Here’s a picture of Noelle on the first day of 1st grade on August 27, 2012, and the last day of 1st grade on June 6, 2013!

I love her spunky attitude and happy self-confidence!  She’s the most compassionate kid you will ever meet, and is incredibly beautiful, on the inside and out.  I’m so excited to be a part of Noelle’s life… it’s so bright!

We met some sweet friends at Braum’s on the last day of school.  Noelle had her first banana split, and she ate the whole thing! (we had to get a new one with no nuts… we asked for no nuts, but you know how that goes)

Here’s Noelle with Gabby, Carson, and Jovie!  They were so excited to kiss 1st grade goodbye!  I was very sentimental.  My biggest baby is growing up too fast!  1st grade sounds okay, 2nd grade sounds like 12th, lol!  I want to freeze time.  I’m loving these awesome elementary school days with Noelle.  The littles are going to love elementary school, and you know I’ll be right there with them every step of the way!

Noelle, I am so excited to have you home for summer, sweetheart!  You’re such an awesome daughter and friend!  We’re going to have a blast this summer, and don’t worry, I’ve got lots of books and crafts to keep you busy during the afternoon when the littles are asleep.  Love ya!  xoxo

Noelle’s grade had such a fun end of school party this year!  Noelle and Georgia got in the same group to do all the stations together, and since they aren’t in the same class, they were so excited!

Take three big steps away from each other…

and shoot away!

Cute girls!  First grade had to wear P.E. shoes (tennis shoes) every day last week, but by Wednesday, Noelle was done.  She wore her tennis shoes to school, and after P.E., she took these silver sparkly shoes to change into (she slipped them in her back pack; we didn’t know, lol).  That’s our Noelle!

My voice was completely gone today, but I had fun watching Noelle goof off and play with her friends!  John and Nancy gave her her dress the day before at the hospital for her birthday, so she had to wear it to school today.  So sweet and cute!

Noelle with her friends Georgia and Ryan!

They had the most creative stations, all thanks to my friend, Amber, and the room moms!  This game was a human tic-tac-toe board!

Here the kids are playing a game with a tissue box tied to their waste with ping pong balls inside; the goal was to get all of your balls out faster than everyone else.  Noelle was having so much fun!  I love how goofy she acts with her friends!

Noelle’s friend Brianna’s little brother, Caden, wanted to take a picture with Noelle… it was the cutest thing ever! 

Here’s Noelle with her friends Chloe and Emily, and Ava’s little sister, Eden.  What a fun day to celebrate such a wonderful year!!!

I thought it would be fun to post pictures in chronological order of the day cousin Saylor was born!

The Camden and 2/3 (lol) Pond cousins were anxiously waiting to meet their new cousin, with her big sister, Harper!

Gunner, Anna Kate, and Harper had a blast playing on the iPad!

And an adorable little game of peek-a-boo!

Here I am!

Anna Kate had a lot of fun watching Gunner show her some new games!

Everyone had someone to play with… the waiting room was full of action!  Here’s Harper and Noelle playing on the iPad while Chevy and Anna Kate were playing “restaurant” in the kids play area.

In the lobby at the hospital, they had a self-playing piano.  This is the first time the girls have ever seen one.  They were amazed!

After John came in the waiting room and announced Saylor’s name and all the exciting birth details, we had a late lunch in the hospital cafeteria to let her get all bathed and fed, and then it was time to meet baby Saylor!  The girls were ooh-ing and ahh-ing, and it was so sweet!

Baby Saylor is beautiful!

Brother Man with his second baby girl!

Noelle was so excited to meet Saylor!

Proud Anna Kate showing off her new cousin!  Nancy made this amazing wreath for their hospital room.  We had such a special and memorable day meeting Saylor!!!  Happy birth day, Saylor!

It’s time to spend some time bragging on Noelle, because she has worked so incredibly hard this year at school!  She got 8 awards at her awards ceremony on Monday!  Here she is with her favorite teacher in the entire earth (her words), Mrs. Biggerstaff, after she presented Noelle with the character award she entitled, “The Above and Beyond Award.”  She said during the awards presentation that Noelle will go far in life because of the way she does everything with all her heart!  This is one happy girl right here, with one amazing teacher we will never forget and can’t thank enough for such an incredible year!!! 

I love to go to all of the special events for Noelle, and she loves having me with her!  I hope that never changes!

