Elementary Christmas Concert

Franklin Elementary had their 6th annual Christmas concert last night.  This was seriously the best elementary concert I have ever been too.  It echos the wonderful concerts that Mrs. Parchey put on at Eisenhower Elementary back in my elementary school days.

Marcella had a solo!  Please be patient, if you decide to watch this video, I was figuring out my camera.  There's one song called "A Time For Love",  then a long break and then Marcella finally sings.  It is a very sweet solo called "I Have Lost My Jingle Bell" by E. Gilpatrick.

Emily had a short solo at the beginning of one of the 4th grade songs.  The piece is called "The Peace Carol" by Bob Beers.

Audrey had a solo for the 3rd grade class.  Her song is called "The Magic of the Night" by Enya Brenna and Roma Ryan.

All in all, the Gagon's were very well represented at this years Franklin Elementary Winter Festival Concert!  I'm hoping our next round of concerts I'll remember the tripod so we don't get sick from watching the videos!

Liberty Fall Festival

 Liberty had their annual Fall Festival this weekend.  We had lots of fun walking up and down and all around the square looking at all of the fun things to see and buy.

 One vendor paid a face paint artist to paint faces for free all weekend.  How Fun!  She was great and the girls loved it... I think it was worth the wait in line (Remember, you can double click to get a closer look at the paint).

I think this is the funniest picture!  The girls specifically asked for a side shot of their faces, pretty cute huh!?!  We had tons of fun, but now we're all tired and grumpy. 

I think it'll be an early bed time tonight!

Back to School

 I know these are long overdue, but here they are.  Olivia started Middle School this year.  Now that is something!  She is loving every bit of it.  She was surprised that she was one of the only girls to actually wear a dress the first day.....oh Honey, I hope you stay who you are, dress the way you like and don't fall into the "everybody else is doing it" crowd.

 Emily started 4th grade, Audrey 3rd grade and my Marcella Bella finally became an official Kindergartener!

I was a little nervous for her to go straight into all day Kindergarten, but she loves it!  She's a tad cranky at night, but I hope that a little more time will fix that problem.  The thing that surprised her the most about Kindergarten is that your teacher doesn't eat lunch with you!  I guess no one ever mentioned that to her...

American Girl Doll Paradise

Can I just say, $money$ can go very quickly in the American Girl Doll store!
Denver has the pleasure of being the next special city to claim an American Girl Store. I thought it appropriate that my 5 girls and I be some of the first to check it out on our very first day of Spring break. It was soooooo much fun!

Here we are, piled in the mini van, just itching to go!

Aren't they all so cute? I really should have taken a picture of myself... I'm sure I was glowing with excitement too!

I spent the first 15 minutes of our car ride doing doll hair. The girls all wanted to take their dolls to this new store looking fabulous, who can really blame them, certainly not me.
(I've taught them well, already!)

We ended up getting there waaaay too early. I misread the time. The store opened at 9 am for media and VIP, we had to come back at 10. But we passed a Krispy Kreme on the way, so off to eat donuts to burn some time. How much better can one day get?!
Well, Donuts didn't take as long as we thought, so we were back by 9:45. So all 5 girls were just hanging all over the big picture windows staring at all of the great things inside.
Our day got better...
An older woman waved me down from inside, then came strolling outside to us. She told me she was going to my mother and my girls grandmother today, and would we like to come into the store early and look around?! Heck, yeah!
So, to make a long story short, we got to be in the store a little earlier than most to gawk at the hundreds of doll things that little girls dream about and grown women, mothers and grandmothers still love to dream about.
Todd surprised me by wanting to tag along and was a great sport of helping to round up 5 (sometimes 6) girls, all trying to run in different directions in the store.

Here they are back at home with all their loot. We did limit how much they could spend, but honestly, it doesn't take long to empty your wallet with 5 girls in a store like that.

The rest of the day was spent playing dolls...sigh...really, truly, a perfect girl day!

Snow Day!

We had our first snow day of the year on Wednesday! Todd wasn't home, so I got to shovel some seriously wet, heavy spring snow. Thank goodness for my neighbor who took pity on me and helped me out! I was shocked at how long the girls spent playing in the snow. Usually it's a half hour and they're inside asking for hot chocolate. But this time, it was actually pretty warm outside and they played for a couple of hours before the hot chocolate party began.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Marcella Anne is Four!

Our Family is sooo lucky to have Marcella's Birthday on Saint Patrick's Day! I asked Marcella the night before her big day what she wanted to do on her birthday. The first thing that popped out of her mouth was that she wanted to do what Daddy had done on his birthday... have breakfast in bed! I don't even remember doing that for Todd last year, it must have made a pretty strong impression on our lucky girl.

