Run, Madi, Run!

If it seems like Madi is always on the run, you would be correct. Not long after track season, Madi started conditioning for Cross Country. As her first season in Cross, we weren't sure how she would do, but she surprised us all again. She took 2nd in almost every race, broke school records and was the first and only person to qualify for state at her school. Where did she come from? Here are a few highlights from her season...

This was at sectionals, where she qualified for state. If you cant find her at the start, she is the one with the L O N G stride near the front of the pack.

Coming into the finish at second place. She got pretty frustrated by getting second all the time, but she broke her record almost every run. Her PR for the season was 18:38 (for a 5K...that's 3.2 miles in case you didn't know). 

Madi and her amazing teammate, Dani. This girl is so supportive of Madi and comes to all of her meets, whether she is running or not. She is a senior this year, and although Madi knocked her out of the top spot, she is still one of her biggest supporters. She will definitely miss her next year.

 The state meet ended up being on Halloween, so the kids chose to stay home with friends and go trick or treating while Ryan and I drove 3 hours to go support her. We ended up staying in Wisconsin Dells overnight because of a lack of hotel space where the meet was in Wisconsin Rapids. I have to admit, it was nice to have a get away with just the two of us. We went out to dinner, went cosmic bowling and soaked in the hot tub.

The day of the state meet was cold and rainy. Our posters didn't hold up too well, but it was the thought that counts.

We put "Run angry" on this one because she always runs faster when someone gets her mad during the race. Can you say...competitive?  

Madi had the 5th best qualifying time for the whole state, so we expected her to place in the top 20 at the worst. After the 1st mile, that's just where she was placed (5th), so all was looking good. 

Something happened after that which we still cant explain, because we couldn't see her and she doesn't remember much. Whether it was due to stress, hunger, fatigue, dehydration, the cold, wet weather...we don't know. But she came across the finish in 63rd out of 200.  

She was devastated to say the least. Of course, Dani came to cheer her on and cheer her up. Its still a great accomplishment for her first time as a sophomore and we are chalking it up to good experience so she can know better for the next time. We are all super proud of how far she came.

Just listen to what her coach had to say about her at the cross country awards banquet...

Receiving her medal for girls top runner. 

The whole team 

Madi and Dani 

Some of the girls.  

Girls and Boys top runner award recipients (Jacob is a Senior as well. It really is amazing for Madi to finish as top runner as a sophomore).  

She is blessed to have amazing supportive coaches who have become mentors to her and helped shape who she is.  

Just because the cross country season is over, it doesn't mean she is going to stop running. Her goal is to get a scholarship from BYU, so the coaches told her to compete in a couple non-school races. The first was a battle of the border (Wisconsin vs. Illinois). I don't think anyone from Illinois showed up, and there were few Wisconsin runner compared to how many she is used to running with. Nevertheless, she finally took first!

The next race was a much larger one on Thanksgiving weekend...the Foot Locker race. This one was a regional race with runners from all over the Midwest. There ended up being well over 200 runners for the girls.  

Of course, Dani showed up to support her again. :) 

And Dad, her #1 fan!  

I stayed home with the kids this time. It ended up being another cold and very packed meet.

Unfortunately, something happened again and Madi ended up falling in the first mile and not being able to remember much. We are researching into calorie intake and we think we need to get her on a better diet plan and make sure she is well hydrated. These early morning meets are where she is struggling to compete. Hopefully as we learn more we can figure out how to get her better prepared to do as well as the late night meets in the future.

Finally, she is taking a break for Christmas. Most of her team has already started conditioning for track, but since she had these two extra races, she got a later break than the rest of them. She is already missing her daily running routines and going crazy without it. Crazy girl.

Homecoming

Madi's first order of business as a 16 year old was to go to homecoming. Luckily for us, it didn't include a boy this time. She got to go with a group of friends from young women's. That didn't mean that she didn't want to look the part though. We officially had our first experience of shopping for modest dresses, and failing over and over again. After searching all of the stores around Kenosha and the entire mall, we turned to Amazon and found a dress that would work. It was a little plain, so we added the ribbon and flower to the waist. She also borrowed Alissa's grey cardigan sweater to wear over it, because finding a matching cardigan was just as hard. But as you can imagine it was a bit small on her, and with the warmth inside a high school gym, I don't think she ended up wearing it at all. Still, she turned out looking beautiful and had a great time with her best friends.

Sweet 16

Im not sure how I feel about this, but I am now officially the Mother of a 16 year old! Its making me feel old, even though I had her young. In my mind she should probably only be like 10. But theres no going back now. We just have to embrace it and cherish these next few of years that she is still living under our roof. Man, now Im going to tear up. I dont like to think about my birdies leaving the nest. Its just too sad and too soon. Then I think...if she got married when I did, she would only have 2 years and 8 months to go. Sorry Dad, I totally get it now. Good thing it all turned out alright so I can celebrate times like this 5 times over.

But enough about me...lets talk about Madi's big day.

The 3 youngest came home from school and created this driveway chalk masterpiece for Madi to come home to. Awww...

I also had 16 flowers and a candy bar waiting for her. 

Since her actual birthday was on a weeknight and we had school and soccer stuff to do, we just opened a few family gifts before bed. 

Katelin got Madi a necklace she had been admiring. 

Im already feeling sentimental, but I hope all these sisters stay close as they grow up. So sweet.  

Brylee gathered some acorns from school for Madi. :) 

Alissa also picked out a necklace for her. 