Out of the entire class, Noelle got the “Top Speller” award.  Spelling comes very naturally for Noelle.  She actually never missed a word the entire year, including the bonuses.  Her spelling average was 110!  She worked hard on spelling at school, but we didn’t have to go over her words very much at home (Friday mornings while I was doing her hair).  She’s a natural!  This is the award that she really really wanted, and she was very nervous she wasn’t going to get it.  I told her she might tie with someone, but that she can’t do better than perfect, so she has to get the award… but still, her stomach was in knots!  I love this smile on her face… pure satisfaction on a job well done.  After school, she told me, “Mom, now it’s my goal to be the best speller next year too!”  She’s already motivated to work hard at school next year.  I’m so proud of her attitude to want to do well and be successful.  This was the first time I think she truly felt that, and I know she was so proud, which is awesome, because she is building confidence in herself and her ability to achieve whatever she puts her mind to doing!  After I took this picture, I think Mrs. Biggerstaff thought Noelle was going to sit down, but instead, she dove in and gave her the biggest hug!  She was so happy; it was awesome!

Carson and Noelle won the Computer award for being the most computer savvy… the school computer teacher, Mrs. Clark, awarded two kids per class with the computer award.  Noelle does know a whole lot about technology, thanks to her amazing Daddy!  Congrats girls!

Chloe, Ayah, Noelle and Carson were happy little girls after their awards ceremony!

Noelle blossomed this year!  Last year, was an unbelievable challenge for all of us due to her kindergarten experience, but this year was the total opposite, thank God!  Not only did she blow us away with her academics (she also got the top reading award they gave to the top 4 best readers), but she gained self-confidence in that she is important and special at school, to her teachers and her peers.  She began leading and teaching, instead of cowering away in fear.  I use such strong comparison language, because I want you to know how far we’ve come.  We don’t take one award of hers for granted.  She truly worked hard in every area to gain trust and respect.  She’s a kind, gentle, patient, and lovely little girl, and we are blessed beyond measure to have her as our daughter!  With all of that being said, I wanted to share some words of encouragement her teacher wrote to us, as a testimony to her awesome year in 1st grade!

To me:

I love your girl.  You have done a great job raising her.  She is wonderful.  God knew that I needed her this year.  Noelle has been a blessing.  I will not forget your family.
Thank you for your kindness.
Marcy Biggerstaff

To Mike:

I just loved having Noelle in my class.  She is a beautiful girl, inside and out. I will miss her!
Marcy Biggerstaff

To Noelle:

It really does take a village to raise a child, and we are so grateful for Mrs. Biggerstaff and Mrs. Arnold, for the positive examples they have been to Noelle this year!  Our girl is happy, smart, loving and my biggest prayer answered, confident! 

Keep up the good work, Noelle!  This is only the beginning… with all of our hearts, we love you to the moon and back, forever and always!

Last week, I had so much fun teaching Noelle’s class a math game that I remember playing in the 1st grade!  They loved it (I think)! 

Then, I got to go with Noelle and her friends to their last house party of the year.  Noelle is in the yellow house, and we were sooo excited when we found this yellow shirt that says “House Party” on the front!  Emerson, Ava and Noelle are always in for a quick pic!

Dancing during the house party with Emerson…

Excited for summer!

This was our Christmas card last year… we took these pictures in October 2012.  The girls have grown and changed so much in 7 short months!  I love taking pictures because every day they seem to look a little bit older, and I don’t want to miss a thing!

My friend Stacy took our pictures last year, and all I remember was there was a slight chill in the air, and we had a whole lot of fun!

We couldn’t get a picture of the entire family smiling all at once, and I’m a little traditional like that, so we ended up using the one of just the girls for our Christmas card… but even that one we had to trade out one of their faces from another picture that they were smiling in, but I’m not going to tell you which girl it was!  Stacy switched her face for us in photoshop and did an amazing job!

I saw this idea somewhere, and we decided to try it!  We had fun tossing baby Rose… she loved it too!!!

We were having trouble getting Anna Kate to smile and kept saying, “Smile, Anna Kate!” so Noelle decided to step in and help us out a little bit… then Anna Kate really had trouble smiling after that!

After the photo shoot, we let the girls play their little hearts out in the field as it got dark.  I can’t believe I never shared these pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot on the blog!  Well, it made for a fun throwback Thursday post!