She absolutely LOVED eating in bed! Her favorite breakfast... strawberry oatmeal, chased down with a leporcahn green powdered donut. Marcella made her sisters green with envy with the whole breakfast in bed deal. I have a feeling it will be requested many times in our household from now on.

Here's Audrey, Olivia and Emily sporting there green for school.... no pinches here!

And here's our Marcella and Rylee Jo!

Denver just happened to have the most gorgeous St. Patricks day this year! The forcast called for a near 70 degree day! I was sooo excited because Marcella has been asking since January if she could go to the zoo for her birthday. She really must be a lucky girl!

Marcella brought her very best friend Cali with her to the zoo.

Marcella's first ride on the Zoo train. For those of you who may go to the zoo, are on a budget and wonder if it's more fun to ride the carousel or the train.... the carousel is soooo much better. Maybe it was the wrong time of the year for the train ride, but it was pretty lame. We didn't really see any animals and I think the carousel ride was longer!

Rylee and her mommy!

I just couldn't help but put this sweet profile in!

Our last stop was at the elephants on our way out. My, was I tired from from dragging that wagon and the girls were tuckered out too. When we first got to the elephants, they had their backs to us, but Marcella called their names (Elly and Dolly) over and over and over again. After a few minutes of this, wouldn't you know, those elephants turned around and started walking towards us! It totally made Marcella's zoo visit.


Thank goodness for Grandma! Grandma sent a package of presents for Marcella to open, it really helped so that Todd could watch her open other presents once he got home that weekend.

Marcella loved getting an Only Hearts Doll horse!

I just can't believe that my curly haired baby girl is four now.
Marcella is such a happy girl, full of the silliest things to say!

Girl Pictures!

I spent last Saturday taking snapshots of my girls. This is the only one that sort of turned out cute. Why is it so hard to get 5 girls looking at a camera? Rylee truly was not diggin' it.

Halloween

Audrey started our Halloween with her first lost tooth! She was soooo excited to finally loose it. She couldn't wait to go to bed so that the tooth fairy could visit.

My girls looked so festive in their Halloween shirts!

Dressed up! Audrey wanted to be a GREEN witch, Emily was her black cat, Marcella finally decided on Sleeping Beauty for the second year in a row, Olivia was Susan from Narnia. She even carried a pretend bow and arrow. Rylee was a Chick-fil-a cow and their cousin Mikey was Yoda. Too cute!

Rylee was so stinkin' cute!
But her favorite part of Halloween was riding in the wagon with her cousin and being given candy!

Garden of the Gods

Todd had training in Colorado Springs this last week. So the girls and I decided to drive down Thursday after school, spend the night, (skip school on Friday) and visit the Garden of the Gods after Todd got out of training Friday, late morning. The Garden of the Gods was beautiful!

The girls all took turns climbing between these two rock formations.
Olivia above and Audrey below.

Just to give you a picture of the size of this formation, here's Emily climbing through.

Our five girls!

Here's Todd leading the way to a formation called the Cathedral rocks.

More beautiful views...

My girls wanted me to take a picture of this 'face' rock...do you see it?

Marcella climbing around and striking a pose.

Rylee eating a snack.

Todd tried to carry Rylee around on his shoulders. We didn't realize that most of the paths were actually paved, or we would've brought a stroller. Rylee actually preferred to walk, but it was slow going that way.

Climbing more and striking more poses for the camera. Emily liked it so much that she's told us she wants to come back for her birthday!

Emily showing off, she wants to send this picture to her rock climbing Uncle Michael.

We had so much fun!

Back to School

Thursday, August 13th was our first day back to school!!! School starts sooo early in this part of Colorado. What ever happened to summer break from Memorial Day to Labor Day?

All of the girls were very excited to get into the new school year though. And I must admit, so was I. I think I'm a better mom when I have a couple of hours to myself during the day while Rylee and Marcella nap.

Speaking of Rylee...can you believe that she's walking? She started about 2 weeks after her first birthday. Maybe I can post her 1st birthday later.

Here's Marcella getting in on the action. She got dressed for school, but I didn't have the time to get her hair done. It's poofing pretty good this morning.

Marcella and 'Bun Bun'

Audrey Maxine- 1st grade and ready for a whole day of school and eating lunch in the cafeteria.

Emily Kathryn- 2nd grade and very nervous, as you can see. She broke down in tears just as we were taking pictures. But she recovered pretty quickly and ended up loving her first day. Do I see a bit of her Aunt Ashley creeping in?!

Olivia Aaron-4th grade and she has some how forgotten how to smile for a camera that day. She's excited that recess is before lunch this year so she'll be missing a lot less of it this year. Last year she had to check her blood sugar before lunch, then eat lunch, then got to recess...needless to say, Olivia isn't the fastest, so missed recess about a 4th of the time.