Derby Days - BLUE Girls' Retreat

This past weekend, our church had their annual girls' retreat for middle & high school. The senior girls plan it & come up with the theme & this year it was Derby Days:

Sadie had 2 soccer games this weekend, so we had planned for her to go back & forth, but thankfully a cold front blew in with a lot of rain, so she got to stay the entire weekend. Saturday night the girls dressed up for their derby dinner & I couldn't help but laugh when I saw their camera roll:

Sadie's group took a bunch of group photos, but apparently Sophie had her own photo shoot. Ha!

Her group decided to all wear blue dresses:

The retreat ended after church on Sunday, but it was baptism Sunday & one of the girls in Sadie's group got baptized so they were all excited to celebrate with her:

What did Bryan & I do for the weekend by ourselves? Well, we had a workday around the house on Saturday and got a few things done, but then we went to dinner downtown Saturday night because it was our 22nd anniversary. Can you believe it?!

Turned out to be a wonderful weekend all around. Cheers to 22 more years Bryan!

Easter 2026

Easter weekend was very relaxing this year and a much-needed break for our family! We had Saturday free, so Sadie had signed up to ref several soccer games, but the weather decided not to cooperate. Instead, I woke up early to a rainy, cooler & dreary day and let the 3 of them sleep in. I pivoted & cooked a big Easter brunch and hid eggs around the house so the girls would have a surprise when they woke up. Apparently, the surprise was on me because Sadie slept until 1:45 that afternoon! It was a fun egg hunt and took the girls a while to find all of the eggs so I'm glad we did it Saturday instead of Sunday before church. 

They still had a surprise on Easter morning though:

They are never too old for Easter baskets! Especially when they are filled with goodies for spring & summer:

Thankfully the rain moved out & we woke up to beautiful weather for Easter Sunday:

After we all got ready, we headed to church, which was very exciting because it has been under construction for the past year & our new worship building officially opened that morning. An even bigger reason to celebrate!

It was a fantastic morning seeing friends, celebrating Jesus in our new church and with perfect weather!

Afterwards we went to Bryan's parents and spent the afternoon eating & visiting with family. All around a great weekend together & so much to celebrate. He is risen!

Cotillion Grand Spring Ball 2026

Now that it's April, I feel like some things are finally starting to wrap up already. The first being cotillion:

Sophie has been attending their classes since August but they just had their final session with the Grand Spring Ball last week:

Her group had the late session so we met friends for dinner before and then headed to the Embassy Suites to meet everyone else:

We saw a lot of friends, from the session before & from our session from schools all over Frisco:

All of the girls looked so pretty in their white dresses! We stayed at the hotel and had drinks with friends but thankfully we had a few moms volunteer so they were able to take pictures of the kids during the ball:

They had cake & punch and then went through all of the dances they learned all season. Apparently, Sophie even won one of the dance competitions:

They let the parents in the last 30 minutes and we took turns doing a few dances with them but then it was really just picture time with all of our friends and family:

It was a fun night for all of us. Even though Sophie said she didn't like going, I personally think she had a great time but for now, it's one less thing on the calendar. So proud of all of these girls & the young women they are becoming:

GMS 7th Grade Cheer

Sophie has cheered recreationally for the FFL since kindergarten & this past season in 6th grade, was her last so we immediately got to work prepping her to try out for middle school cheerleader. Most clubs & sports don't start until 7th grade, but cheerleading tryouts are in the spring, in fact, they were this past weekend. She started taking prep classes & working with a coach since last September, but we really turned it on after the holidays. She even attended cheer prep boot camps twice a month since January also. This past week was even crazier. She worked tirelessly every single night & day with 2 of Sadie's friends who cheer & our neighbor who cheers on Varsity. But her biggest supporter has been her coach, Laurel. She has been amazing to work with:

She had cheer clinic for an hour after school every day last week and then mock tryouts on Friday:

They started with 30 girls, then it became 25 & by the time try out day came it was 22. They were broken up into groups of 3 & she was put in a group with her friend, so they practiced together Friday night:

They also had lots of cheer gifts for each other on Friday encouraging each other:

Saturday morning, I surprised her when she woke up - I blew up green balloons and threw them in her room & hung streamers on her door. I even tried to decorate the table, put out the special plate & made sausage balls for breakfast (upon her request!):

She woke up an hour early to get ready & stretch. Sadie even got up early to help do her hair:

I dropped her off at 8:15 & she met all her friends in the gym to stretch & get ready before tryouts started at 9:00. By 9:30 she had already called & was ready to be picked up! I took a few pictures of her by the Griffin sign:

They were posting the girls who were selected at 4:00 that afternoon so I tried to plan a fun day to keep us busy - starting with pedicures:

Her & Sadie work hard between all of their sports so they both deserved a little pampering:

Then we headed to the mall & finally, we met Bryan for an early dinner. Poor Sophie had not been nervous at all, before or after tryouts, until around 2:00 and then she started to get nervous. Poor girl - her stomach hurt, she wouldn't eat, it was a long 2 hours. After we ate, we headed home because she wanted to wait upstairs in her bedroom by herself while she found out............ drum roll, please..........

Sophie was number 14!

Lots of cheers & screams at our house! I was hoping she would make it so we had a little surprise congratulations gift waiting for her just in case:

Needless to say, it was a stressful week but an even more emotional day. 22 girls tried out & only 12 got picked so we are so proud of Sophie - she definitely put in the work & earned her spot! 

Later that evening, we had an impromptu cheer party on the patio at Blue Goose:

It was a bittersweet celebration without a few of our friends there, but we are still excited for the year ahead. Let's go Griffin Cheer!