Ward Family Trip

We are leaving today to go camping with all the Ward Family. We will be camping on Lake Sam Rayburn. I'm excited to see everyone (I think there will be at least 35 people there) and because this is the lake I grew up camping on and no other camping has ever compared. I am looking forward to getting there and making lots of new memories with lots of great family! We will be enjoying lots of boating, swimming, great food, beer, horseshoes, visiting and singing the Family Trip theme song "Little Ole' Wine Drinker" at least 100 times.

My Dad's family has been having an annual trip planned at a convenient time for Fantasy Football drafts for several years. I'm not sure exactly how many years, but I know for sure we were there in 1997 because I remember watching the coverage of Princess Diana's death in the Condo in Florida.

Here are a few pics from some of the previous trips:

Gulf Shores 2003--This was Maddie's first trip.

The five Ward brothers...left to right: Frank, John, Pat, Robert and Dan.

Hot Springs, Arkansas 2005 This was Maycee's first trip.

Mississippi 2006

Gulf Shores 2008

We were evacuated for a hurricane and had to head north and fly home from their. We only stayed a few days and I don't have many pictures. I was planning on more pics later in the week :(

The beach and pool as we were evacuating. So different from the day before.

P.S. I am changing my music player to Dean Martin's "Little Ole Wine Drinker" for the weekend. Enjoy!

1st Day of School

Yesterday was Maddie's first day of first grade. She was very excited. Here she is before we left to bring her to school. I made her outfit and she was very excited about it. You can't really see them in the picture, but I think she was most excited about the flip flops I made with bows on them.

This is what Maycee was doing while we took Maddie's picture. (fixing Ruthie's hair) I thought Maycee would be sad that Maddie was gone all day, but she really enjoyed having the house to herself. She was ready to go pick her 'sissy' up in the afternoon though. She was full of questions for Maddie about how her day went.

Maddie with her backpack and lunchbox. Notice she is wearing a bow, but it's on a headband. That was our compromise. She loves headbands.
Maddie and Elli waiting for their teacher in the cafeteria.

Headed to her classroom.
Maycee telling her bye. Maddie gave Maycee a little kiss right after this, but I didn't get a pic. It was super sweet.
Maddie and Kai.
She had homework last night to bring 3 things that fit in a lunch sack to tell about herself.

She brought

1) a disney picture so she could show she likes disney and that she has a little sister and a cousin (poor Kennedi isn't in the picture,but she said she was gonna say she has 2 cousins)

2) a ballet necklace to show whe like to wear jewelry and that she likes ballet

3) an American girl cheerleading book to tell that her favorite thing to play with is her American girl dolls and that her favorite sport is cheerleading

It was interesting to see what she picked to bring.

Maddie on her previous First Days of School.

A Quick Trip

This weekend Maddie, Maycee and I went to Austin for my cousin Danielle's bachlorette party. It was at my Aunt and Uncle's house and was for the whole weekend. I couldn't stay the whole weekend to go and enjoy the lake with them, but I did go up on Friday for the lingerie shower.

Me and the girls stayed with my cousin Wendy and her husband Jason. They recently move to Austin and we are very excited to have them so close now. They have kids that Maddie and Maycee couldn't wait to go and play with. They were so excited to see Taylor, Madison, and Bryce.

Jason was so nice to keep all the kids while Wendy and I went to the party. He said they were very good, and that they all played great together. I sure hope he was telling the truth :-) They had a great time with him. He grilled burgers for them and made banana splits with them.
This is Bryce showing off his cool sunglasses.
Taylor and Maycee. When we came home from the party we went to check on them in bed. Maycee and Taylor were sleeping in the top bunk and Maycee was snuggled up right next to Taylor. It was sooo sweet. Taylor even told Wendy in the morning that Maycee had put her arm around her in the night.

Maddie and Maddie. Actually I'm not sure how Madison spells Maddie, but I'll have to find out. It gets kinda confusing because they both go by Maddie. They both love American Girls and they played lots of babies while we were there. They played so good together.

