August/September

Marlowe started 1st grade this year.  Its been an adjustment as its a lot more different than Kindergarden.  Lot less play time and more work.  We think she has a little bit of anxiety and nervousness sometimes.  She loves to play with Maddie and Yeva on the playground.  Yeva has actually gotten her to play soccer at recess.

Pic with Marlowe on first day of school for First grade

She's still in gymnastics and still really likes it.  She's doing a belly roll over the bar now.  She has also started Ballet and Girl Scouts.  Girl Scouts only meets once a month.  In ballet she moved up to the next advanced class after the first week.  I think ballet is what she does best so far.  My goal for this school year is to take her for a dip cone once a month after school.  She loves those just like me.  She also told me not too long ago how much she loves taking care of her little cousin Ross Henry.

Marlowe and Ellis at slide the city

June July 2015

Marlowe has had a really good summer.  She's gone to 3 camps - Vacation Bible School, Art and Dance camp.  She did Art camp with Lydia, Dance camp with Willa from church and Vacation Bible School with Yevvva, Callie Ann and Lydia.   She had a fun time with her babysitter/cousin Meghan.  Meghan left for college early August and she already misses her.  She really liked her.  Her big vacations this summer were a trip to Branson with her Mimi and Poppy and a trip to the beach in Gulf Shores with her Mom and Jenna Roberts and her daughter.  We also did some camping trips.  For the 4th of July we went with the Bells and stayed at the Hass' cabin in Jasper.  Shot some fireworks - Where Owen about shot is leg off, and swim in the Buffalo River at the Erbie Campground.  We also camped at Roaring River with the Hass' and Donnels.  We all went down a big water slide but Marlowe.  She did loose her front tooth on that trip.  Accidentally swallowing it when eating a muffin for breakfast.    She's swimming under water and treading in the water really good.  She's even starting to float on her back and swim some overhead.  My favorite thing she says now is "renember" instead of remember

Just us 2 spending a day at the Waterpark!!!!

Marlowe and Lydia on their camping trip to Roaring River, playing in the creek

The morning she swallowed her loose tooth while eating a muffin on the camping a trip

May 2015

As always, every Spring is busy busy busy.  Marlowe is starting to like basketball.  Every time I ask her to play she's always ready to go.  I'm thinking about being her coach this coming Winter.  She says she wants to play, but we'll see.  Earlier in the month, when things weren't going her way, she would get really mad and upset.  Traci and I have been working on this, and she seems to have gotten better at taking loosing.  I love laying in our hammock in the backyard and listening to her run around, playing with her imaginary friends.  Just talking up a storm.  She plays with 2 boys and one girl.  Its pretty amusing at times, but so cute as well.

Hanging out with Easter Bunny before her egg hunt at church

Pretty eventful month for Marlowe.  Her cousin Ross Henry was born, she went to the drive in movie with Kyra and Lincoln Pocius.  She had a musical at her school and we took a Memorial weekend camping trip to Gilbert, and went canoeing on the Buffalo River.  Today as I write this, is her last day of school and after today she will no longer be a Kindergardener.  Time sure flies

Marlowe with her new baby cousin, Ross Henry

Floating on the Buffalo River on Memorial Weekend

March 2015

This month Marlowe had her piano recital at the church in front of about 20 people.  She did good but she doesn't think its for her and would rather do ballet.  She won an award for reading at her school.  She's in kindergarten and she's reading 2nd grade books.   She's now starting dressing herself for school, although sometimes we have to make some adjustments to her outfits.  She got a new bike with training wheels. We're still working on it but she's getting better every time she rides it.

Spring break was a blast as we went with the Bells and Donnells to Bull Shoals.  We took the kids to the local bowling alley and caught a ton of trout that we later fried and smoked.  The kids favorite things to do was play hide and seek and look for four leaf clovers at the campground.  We also went golfing at River Cliff golf course just on the other side of the river.  The next trip will be in Gilbert as we plan on canoeing Memorial weekend

We had to put one of our dogs Dora down this month.  First time I've ever had to do that. She was a great dog, but she was in a lot pain from cancer in her leg and I think she was ready.  Marlowe had a hard time understanding.  I think I was more sad and upset with how she was handling it other than Dora being put down.  She will be missed.  Marlowe still says a couple of weeks later how she misses  Dora.

