Madison's Talent Show

Madison performed in her choir talent show last night. She may have been the only sixth grader performing, but you would have never known given how well she did. She was right in the middle of the show, and the show did not start until she went. I could not be prouder of her. It was hard not to tear up hearing her amazing voice. Such a talent. Here she is performing the song, "I Never Told You" by Colbie Caillat.

Madison- "I Never Told You" by Colbie Caillat from Sheri on Vimeo.

Happy 11th Birthday, Madison!

Madison is officially 11 years old today. Or as she says, "I am the same age comin' and goin'". I think this makes us officially dealing with a tween. Oh, somebody help us. Before we know it, she will officially be a teenager.

I always look forward to July in our house. That is the month that we get to have Madison all to ourselves. I love it because we really get to make up for lost time over the year when we are on our every other weekend schedule. The girls LOVE having their big sister here to play with every single day. She is just really able to settle into our day to day rhythm.

Madison also gets to really enjoy time with Daniel since he works such an odd schedule and never has a normal weekend schedule. I think they both need it by the time July comes around. It is great to see them really reconnect. The two of them have always had a special thing with one another. It is sometimes lost throughout the school year with the rush of everyday activities. So the slow down and time really does wonders for them.

Madison is just blossoming into quite the young woman in every way. She will be beginning middle school next month. I guarantee it will do more than we are prepared for to her as far as her maturity. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store for her.

Here is Madison on her birthday!

Madison's Got Talent

We just got back from Madison's 5th grade talent show and were totally blown away by her singing performance. She really stole the whole show. There was limited talent in this show, but she clearly fit the criteria. The really sad thing is that the "mean girls" went up to perform the exact same song she did right after her and were totally put to shame. Madison came home saying all the kids in her grade told her she should have won the show had they been picking winners. I believe one kid asked for her autograph and claimed she would now be stalking Madison. LOL Madison is basking in all her glory and rightfully so. We are incredibly proud of her.

Here is a video of her performance. I am going to go ahead now and apologize for the quality. There is some noise interference from a three year old that wanted to hang off of Daniel while he was trying to record her. Oh, and she is singing a Miley Cyrus song. I am not up to date on all the things kids listen to these days so forgive me for not knowing the name of it.

Madison's Got Talent from Sheri Hennings on Vimeo.

And she grows up and she grows up...

Madison is graduating from the 5th grade next week. I thought it would be nice to take some photos of her to mark the occasion. Boy, I can't get over just how much she has grown in the past six years since she began elementary. She is such a young woman, and we are so proud of who she is becoming despite those pre-adolescent days where we think we could sell her for a handsome profit. Looking at these pics, I can guarantee her daddy is looking to purchase a shotgun soon.

A new addiction...

Hi, my name is Sheri, and I am addicted to baby carriers. There I admit it, but I am not sure I am really ready for change. If there was an intervention right now by all of my closest friends, which I highly doubt would happen since they are too and enable me, I would have to turn down any offers for treatment.

We are heading out of town soon to hit Sea World for Madison's school choir performance and to tool around San Antonio. I was getting pretty worried about an all day trek around the park with Violet being worn in my wrap. While I love my wrap, I really need something that distributes her weight evenly on my hips. Anyone who hikes or backpacks knows this well. So, I decided to buy a new Ergo to meet this need.

I am thrilled with it so far. I bought the black one with the green hood. I wore it all over the zoo tonight and felt amazingly better compared to my other carriers. Violet also enjoyed it since she had more range of motion in her arms to do things like grab my face and laugh her butt off. She also took a good long snooze in it with great head support from the hood. It is a great fit, and I think it was well worth the money.


Oh, and the funniest part is that I can wear all three of my kids in it. Not at the same time mind you, but Ava was getting the biggest kick out of being worn like her sisters. I became like a circus ride with them taking turns on my back yesterday.

Bump, Set, Spike!

Madison started volleyball this month. This has been a much welcomed change to the soccer she was playing for the last couple years. We would have to drag the whole family out to the soccer field in the middle of a Saturday to sit for hours in the HOT, HOT sun and humidity just to watch a kid who was more excited to have a break from playing to eat Cheese-its and drink Gatorade than actually play the game. Our patience grew very thin with this. Thankfully, we were able to convince her that she does not have to keep playing the same sport and that perhaps she had more talent with a different one.