They dressed up and had a fashion show for us. Wendy even let the girls take home some princess costumes and a Tinkerbell costume to borrow. Actually we came home with both of the costumes that Maddie and Maycee are wearing in this picture. We are going to use them when we go to Disney. I'm so excited because none of our princess costumes fit Maddie anymore and they had a Cinderella costume and Aurora costume to fit her so we won't have to buy one for either breakfast. Maycee wants to wear Tinkerbell for Halloween and to Disney. (Thank you so much Wendy!! They will get lots of use and we will take good care of them. They already had a fashion show for Guy.)

Left to right: Tinkerbell (Maycee), Winnie the Pooh (Bryce), Mickey Mouse (Madison), a Witch (Taylor) and Aurora (Maddie).

They also put on a karaoke show for us. You can't tell in the picture but Taylor and Maycee are playing the keyboard.

On the way home, Maddie wanted to know why we couldn't stay longer. I told her we had to finish getting ready for school and that I still had hairbows to make for some of her new outfits. The conversation continued like this....

Maddie: Starting Sept 1st I'm not wearing bows anymore.

Me: Really?

Maddie: Yeah! I made a decision.

Me: You are still gonna wear bows. They are cute. Your friends wear them. And I like them.

Maddie: (with a little attitude) What are you, an animal? (followed by a little pouting)

Well...I'm not sure what that meant, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be nice. LOL!

I sure hope she doesn't push this no bow issue because it will make me very sad. I'm not ready for her to grow up. I probably shouldn't have given her the whole I'm the Mom that's why type line, but I wasn't prepared for the thought of no bow. I'm counting on bows at least through First Grade. Lot's of her friends still wear them. The bright side is at least she had the courtesy to give me a 1 week notice :-)

Ready for School

We are all ready for school to start. We finished school supply shopping about a week and a half ago. I had to go to 5 or 6 stores to find everything (and I never did find Prang Watercolors.) I can't imagine trying to do that at the lastt minute after things are picked over. We bought an extra set of supplies because last year there were some kids in Maddie's class who didn't bring supplies. She was so good about remembering to get double of everything we picked out. It was so sweet, she asked if they were for a boy or a girl and I said I didn't know, so she made it a point to pick out colors of everything that a boy or a girl would like. She is such a sweetie. I couldn't believe when I found out from one of my friends who is a teacher the amount of money teachers spend on supplies. So hopefully that set will help a tiny bit.

Anyway, her backpack came in a couple days ago. I found it in the Pottery Barn catalog and thought it was adorable. I know that Pottery Barn is way too expensive, but their stuff is such good quality and they stand behind it.

Side note story....For Christmas one year we bought the girls each an anywhere chair with their name monogrammed on it. They loved them for watching tv in the mornings and the covers came off so that we could wash them in the washing machine. About a month after Christmas the next year the zipper on Maycee's broke. So I decided to order her a new cover since you can't use the chair without the cover because of he way it is made. I called to order and wanted hem to look up the previous order to make sure the font on the monogram would match and when they saw it was only a little over their year warranty they said they were replacing it for free. Now that is customer service. They monogrammed a new one and sent to us. We didn't pay shipping or anything and on top of that they didn't need me to send the old one back which saved me a trip to the post office. Now that is customer service!!!

Anyway it was funny because Maddie wanted the solid color one, but I wanted polka dots. We talked about it back and forth for about 2 weeks and then we got a new catalog with this picture of some kids wearing the backpacks. They were standing in front of a blackboard with their grade written next to them. They girl wearing the polka dot backpack in the picture said 3rd grade and suddenly that was the one Maddie wanted. LOL.

She wanted Maddie, not Madeline monogrammed on it. She never wants anything monogrammed with Madeline and she doesn't like to be called Madeline. Hmm...it's might be because the only time we call her that is when she's in trouble.

On Wednesday, Maddie got her postcard saying who her new teacher is. Her name is Mrs. Hardin and Maddie is very excited. She remembered her from last year and said she is very nice. She is also happy because lots of her friends are in her class...Elli, Kai, and Robbie from our neighborhood and Lanay from her cheer squad.


Last night was Meet the Teacher. We brought all of Maddie's supplies to her classroom, met her teacher and got to see were her desk is. She has a desk instead of a table this year. That is a big thing to her.

Maddie showing off her favorite notebook that she picked out.

The front of Maddie's school.

Maddie standing by her desk. She sits next to Kai. We'll see how long that lasts. LOL!