State Champion!!

 Taylor had such a fun competing season this fall!  It has been so fun to watch her just do what she loves to do!  She was on the podium all season and has many ribbons,medals and fun gifts to show off!

Salutes everywhere!  I am always taking these pictures as I'm video taping and they don't turn out the best, but they are sure fun to see!  Her big smile just makes it that much more fun!!

Legacy takes 1, 2 and 3 on beam and floor!!  Go Legacy!!  They had such a great season!  Also, taking 1st as a team at the Judges Cup!

State was the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  In fact...Matt and I had plane tickets to fly out from Denver to New York on Sunday afternoon and didn't know Taylor's exact competition time until the week before.  She didn't get the worst time of Saturday at 5:30...instead she got the 2nd worst!  Saturday at noon!  (We were really hoping for Friday night)  Oh well...the weather was going to be great, so we made our flight...no problem!  And Taylor!  Wow!  This girl made the stress of scheduling all worth it!

I LOVE watching my kids!  :)  It's so fun to see them set goals work so hard on them and achieve them.  It's heartbreaking to see when things don't go exactly their way as well.  We had a little bit of both in this meet which makes for an emotional roller coaster some times...but even I learn so much from it all!

Taylor started out on the bars and had her best routine ever!  Next was the beam which ended up being just under her best score ever!  We were feeling pretty good.  To me, the bars and the beam are the most nerve wracking events and floor is her absolute favorite so as I was pretty excited for her!  Well...then it happened...a silly mistake on the floor that she has never struggled with EVER!  Just something silly and Taylor was heartbroken!  I wanted to cry for her!  However...we knew her score was still high...so we were still hopeful...she just had to nail the vault!  And she did!  I have some videos below.  I was just gonna link all of her best events, because she'll be mad at me for posting her state floor routine, but it's still a great routine, so I'll post both.  Also, I don't have a good video of her best beam routine but I thought her Judges Cup beam was better anyway, but really what do I know (absolutely nothing about gymnastics scoring that is for sure!). So anyway...here are some fun videos!  :)  For those that want to see them!  It really was such a fantastic day! 

Bars (State)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKWHDLiGma8

Beam (Judges Cup)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPkQRF2Px0

Floor (Academy West)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3sbU4w2Pg

Floor (State) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrOILLvSgU

Vault (State)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNEV7sOkga8

Awards Ceremony (State Champion!)  :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MS3OxOz1FI

Vault 1st place

Bars 1st place

Beam 3rd place

 Floor 5th place

All Around 1st Place!!

Team 4th Place!!

We love Legacy!  We love the girls the coaches the parents!  It's so fun!  AND we love this Taylor girl!  Congrats gymnastigirl!

Kierra Turns 6!

Because of Thanksgiving we had to make sure to celebrate Kierra's birthday before the actual day.   So we had it all scheduled for the weekend before, but a few days before that she got so sick!  Luckily she only laid like this for a couple of days and then she was ready to party!!

 

Kierra has great sisters that threw the best craft party ever!  She has such fun friends that all came to celebrate with her!!

 On her actual birthday she got to choose where we go for dinner.  She chose McDonald's!  (even I was was begging for Winger's at this point!)  Oh well!  McDonald's is fun and the kids play while Matt and I get a little date!  :)  Kierra got to open a couple more presents!   

 Her main present was to get her ears pierced...however we didn't want to do that and then have Grandma or Aunt Danette have to worry about keeping them clean over the vacation, so the day that Matt and I flew back from the vacation (soon to be posted) we went straight to the mall in Cheyenne to get those ears pierced!  She hardly flinched!  It was awesome!  And she is the cutest!

 We sure love Kierra!  She has such a spunky, energetic little personality!  Sometimes she'll say the wittiest things and just catch me off guard!  She is a funny kid!  She is also so sweet and kind!  She and Thomas are great friends and do almost everything together!  But she is also a part of the big girls and runs around doing plays, dances and games with them!  We can't believe how grown up this girl is getting!  We love you Kierra Ann!!  Happy Birthday!!

The November Pre Show

I have some pretty exciting November posts to put up, so I'd better get started with my random pictures that didn't make their own post!  And actually, there aren't that many so this will be the quickest post ever!  

There is the random text picture for Grandpa Hoopes!  Some of those hereditary cravings just have to be documented for posterity!

 And the random facebook post of an amazing Daddy that is in the kitchen more than mommy and does dishes all of the time!  He even cleans and sanitzes the chicken bones!  ;)

 And then cute kids helping to clean up the fall leaves! I think everyone was out there at some point, but these 2 kids were huge helpers!  Such a fun day!

 Emily had to get a nasty tooth pulled...resulting in a date to Roxberry!

 This boy is growing up so much and has the cutest little personality that often reminds me of my brothers!  I saw this picture of Jackson and I in an old photo album and had to put Thomas' face up next to it!!

 These two are still best buds!  Always cuddling!

 It is going to be a sad day when he outgrows this fun game!

And this man gets into everything!  Still!!  I thought he was so cute wanting to wear all of dad's (no longer) clean shirts!

And he's even still cute when he tries to climb as high as he can.  This was the day before our big Thanksgiving trip.  He fell hard and I thought we'd be in the hospital for sure.  I have never actually SEEN a bump grow like this one did!  But it settled down after a couple of hours and was just a little bruise.

 Wow!  And like I said....that's it for the randomness of November!  I can't wait to get started on the next posts!  :)