Frontiers of Flight Museum's Gala so she can see and possibly meet the astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, she turned all of her candy in for money.

Once they were back at the house, we gave our thanks for the meal and enjoyed our Easter lunch together. It was such a fun meal to sit around, eat, talk and just spend the afternoon. The food was great and we all ended up so stuffed. My Aunt and Uncle had sent us a big box of Sees candy that included a box of assorted chocolates, a chocolate Easter bunny, a bag of jelly beans and two walnut and fudge eggs that are so rich and yummy! It was all so delicious and we took our time enjoying it. We did pass around the box of assorted chocolates as well as the box that Ken and Lorena brought. It was the perfect ending to a great afternoon.

After saying goodbye to everyone and thanking them for coming, we told the girls to stay inside while CK and I hid the Easter eggs we had in the backyard. They were all stuffed with candy, toys and a few with money. Once we were done, the girls headed out and started their hunt. They found all of them (hopefully) and were so excited to go through all the eggs. They sat on the lounge chairs together and went through their eggs, trading candy and toys with each other. It was so cute. I'd packed the eggs with a set of little toys and after they found all of them they had so much fun playing together by the pool. I love how much they enjoy playing together and get along.

Sofia's Easter basket