Madi has been begging for me to make her a running medals board, so I finally got that done for her birthday. She has medaled about a dozen times already so she wanted a place to display them. (The medals hang from the bottom.) 

This last Friday we threw her an outdoor party. We were worried all week about the weather because it had been cold and rainy. Friday morning it stormed pretty good and was pretty cold and cloudy until about 2:00. Thankfully my prayers were heard and it cleared up and the sun came out just in time for her party. I bought her this sash to wear, but Im pretty sure she hated it so I just made her take one picture with it on.

Ryan grilled up some burgers and hot dogs for dinner.  

We also had a variety of lawn games like volleyball, beanbag toss, ladder ball and bocce. Ryan and Zack had to take on the girls. 

Presents came next. Madi has a really artistically talented friend who painted her her favorite Dr. Suess quote on canvas. She loved it! 

Ryans favorite gift of hers was this "Y" in lights (BYU). He might steal it from her in her sleep.  

She also got a few other things like gift cards, another necklace, earrings, nail polish, oreos, etc. 

Speaking of Oreos, Madi loves them like Katelin loves cookie dough, so she decided to try a cookies and creme ice cream cake this year. It was the first ice cream cake Ive made, and everyone said it tasted awesome. Phew... 

After the sun went down, it started getting pretty cold. I was fine leaving the crazy teenagers outside, but Ryan was nice enough to let them all come in for cake and warm up for a bit. In total I think we had about 20 kids show up. Since it was a pretty important party we just told Madi to invite her whole Cross Country team. She has developed a lot of good relationships through running, so it has been good for her on many levels. Plus, she had some non runner friends come as well. 

When it got dark enough, we played an outdoor movie. I have been wanting to try this ever since we moved in and saw the big space on the back of our house. We bought a projector, and hung a large white tarp from the windows and aside from the train coming by a couple times, it was perfect. The kids all had to huddle up in blankets to stay warm, but I think it was worth it. Besides, the cold kept the mosquitoes away. Im thinking some neighborhood summer movie nights might be in our future.  

Overall, I think the party was a big success. A few boys from track showed up late and ended up staying and talking with Madi until 12:30. We hated to break it up even though we were so tired and ready to call it a night. Im sure Madi loved having the attention, and you only turn 16 once. In the future, Im sure Ryan wont be so nice to the boys...now that dating is allowed. DATING!! Im going to go cry into my pillow now. 

Springing into Summer

Spring Time is always super busy with 4 kids in soccer and 2 in track. Add that to the many other end of school activities and we rarely have a spare minute in our schedules.
Soccer
 Ryan was crazy nice enough to coach both Alissa's and Brylees team this year, so that added to the chaos. This season was Brylee's first time playing, so she was pretty timid on the field. Ryan really enjoys coaching Alissa's team. They are a very tight knit and skilled team and they work well together. It was a lot easier and more enjoyable to coach a team when actual rules and positions apply.

This is actually Alissa's team during indoor season. It was a humbling experience for them since during the normal season they are one of the better recreational teams on the field, but for indoor they ended up playing a lot of traveling teams so they got beat a lot. They still had fun and learned some new skills.

And Spring season...again a huge success for her team.

Brylee's team....biting their medals at the last game. (I guess this is a normal sports pose??)

This was one of the few times Brylee actually touched the ball. 

Track

No pictures of Katelin and Zacks soccer team, but here is Katelin running track. She did really well this track season as well.

Madi, Kate and I also signed up to do the color run again, but sadly found out later that Madi wasnt allowed to run while in school track. So Katelin brought a friend to fill in for her. 

Before... 

After... 

Speaking of Madi's track, her success continued throughout the season. She took 1st through 4th every meet and ended up going to state with her relay team. This was her qualifying mile run that got her into regionals.

(3rd back in the black shorts)

(2nd in the black shorts) 

 ITHS state relay team. 

Madi has made some close friendships with her track team. She was sad to see some of the Seniors go. This is at the awards dinner. Being our first one, we werent aware of the dress code. Oops. 

She ended up lettering and earning the freshman MVP award! 

The coaches that pushed her and helped get her there.  

Music

Aside from sports, we also had a variety of musical concerts. Alissa joined the school choir and they got the opportunity to perform with a couple other choirs at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. This is her large and very talented choir group. 

The elementary school also has a choir concert for each grade. Here is Zack at his, where they had to dress up from countries around the world. He is from Sweden. :)

And we cant forget Orchestra Fest where Madi. Kate and Alissa all got to perform this year.

School

Moving on from music, Katelin was inducted into the National Junior Honor society. Yay! 

Field Trips

With Brylee being the last one in school I am more availbale to help out with school parties and field trips. She had a couple right at the end of school. This one was at the petting zoo. It was her first time on a horse.

and milking a cow! 

Field Day

I have helped out with field day the last couple years and I thought Ryan would enjoy it too, so I talked him into taking the day off to volunteer with me. We were put in charge of this station...Dizzy something... Basically the kids had to put their head on this ball while spinning around it 1-5 times (depending on their grade), grab a tiny plunger with a ball on top and balance it while walking around a cone and back. Here is Alissa and Brylee getting dizzy... 

Kite Fest

To end the spring time madness we celebrate with kites. They have this kite fest every year with professional stunt kite flyers and a candy drop for the kids. As always, there is also food and shopping. It kinda makes me feel like we are at the end of the Mary Poppins Movie. Next time we need to remember to actually bring our own kites to fly. Here are a couple of the big ones... 

And the candy drop... 

Phew! That about summarizes the important event of spring time. Bring on Summer!