TTM Awards Night

This is the lady over "Motivation" from the TTM headquarters

TTM AWARDS NIGHT!
What an exciting night that was!  I LOVED it!!  The auditorium was practically shaking with all the cheers and screams from all the students!  I LOVED all the praise they were getting for all their hard work!  I love when these kinds of things are rewarded!  So much cooler than random drawings and un-worked for praise.  I want my kids to know the difference.  Most of the speeches were pretty boring, but I loved Mr. Flynn's praise of Luke.  He so deserved that!  I was so happy he had his little moment.  I think he liked it too, even though he kept telling me how many times they said his name and how it was "kind of embarrassing" :).  He loved it :).  I could have done without Mr. Flynn mentioning us and our "18 kids"- the big stinker!- but other than that!  I was glad that Bradley and Luke both got awards.  I'm afraid the reason Bradley didn't get the main, big one for fifth grade is because Luke was for sure getting the fourth grade one and since they're brothers... because Bradley passed up the rest of the fifth graders by almost double.  But I get that they have to try to include everyone.  Just kind of a bummer for him.  Not that he didn't get recognized, and they both were in heaven with all the attention :).  Bradley riled up the crowd when they called him up to the front :).  Funny kid.  I'm just so happy for them and how hard they worked for that!  They really did push themselves and did way more than we all thought possible.  It was fun to hear Mr. Flynn bring up how "out there" his challenge to get more than 100 was :).  Then to hear him point out how Luke overcame the impossible.  Just cool.  Sounds kind of cheesy repeating it now, it's just a math program, but still!!  Such a cool experience!  Talk about unifying the school!  So much fun!!  I can't believe they even got through the whole presentation with everyone cheering every other word!  Kinda funny.  Shouldn't just let them chant T-T-M the entire evening!  They'd have been just as happy :).  Anyway, it was so much fun!!  Good times.  And we got to see Mr. Denhalter at the end!  We're so excited to have him be our principal!!  I could totally do PTA with him as the Principal :).  Maybe.  5-12-16

They escorted the "MATHletes" into the auditorium while blasting We Are The Champions... so fun :)

Bradley and Luke had special seats up near the front because they were getting special awards!

Mr. Flynn encouraging cheering and homeboy poses :)

I'm glad Nate got this picture.  I wish we'd gotten one of the totals at the end- I think there was something like 800,000 lessons passed!  SHEESH!

There's Bradley getting his award!  We were on the wrong side of the stage to get good pictures of these.  Look at that though- 544 math passoffs, I think his pass rate was 95%.  41 hours!!  Good job, Bradley!

Shaking hands with school board/math reps, principal... very official award!

Got a picture of Rachael in case her mom wants a picture of her side/back.  

Luke getting his!  1,112 math lessons (this is just for during the march madness... he actually had over 1,300), overal pass rate 99%, and 11,381 problems solved!  I love that Mr. Flynn gave him credit for doing the impossible.  Who knew he'd blow Mr. Flynn's challenge to get 100 passoffs, so completely out of the water!!  Go Luke!

Presenting the trophy!  (and a very bald head!)

Luke's class

Another one- who knows.

Bradley's class.  

Our two Mathlete champions... this is really just too cool.

It was so much fun having Mr. Flynn's motivation and competitive nature through this whole experience.  I think it took them both, but I love that Mr. Flynn gives Luke so much credit (have I mentioned that yet?).

Mother's Day!

Mother's day was, as always, the best day!!  I love Mother's day!  I love thinking about my sacred role as a mother and I love being spoiled and special treated by my cute kiddos.  This year was no different :).  I had to wake up with Molly so I decided to just hurry and take my shower before feeding her and then laying back down before breakfast in bed was ready :).  The kids all brought up my breakfast and showered me with lots of gifts, treats and sweet cards and letters.  I absolutely love seeing all the thought and work that goes into their sweet words and crafts.  Makes me smile!  Jack gave me some sidewalk chalk and a big colorful lollipop!  Erika gave me a notebook and pen with a special picture drawn inside of she and I :).  Also a sunflower she planted at school.  Hopefully the seed survived her jump from my bed :).  She gave me the sweetest picture and little flowers with things she is going to do for me too.  Noah had made me a button bracelet at Scouts and planted a flower at school as well.  Then wrote me a sweet card too.  So fun, I love the thoughtfulness that goes into these things.  Luke gave me my favorite sweetart candies and a card he made.  he knows me so well :).  Bradley made me a fun candy gram, and a cool shrinky-dink necklace at school that I wore all day, and a coupon book and card.  So sweet.  Kelly gave me a popcorn bucket full of fun pamper-y things- the fingernail clippers were extra special because she knew I needed some :).  And they already came in handy.  I love the slippers too and all the treats.  She got the right color of nail polish too, for my new skirt.  Very thoughtful and fun.  Charity made me a mug with sweet words on it (even arranged to borrow Lisa's fancy pens to pull that off!  Cool girl) and put some yummy cowtails inside.  And Nate Molly gave me a new bike!!!  Nate says it was Luke's idea though :) so he gets some credit too.  I gave my bike to Charity when hers broke, so I haven't had one for a while!  So this was a very fun surprise!!  I can't wait for it to get here, it sounds amazing!  I LOVED all the hugs and all the happy feelings.  Everyone is always so fun and happy on Mother's Day morning.  So heavenly.  We had gotten up early enough that some games were in order :).  Erika and I (and eventually, Jack, Bradley, Luke and Kelly) played the Cupcake game.  Love that game.  It never gets old :).  WE got all ready for church and made it on time, which was wonderful!  The kids sang their cute songs for me :).  I loved that Jack got to go up this time!!  So brave!  The little food for the moms thing was excellent.
We played a few games when we got home, Guess Who and something else, and then we ate Charity's wonderful dinner she made.  Then we all headed off to Grandma Hatch's to give her the scarf and then on to the Maynes Family Meeting!  It was a nice fun day!!  I couldn't be happier with my kids and my family, my life for that matter- just feels good these days!!  Makes me happy.

I got out my new portrait lens from Jami and played around a little.  One thing's for sure- so far, a great lens cannot compensate for horrible lighting.  I love my dad's flash for my indoor pictures- these two pictures show perfectly how much better my pictures look with the bounced off light of the flash.

Look how blurred the background is!!!  perfect.

apparently I need to learn how to hold the camera still... still a little blurry... but we did get some really crisp ones, so I know it's just me.

Even the length of her little leg makes a difference!  So awesome.

What do you think, Nana, related??

Again with the lighting!  These two are without the flash.

LOOK AT THAT CONTRAST!!!!  So crazy.  I have way more fun taking indoor pictures when they can turn out with this kind of lighting.  

I love being a mom to these kids.