John and Nancy welcomed their second daughter into the world on Tuesday, and we have a new niece and cousin!  Saylor and Nancy are doing great!  Saylor was born at 12:19pm on June 4, 2013, and is 8 lbs. 3 oz., and 18 1/4” long.  Noelle, Anna Kate, and I went to meet her on Tuesday, and she is so beautiful!  I can’t wait to post more pictures of our visit with Saylor!

At first, I videoed little clips of the concert for Anna Kate, but then I thought, we can buy a super awesome concert tour video they professionally make after the tour; no one is videoing our girl at her first concert… so, I started videoing Noelle a little bit, and she was camera shy at first, and then she was hamming it up for the camera.  I only videoed bits and pieces of the two hour long concert, but it ended up being an entire 30 minutes of it!  I was enjoying Noelle enjoying Taylor so much!!!  These are the moments we live for as moms, or at least I do… just pure fun with my kids! 

This video is more for our family than TSwift fans, but if you like her music, you will enjoy watching a little piece of the concert through the eyes of a seven-year old girl… especially when Taylor ripped her long white dress off and there is a black outfit underneath (Noelle’s jaw literally dropped)!  That was my favorite part of the concert… that and seat jumping, but that’s a story for those of you who know my dad… I learned from the best! 

*I seem to always be a week behind real time on the blog, but I’ve started to enjoy it that way, because it gives me a little time to go with the flow and reminisce.  So much has happened since the concert, it seems like months ago… summer is 2 days away!!!

This was definitely a high-light in Noelle’s little life so far!  Mike and I decided we would take each girl to their first concert for their 7th birthday present… we figured it would be a fun age for them to experience and be able to remember their first experience, and fun for us to be in on the excitement too!!!

We met up with Lesleigh, Jillian, and all their friends!  We were all so excited to be there!

All around the stadium, they had Taylor’s awards and music video dresses displayed for everyone to see!  Noelle wanted a picture with every single one of them!  If that’s all we had come to see, she would have been impressed!  This child was meant to do something with design/fashion!!!

I really think this was Noelle’s very first time to have cotton candy!  And if she’s had it before (which I really don’t think so), this is her first time to ever have her very own bag of it!  Dresses, cotton candy, Mommy, fun music = heaven!

Show time!!!

It was so much fun to watching the concert on the huge TV at the stadium!  This was actually my first time to ever go to the new Cowboys Stadium!  Okay, back to the concert.  All of the details were red… then she walks out with this blinged out red guitar.  The stool she sat on was covered in red rhinestones, her microphones, her shoes, her lipstick (of course); no detail was left undone; and she changed over a dozen times.  I don’t know how she kept changing, running around, and singing.  It was legitimate singing too… you could hear her breathing.  We were so impressed!  It was truly a production!  I’ve really never seen anything like it!  I could watch it 50 more times and still find something new to see… dancers, wardrobes, lyrics, all of it.  Noelle and I were both in awe.  It was amazing!

The stage kept changing form, and then half-way through the show, she was carried to the back of the stadium and did several songs on a mini-stage back there.  That was really cool to watch!

Here’s the spotlight on her being carried to the back of the stadium (the one in the middle of the crowd)!  It was a sold out crowd; 55,000 screaming little girls!  (and their moms)

After she made it to the back, the stage started rising so the people in the back that were way up high could be closer to her.  She must think of everything to make it such a neat experience for everybody!  They say she’s behind all of it… that she loves the production details.  You can tell it’s totally stylized with such creativity and thought.  It’s a very unique performance, and I don’t think anyone else does their concerts like she does.

She even walked a plank that was moving over the crowd on the floor as she sang the song, Treacherous.  So symbolic and thought out… just like her songs!  Taylor was really talking to the girls to be proud and confident, to know who they are, and to just have fun with love and not take everyone and everything so seriously.  She was so classy and fun… Noelle enjoyed every minute of it!  I’m so thankful we got to share this experience together!

Noelle and I were so excited on our way out the door to her first concert: Taylor Swift’s RED tour!  It was her 7th birthday present from Mike and me.  We thought it would be a super fun experience for her, and she is old enough now that she will remember it!

She insisted on making a poster… she said that’s what people do at concerts (I don’t know how she knew that).  It was my first time to take a poster to a concert, but she was right; it was fun waving our poster and cheering for Taylor!  Like how we incorporated her first grade monarch butterfly project in there (lol)… getting good use out of our hard work!

Having fun with my big girl!!!