Jan/Feb 2015

We spent New Years with Brad and Stella Hufhines down on the Fayetteville square.  Marlowe was a dancing machine that night.  Still getting better at her gymnastics.   Looks like her favorite thing is the balance beam.  We're still working on the kart wheel.  She got her first report card and had all Ss.  Reading like I can't believe.  Now she's starting to read us the bed time stories.   She's moving up in school reading to 1st grade books.  We spent time in Jasper with the Donnells and the Hass cabin.  Her and Jake played so good together.  They played Mom and Dad and Marlowe's dolls were the kids.  Jake would fix pretend breakfast and say "i'm going to work" while Marlowe took care of the kids.  They also learned how to play UNO and they fell in love with it.   We also took a big hike on the Ebie trail.   Marlowe asked on the trip why Gurl Cheeses aren't called boy cheeses when boys order them.  Marlowe is also taking to bouncing the basketball inside the house.  She's gotten pretty good at it

For her birthday we combined her's with Ellis' at our house.  Just family mostly.  On her actual birthday, Lydia stayed the night, then Callie Ann came over the next day and we went sledding over in Cross Creek.  Afterwards, Traci took the girls out for lunch (I think Barriola's) and then they went to hi-rise trampoline park.  Her big birthday gift from us was a trip to St. Louis, where we went to the city museum, the arch and a Frozen concert.  Did a lot of swimming at the hotel pool.  She said her favorite part was the city museum.  Even my knees got sore with knee pads after about 2 hours of playing.  It was a blast.  We got caught in a winter storm at the end of the trip.

I walked in to the office one day and she was sitting at Traci's desk.  I asked her what she was doing and she said she was pretending to be mommy and working

Dec. 2014

Marlowe wasn't too excited about going to see Santa this year.  Her elf Chippy came this year, and she wrote Santa a letter for Chippy to give to him when he goes back to the North Pole every night.  Marlowe is starting to read really good.  Way better than I expected.  She's now reading us books before bed instead of us reading to her.  Christmas was great.  She got a ton of Frozen junk.  Her big gift was the iPad.  We did our annual Christmas church event and one of her friends, Eva, from school came and joined us.  Marlowe got me a Christmas present there from the store which turned out to be a black wallet.  We also went to Silver Dollar City for a weekend with my family.  Her and Drew had a lot of fun together.  We also got to go to the petting zoo, which was a lot better than we expected.  Marlowe scaled back on riding the rides. She only wanted to ride a few and not as many as she did in the past.  

She went ice skating with Lydia over the break.  She said she wished Lydia was her sister.  She's almost doing a cartwheel in gymnastics.  We've been working on it here at the house along with her piano lessons.  The funniest thing she says right now is when we're about to watch movie she asks if its a cartoon or live bodies.

We took Grandma out for her 88th birthday to Outback

We also had a good New Year's going to downtown Fayetteville for Last Night, then going over to the Bells the next day and watching football most of the day.  She had a lot of fun at Last Night.  She danced a lot and we got some pretty good videos of it

Nov. 2014

We took our last camping trip of the year to Devil's Den with the Bells and Donnels.  We did a lot of hiking and the weather was perfect.  Her and Jake did a lot of swinging in the hammock.   We also took her and Lydia to a  Razorback basketball game together.  During the timeouts they would dance in the isle with their pom poms trying to do exactly what the cheerleaders were doing on the court.  It was pretty funny and cute

She really likes the new trampoline park.  She even got me to jump on it with her.  Right now her favorite movie is Big Hero 6.  We took Grandma Mable with us to see it.   Marlowe really likes decorating for the holidays.  She's been such a big help to her mom.  She can really put the ornaments on about 3 feet and below