Repeat Performance....

Uncle Eric's cross country team went to the State Meet this past weekend with the hopes of taking home the championship again this year.  And I am happy to say... they achieved their goal!!!

Lincoln is again SD State Cross Country champions 2013....

For those unfamiliar in the cross country world (like me) - the goal of the meet is to score the fewest points for your team.  You score points based on the place you finish in the race:  first place gets one point, second place gets two points, etc.

Lincoln scored 32 points (meaning all played scored in the top 20).  The 2nd place team scored 95 points - three times as many points as them.  Quite an accomplishment!

To celebrate their accomplishment, there was a homecoming celebration on Sunday.  We were lucky enough to attend.

Quinn and Sullivan congratulated the coach afterward!

We are so proud of the Lincoln Cross Country team and our favorite coach! 

Way to go!

Let's Hope...

Let's hope that these are not the images we see next week when we go out trick-or-treating...

With snow in our forecast for next week, we might just have a repeat of the snowstorm of 1991.  That year we got a record 9 inches of snow on Halloween.  Ryan and I remember it vividly - both of us were in middle school.  I can remember trudging through the snow to get to my friend's house.  It was like a ghost town (no pun intended).  No children were out trick-or-treating.  So sad.

Let's hope that is not the case this year or we will have one sad scarecrow and one sad monster.  But in South Dakota anything is possible. Anything.

Hands...

These are the hands of someone.....

*who loves to color.
*who loves to get dirty.
*who colors more pictures in one day than anyone I know.
*who has wrecked more than a handful of shirts with the non-washable markers at daycare.
*who has fallen in love with writing these past couple of weeks.
*who I love to the moon and back.

Sullivan Grace has been on this writing fetish lately.  She wants to write the names of everyone she knows and everything she sees.  She is constantly asking, "How do you spell...?"

When no one is around to spell, she sometimes just writes letters...

I am not sure those letters are supposed to say.  But despite that and the stained clothes, I love to see her sweet, sweet writing!

Habitat...

Quinn's class is studying animals and their habitats in school.  They were given the assignment to choose a habitat from around the world and create a shoe box diorama of that habitat with their family.

After some deliberating, Quinn chose to do the ocean habitat.  After all, her favorite animal of all times - the dolphin - lives in the ocean.  We brainstormed how we wanted to create our diorama, and finally settled on creating the ocean out of Jello.

Here is Quinn making the practice run of the ocean made from Jello.  

Sullivan had to get in on the action too...

Quinn worked so diligently on this project - it was right up her alley.  She created the clouds out of cotton balls and the sun out of beads and Styrofoam.  She had to research and report five facts about her habitat, but given her overachiever personality, she doubled that.  She found some great facts and displayed them all around the outside of her shoe box.

Here are her 10 fun facts about the ocean... I learned a lot about some of the animals and this habitat throughout this project too.

I have to say, Quinn did an AMAZING job on this project.  It turned out incredibly well and her hard work paid off!

Now let's just hope it makes it to school tomorrow in one piece!!

Who's Laughing Now?!

Quinn's school pictures came back a couple of weeks ago.  With anticipation I opened them up with Quinn watching, hoping they had turned out well.

Copyright - Photography by Mark

I have to admit, not the best pictures Quinn has ever taken, but I've seen worse school pictures.  For goodness sake, I've taken worse myself.  Much, much worse.

After some debate between Quinn and us, we decided that we would have retakes done.  When looking at the retake form, we were asked to circle the following reasons why retakes were requested...

a) a different expression desired
b) a different hairstyle desired
c) a different outfit desired
d) any other reason beyond the photographer's control

I asked Ryan if it is bad to circle all of the above?!

With retakes on the calendar for this past Monday, we were set for some new pictures.  We had practiced our smile and planned for a new outfit.  But guess who's laughing now?!  Quinn came down with a fever this weekend and... was unable to go to school Monday.  That means no retakes - no new photos.  :)

Oh well.  It makes for a good story and a good laugh. And I have to say, despite the sub par pictures, Quinn is still darn cute!

How Well Do You Know Quinn?

Quinn's class recently completed a project in class entitled, "I Can Be Anything!"  They had to think of the profession they hoped to be when they grow up and then write about it.  There was quite the range in career choices - some that were expected, some that made me smile.

How well do you think you know Quinn?!  Can you pick out the one that you think is her?!

Any guesses?  Here was Quinn's response...

Quinn will make a very fine art teacher some day - a marriage between her caring, nurturing side and her creative, artistic side!