Moving Up

I'm a momma of a middle schooler. It's a little surreal. Chloe had her 5th grade Moving Up Ceremony on Wednesday night. The 5th grade performed a few songs, one of which included a strings piece that Chloe performed with a small group. I was so proud of her - she wasn't able to play her violin at school this year after the move, and she still asked to be including in playing the piece, brought it home, and learned it. Luckily, she's all set to play violin next year at the middle school. I think she's happy to be moving on. It is always tough to move mid-year, and when you move into a small, close-knit school where most kids have been together since kindergarten, it's even harder. Although she handled it well, she's ready to go to the middle school, where there will be 400 kids (from 5 different elementary schools) in the 6th grade.
I apologize for the quality of the pictures - the lighting was low, and I had to use my long-range lens.

My mom came up for the ceremony, which thrilled Chloe to pieces. Once Chloe's last day of school was done, they hit the road back to NJ, to try and get in as much riding as possible before they leave for Nationals next week. This will be Chloe's last year competing in the Walk/Trot (10 and under) division, and even though she has performed wonderfully the past 2 years, she has not yet won Grand Champion (she was Reserve Champion both years - last year it was a tie, but the other rider had competed in one more class, so it went to her). She's excited and nervous, and we're trying to negate some of the self-imposed pressure.

The weather has been rainy again, which always limits my picture-taking. I did realize it's been a long time since I talked about Addy's teething necklace. She's been wearing it constantly for the past few months, and my feelings about it were that I didn't think it was hurting anything, it looks darned cute, but I wasn't sure if it was helping. Let me tell you, it is helping. Addy had been a bit on the fussy side, nothing major, but was chewing on her finger a lot too. I happened to glance in her mouth during a recent diaper change, and saw 3 teeth pushing through. We've had to do 2 nights of Motrin when the teeth were actually breaking the skin - but that's it. For comparison, we had to do 2 weeks of almost nightly Motrin for the teeth before we had the necklace. I'm a believer!

We are also off to NJ, for a little beach time, a little R & R, and lots of family time. Because I use a desktop computer, I won't be able to do blog updates on the go, but there will be hundreds of pictures when I get back. (Because Pete starts school in 2 weeks, he's earned the next spot on the list for a laptop - but I have converted him to a Mac-user!). I'm excited to do some photo shoots while I'm down there - including a beach shoot (with an awesome cancer survivor/former patient), and a newborn shoot.

Happy Summer!