She chose volleyball, and let me tell you how thrilled we are. We packed the kids up to go sit in an air-conditioned gym at the local Y to watch 40mins of girls hitting a volleyball out of bounds. Ohhhh, so much better. I could have watched paint dry as long as it was air-conditioned.

Well, Madison seems to be much, much more adept at volleyball. She serves well, and she actually got the ball in play at one point. Like I said, it was mostly girls hitting the ball out bounds, so anytime it was actually going back and forth over the net really got the crowd excited. Madison's team actually ended up winning all three rounds of play. That is the first time she has been on any kind of winning team, and she was soooo excited. We couldn't care less about winning or losing, though. All we care about it whether she enjoys the game and tries hard at it. So far, she is really making us proud.

I will post pics after her next game. Daniel was in charge of the camera, and let's just say that sitting in one spot in the bleachers and insisting the 50-200mm lens is the best choice for pictures when the court is directly in front of us did not lead to anything worth posting. When will he listen to me? The same thing happened with Ava's last birthday party.

Busy, busy, busy week

We are just finishing up a very busy and somewhat stressful week celebrating Madison's 10th birthday. Yes, you heard me-- 10th birthday. Man oh man, where has the time gone? She was a little older than Leila when Daniel and I started dating. Now, we are in full blown tween mode.

The week started off with Madison wanting a new haircut. She donated her hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths charity back in December, but she had not had it cut since. Not only did she need a new cut, but she desperately needed her hair thinned out and layered. I took her to my fantastic hairdresser, and he did an amazing job with her. I can't believe how grown up she looks now.

Before:After:

Sunday entailed a girls' morning out shopping trip to Claire's Boutique to pick out a bunch of new earrings. I especially liked her choice of cupcake earrings. Monday was spent entertaining her, her friends, and the little ones at the pool.

Tuesday, I decided to throw Madison a surprise Webkinz birthday party for her and two of her neighborhood friends. I made my first birthday cake for this occasion. It was inspired by the Wheel of Wow on the site. I also set up a craft for them to make a Starburst Cloud bed for their Webkinz to sleep on. We bought an outfit for each girl to dress their animal in as their goodie bag. Boy, did that go over well.

Wednesday, Madison spent the afternoon out with Daniel. They went to Candylicious to stock up on her stash. Then, they hit the Astros game where Daniel got club level tickets for them. They actually ran into a friend that was there with his daughter and was moved from the nosebleed section to the awesome leather lazy boy chairs they have on the club level. Apparently, the girls spent most of their time laying out there watching the game on the tv sets they have attached to them. No, she really isn't spoiled at all. LOL

Thursday was her actual birthday. She had spent the night at a friend's house that night, so she came home to her birthday spankings and gifts. Nothing big on gifts this year from us since we had made it a birthday week celebration for her. Now, she did go out with her mother to dinner where she was given a cell phone. Just what every 10 year old needs. *eyes rolling* She is thrilled with it, so I guess that is what matters most. Friday was spent going out to dinner to celebrate with my parents at Red Lobster where Madison had her very own plate of crab legs for the first time.

Overall, it was a great week. We are now in recovery mode from so much activity. Anyone who knows our family understands how very active this is for us. It may take us a few weeks to fully recover.

Small incident, big deal

We had Madison's 9th birthday party on Saturday. It was the first party that we have hosted in our home. She had a spa slumber party. Ava was so excited to have a house full of big girls to run around with everywhere. She was trying so hard to keep up with them and act maturely. We had had a big conversation about acting like a big girl earlier that day, and she wasn't letting anyone down.

While we were in the middle of all the spa treatments with the older girls, Ava was patiently waiting and watching the entire scene. I guess she got too into it because she had a small poo-poo accident. This isn't highly unusual for her, but it has been a while since this had happened. She typically isn't too upset about it. She will just ask me for new panties.

However, this time was very different. Ava came up to me and whispered that "it just came out". I asked her what she was talking about, but she would only discreetly point to her bottom. I immediately understood what she was talking about, but I felt terrible because she was embarrassed for the first time in her life. The sad look of disappointment on her face was heartbreaking. I just wanted to scoop her up and hug it all away. I didn't though to keep her oops quiet from the older girls there. We just excused ourselves for a minute and cleaned up what turned out to be a tiny accident.