HOME MEET "DERBY DAYS"

That was the theme for this particular meet. These videos were from last Saturday morning's home meet. Although St.Patrick's Day was over, that was the theme none the less cause it is Coach Kelly's favorite holiday. Once again Mimi was the sign carrier. Although Elsie did not do as well this meet, she still won ribbons and medals. Mimi got 1st place for the trampoline and 2nd place for the double mini. We are so proud of all of our Summit girls.

The video of the girl running, jumping and twirling is Elsie. The rest are of Mimi.

ANNUAL FATHER/DAUGHTER DANCE

Way too exhausted to put up the pics. Will do so at a later date. Our Saturday started off with the usual lollygagging by Mimi and me desperately trying to get her ready for the morning's competition at our home gym. Grandma and Grandpa were supposed to come but then at the last minute bowed out. Grandpa had the trots. I thought that we were supposed to be at the gym by 9 and instead found out that it was supposed to 10 instead. Oh my! I guess I should have checked into it earlier. Oh well. Que sera sera. At least we were early and not late. So I guess if you are to make a boo boo, that's the way to do it. So I made the best of our time and helped with the set up even though dad helped the night before. I helped the ladies with setting up the concession stands. This way I could get work hours toward our account and don't have to pay as much. I found out that Halli's gym does not do this. So they have to pay the full amount everytime. Now we have a plant sale going on too in order to make $$$$ for the gym. Any hoo, Mimi did real good and won first place for the trampoline event in her level and second place for the double mini. One of the perks for her being one of the younger athlete is that the younger ones get to go first and they are done for the day. Mimi also go to carry the sign during the march out. So I guess she is still shorter than Elsie. Elsie did pretty good too although she has done much better in the past. She is still having a smidgen of trouble with the twirling in the air bit. The competition was followed by a "Victory Lunch" at Red Robin. Mimi was sooo tired from fighting with me all week long that she nearly fell asleep in her mac 'n' cheese. A nap was in order for her when we got home. Since our huge blowout and discussion, things have gone back to normal again. Poor baby, thinking that dad and I were going to break up and she would be tossed aside. Next thing I knew it was time to get her ready for the father/daughter dance and get the house ready for my get together with the ladies. Got Mimi and dad off without a hitch. The ladies and their little men came over and we had a very lovely talk. Brandy had a rough day, I had a rough week and Julia had a rough couple of months. For Brandy, it was her daughter Halli that gave her a rough time, for me it was Mimi, for Julia, it was Olivia and Jack. Halli hemmed and hawed about going to the dance with her dad. Then Julia explained that for quite some time (15 months to be exact) Andre has been out of a job. Which was something we all knew. So she went back to work while he stayed home with the kids. Then for the past couple of months he would take odd jobs at night as soon as Julia would come home. This passing of the baton was starting to affect the kids to where they started to notice the kids acting very clingy with Julia or Jack and Olivia would sleep together everynight. Fortunately Andre got a steady job a couple of weeks ago and things are back to normal for them. We all came to realize the importance of how all of our kids tend to internalize things and their surroundings. I do hope that I can better help Mimi express her feelings better. I think that she is starting to better understand this whole adoption process and what we have to go through to get her Mei Mei. Tomorrow we will take her out of school to go down a do another set of fingerprints then just hang out as a family. Not sure what we will do but we will celebrate somehow in this milestone of an addition to our family unit. BTW.......Mimi called home during the dance to say a quick "hello" before I heard her say "OOPS! Gotta go! They're playing my favorite song!".......click. When the dance was over all the girls came to the house with their dads and we all had a smashing time together. The dads said that this year the girls actually danced quite a good number of dances with them. So of course you know......that made them really happy.

THROUGH THE RINGER

........that is what Mimi put me through this week! And somehow I survived it! Maybe that's why why I never watched all of those survival reality shows. Cause I'm actually living it.



All this week to put it lightly, Mimi was a real pill! We had a huge and I mean huge blow out yesterday morning. It's the talking back, lollygagging in the morning, and then some. The only day she did not lollygag was the day of the field trip. Then she was up and ready at the crack of dawm. Hmmmm, what's up with that??? It was really starting to get to me. I had to practically drag her to school. She went there kicking and screaming all the way. As I passed my friends on the way, I asked if it was too early to start drinking.



Just after arriving to school, we had a talk with the teacher regarding her behaviour. Teacher says that basically Mimi is an angel when she is in school. Somehow that is not coming across to the home life.



I was sooooooo happy to see Lisa when she brought Emily to the house and we went for a long walk around the lake. By the time we were finished, man was I exhausted. But it was a good kind of tired. Butch was thoroughly pooped out too.



For quite some time I had been thinking about WHY Mimi has been acting the way she does. I shared this with Lisa and Rhonda and my thinking is that it's because her little world is getting ready to change in a couple of months and she is not sure how she feels about this situation.



When I went to pick her up from school, she was all smiles and kisses and the teacher said that she had a great day. But when we got home........that was another story. Again, there was another humongous blow up. Then came the " I HATE YOU!!!" Ahhhh, don't you just love those. A phone call was put into dad as he was on his way home warning him about the rough waters ahead and to be on the look out. Finally I was able to get Mimi to decompress and that is when all of the screaming, hugging, tears came flooding out of her.



Tried getting her to use her words but all she could do was scream into my bosom, cry and hug me hard and I mean hard. I hugged her hard right back. I figured that the girl has so many mixed up emotions in her that she just doesn't know how to express herself. So when she calmed down, we talked.



She asked me "mom, why do people take off their wedding rings and smash them?" "What???" I thought to myself. "Where did this come from Mimi" Somehow she got the idea that dad and I are going to split up. Dad and I had a stupid argument which was out of pure frustration of daily life and such. Mimi heard us and in her mind, we were going to split up. I definitely had some explaining to do. Then she was worried about how it's going to be having a little sis around and that we may love and care about her more than we do Mimi.

Needless to say we had a long, long, long conversation with the girl last night about how much she means to us and how much we mean to each other.

She is feeling so much better today thankfully.

MORE PICS FROM THE WOODLAND PARK ZOO

ON THE BUS

.......to Woodland Park Zoo.

STILL WAITING

Put a phone call into the USAA office today and was told that Norman is in China and won't be back until April 6th. Maybe he is working on getting our referals????????? Oh I do hope so. None the less we have an appointment to get our fingerprints done again for the umpteenth time.

FIRST SIGN OF SPRING

Last Sunday was the first day of Spring. My backyard is still sparse
despite the Daffodils that are starting to bloom. My Tulips and
Hyacinths are sprouting buds but no flowers as of yet. By summer we
should have a beautiful yard once again. Unbeknownst to Mimi, dad
purchased a outdoor playset last night. She had been really wanting
one ever since we moved up here to Maple Valley. She wore me down and
I was able to talk dad into getting a small wooden playset. I was
partially wanting to get it for myself as I was looking down the road
to what is in store for me with our next chili pepper.