Lubbock, Here We Come!

Saturday was a great day for our family! :) Braden's Structure DI team won and Steve and I's Improv DI team won. We are all headed to Lubbock the first weekend in April. Steve can't wait to really show me Lubbock. I have only been once, and I am excited to see the city through his eyes. He went to school at Texas Tech and is looking forward to getting back! If one of our teams wins in Lubbock, we will be headed to Knoxville, TN, over Memorial Day weekend to compete at Global Finals! I have been to Globals twice before and it is a fun time! Here are some pictures from the day...

Steve and I with our team before we competed
The Improv team hearing about the rules and drawing numbers to see what country they would get. The lady who checked them in was awesome and made them feel so at ease.
Emily was the one who drew the numbers. She had to wear special glasses so she wouldn't see.

Crazy Trey during the skit...shaking the "snow globe"

Emily preparing the "Master Prop"

Rebecca: "My mouth is stuck from my peanut butter sandwich"

Trey: "Here, have some jelly"

Solving the "unexpected problem"

Our cute team right before Instant Challenge

Braden: "Take this toothcase and get out of my space."

Meredith and Kennedy as the fairies....they were so cute :)

Braden as Frankenstein getting ready to go on stage

You can see the nervousness written all over his face! He made such a cute Frankenstein!

Braden as Frankenstein

Arielle, the Tooth Fairy and Brandon, Cupid

This little bitty structure (weighs less than 25 grams) held over 400 pounds!!!

Trey

Rebecca

Meredith and Kennedy

Macey

Emily

Braden Ava

Ashlyn

The Mittelstadt Patriots at Awards

Brandon, Mackenzie and Dyllyn holding the Patriot banner
Emily crying tears of joy after finding out she won!

The Structure Team...WINNERS....GOING TO LUBBOCK!

The Improv Team...WINNERS....GOING TO LUBBOCK!

The Triple Take Road Show Team...SECOND PLACE!!!

All in all, it was a terrific day for Mittelstadt! The Improv team had to go first at 8:00 in the morning....we set the stage for all the teams that came after us. We proved that we deserved to win! Next week we will get back to work perfecting our performance so that we all do great in Lubbock....stay tuned and check back in April to see how it all turns out! :)

Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day was so fun this year! :) I love having four Valentines. :) It was fun to make heart shaped things and play fun games. We first decorated heart shaped cookies this weekend. They turned out pretty cute!!

For breakfast on Valentine's day we had these fun heart shaped bagels.

I got beautiful flowers and a very special gift from my most special Valentine. The red roses are from one of my kids at school and the yellow ones (my favorite!) were from Steve. He also made this fabulous sign to hang on our new home together when we get married. He burned it himself. He also put together a scrapbook (knowing how much I love scrapbooking) of all the notes we have written each other over the past year. What a special, handmade, thoughtful Valentine's gift. I sure felt loved. We gave the boys games for Valentine's day and my mom got them each a red heart blanket that they love! It sure is fun to celebrate Valentine's with the one you love!

We had a yummy dinner of heart shaped burgers and curly fries!

While dinner was cooking, we played a fun game. The boys each got 20 conversation hearts and they had to put them one at a time into their mouth and drop them into a cup on the floor. Nolan and Braden were really good...Logan had some trouble. The first time around, Nolan and Braden tied so we had to have a tie breaker...Braden won the tie breaker by one!

After dinner, it was time for dessert. We had chocolate fondue. We had strawberries, bananas, angel food cake, marshmallows and apples to dip in the chocolate. It was a delicious way to end Valentine's Day! :)

We hope you had a great Valentine's Day, too!

It's as Easy as Riding a Bike!

It was a big weekend at the Baird house! Nolan joined the ranks of his big brothers and learned how to ride his bike without training wheels! He caught on pretty quickly. After just a couple of minutes, he was riding up and down the street and even turning around. He hasn't mastered braking yet, but I think he will figure that out pretty quickly!

Look....I am riding it all by myself!! :)

Valentine's

Making Valentines

Last night, we completed the annual task of addressing Valentine's. This year, Nolan got to join in the fun. Logan says at middle school, they give away carnations, but he chose not to participate....says he doesn't have anyone to send a carnation too. :) I am sure there is a girl or two that he'd like to give a flower to...just not brave enough yet. Braden is giving out paper airplane Valentines and Nolan is giving out Toy Story Valentines. Braden had 5 extras to give out to friends in his "switch" class. After addressing all of the invitations, he said to me, "I gave a valentine to a person who probably won't get very many." I asked who and he said Jamell. Jamell is a kid in his switch class who often gets into trouble....he is a bad choicemaker. I thought it was super sweet for Braden to give him a Valentine. He said, "I bet if everyone in his class didn't have to give valentine's to everyone, Jamell probably wouldn't get any." Such a sweet, tender heart sometimes!

Random

It's been pretty quiet around our house lately...nothing too exciting to write about. We did make it through the great "SNOW (we actually had a little bit of ice)" of 2011. We enjoyed a day off of school, but we are not looking forward to having to make it up.

Steve and I registered at Macy's this weekend. For those of you who have never done this, I HIGHLY recommend it when you get married or have a baby! It is so... FUN! Steve especially enjoyed pointing the gun at everything he could find that we might remotely need (or want) someday! I had fun doing that too! :)

It's musical season at the high schools. I love musicals! Steve and I went to see KHS's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It was fabulous and absolutely hysterical. I would highly recommend it if it comes to a stage near you. Then we took the boys to see KCHS's production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. It was so cute and we really enjoyed it. I continue to do my part in keeping my boys cultured. They really do enjoy it...

And for your reading pleasure, I will leave you with Braden's latest story. For homework, he had to write a story from the point of view of an animal. He chose a monkey...I can't imagine why he would want to write about a monkey...perhaps because he does such a good job of acting like one! :)

Braden's Story:
Oh yah work it work it. I love the people who take pictures of me. Oh, you're watching. Hi I'm a monkey who lives in a zoo. The zoo is great. When people take pictures of me, I give them my best moves. I swing from vines, I pose, and one of my best ones is I throw up and I eat my throw up. If you want to see me do it, you better come to the zoo tomorrow. If you don't come, you'll wake up with a monkey on you. so, if you don't want a monkey on your back, you better come.

He's a ham. This is not one of his best pieces of work....I think it was one of those hurry up and finish your homework kind of days. I will share some more of his work with you soon. He wrote an awesome story about the Alamo for a contest recently. We are crossing our fingers that he wins something. Be on the lookout for it....

Kids Say the Cutest Things

We are in the middle of a magazine fundraiser at school. If the kids sell a magazine, they get a coveted duck keychain. They are so fun. Anyway, we did our parental duty and made sure that each boy (Nolan and Braden) got 3 ducks. There are many different kinds of ducks...a cheerleader, a princess, an elephant, a monkey, a cow, a football player, dinosaurs, and....the inja (according to Nolan! :)). For some reason, he just can't get out the N in ninja no matter how many times we correct him. He also carries a packpack to school everyday! I love his cute little voice and know it will only be a matter of time before he doesn't say those things anymore!