Grace's Ballet Recital

Last weekend Grace had her ballet recital. She began ballet in January. She took ballet for a semester back when she was 3 but hasn't done it since then. She seems to like it. She doesn't really talk about it much or go around the house in her ballet shoes but when I asked her if she wanted to do it again inhte fall or try another sport she said she wants to do ballet again. I wouldn't mind that. I think ballet is so graceful and beautiful. She was actually in class with a few little girls that we go to church with too. One of them was one of her good friends. They had fun together and looked adorable in their costumes.

The recital was quite a bit longer than we expected on Saturday. I had no idea this dance program was so large. They had a full recital on Friday night and then the one on Saturday. Saturday's recital was a little more than 2 and a half hours. Of course, Grace was third from the end on the program! I felt bad for her. She had to be in her classroom in full costume and makeup at 9:15am and didn't dance until about 12:15pm! They had the girls sitting in the room watching the recital on the TV.

They did a great job though. It was very sweet. Here are some pictures.

Picture Time!

Last week we had our pictures made in downtown Franklin. Katie Mosley (www.kmosleyphotography.com) took the pictures and I love them!!! I love her style and how she edits them! The only problem....not getting to buy them all. :( It's so sad to me to have to "lose" good pictures because I can't buy all of them. Anyway, I am very pleased with how they turned out. Take a look at them yourself at www.pictage.com/640161. Just click that link and it will take you to the website. You may have to sign in as a guest to see the pictures. You can see which pictures I've tagged as my favorites on that site too. Just look for the "Favorites" button. Of course, the superhero theme was inspired by Lyla. :)

A Puppet Show

The girls got creative the other day and went crazy making puppets with white paper sacks. Here are a few pictures....

Fun with water balloons

Last week I bought a package of water balloons at the grocery store. I thought that would be a fun activity for the girls on a hot day. The package looked little and I wondered if there would be enough balloons. I almost bought two. I'm glad I didn't. Not because the girls didn't love them. Mainly because I got really tired of filling them up! I was grateful to have Joni there to help though. I filled and she tied.

The girls were so excited. I intended on filling all of them at once and then letting them go at each other all at once. They couldn't wait though. We had to do it in a few rounds because they were so impatient. They were standing over Joni and me letting out spontaneous screams of excitement. The funny thing was that the balloons wouldn't pop when they threw them at each other. They would bounce off and pop on the ground. That wasn't very fun because the girls were expecting to get "soaking wet". Joni and I even tried throwing them at the girls. We thought that maybe they weren't throwing them hard enough. They wouldn't pop when we threw them either. They might have popped if we were throwing them at each with all of our strength, but we were holding back on the girls. So, the girls started popping them on themselves. They would just squeeze them on top of their heads to make them pop and get themselves wet. There was a squeal of delight after each pop!

I love Reesi's "Karate Kid" pose in this picture!

Look at this picture! The water coming out of the balloon is so weird! It looks like a jellyfish or something. I can't believe my camera caught it like that.

And here is one of Reesi's screams of excitement!!!!! I wish adults got that excited!

Lyla's 4 year old check-up

Lyla's four year old check-up went well. Everything is normal and she's growing consistently. She's actually made a jump in weight. Until now she has pretty much been on the low end of the curve for weight and height. But this year she has jumped up into the 50th percentile range! It amazes me how she can grow and eat so little. Maybe I need to take a lesson from her!

Anyway, at the four year old visit they give you the option of having your 5 year old shots now so you can get them over with and be free and clear next year. When Grace had this visit she strongly opposed the idea of "getting it over with". Lyla, on the other hand, was fine with the idea. I asked her several times before the visit and she said "get the shots now" each time! I was surprised. Grace was more nervous than Lyla. All morning Grace kept saying every time she thought about Lyla's shots it was "giving me the willies". I finally told her to be quiet because I was afraid she was going to make Lyla nervous. When the time came for the shots, she did get scared and said she didn't want to do it now. By that moment it was too late. The nurse had already prepared the shots. I had to hold her down. She got a finger prick and 4 shots! She cried hard but not for long. After the visit we went to Wal-Mart and got an Icee and popcorn. The rest of the day she would walk with her hands on her legs where the shots were. She said they were sore.

The pictures below show her having her hearing checked. Then she's in the gown. The last two are right after the shots. Grace was very sweet and helped to console her while her crazy mom was taking pictures of her misery. I hope Grace is always there to help her little sister. That's what sisters are for.

Our "new" playhouse

One of our neighbors across the street offered to let us have her daughter's old playhouse if Eric would just get it out of her backyard. We were happy to take it. It was a little bit of a project for Eric though. The base had to be rebuilt because it was rotten and the roof had to be replaced because it was rotten too. The house had been in her backyard for about 8 years she said. So, Eric went to work. This kind of thing is right up his alley. It was pretty dirty too. The girls were eager to play in it so I put them to work cleaning it one day. They had fun with a bucket of soapy water! I'm going to repaint it soon and make it really cute. I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to paint it yet. It needs a little TLC but it makes a cute addition to our little backyard.

Mother's Day 2009

On Friday before Mother's Day Grace brought this painted flower pot home for me with a card. She told me "Happy Mother's Day". It was sweet. Gotta love the homemade gifts! I really like that Grace can write now. I love to see what she come up with when she writes. So here is the pot and card...

Then on Saturday, Eric asked the girls if they wanted to go buy me a Mother's Day present. He told them he would take them somewhere to pick something out for me. Grace said she didn't need to because she had already given me my gift and "that was good enough". But later she came to me and asked me if she needed to give me something else for Mother's day even though she already gave me my gift. I told her she didn't need to but if she wanted to that was fine. (never turn down a gift, right??) That afternoon she started making things to give me as another gift. She asked me for a gift bag to put them all in. Lyla, of course, had to follow Grace's lead. She made a gift bag of homemade gifts for me too. I guess Grace started feeling guilty that she didn't have something to give me on the actual Mother's Day. So here is what I got on the morning of Mother's Day...

Here is what was in Grace's bag....

She was into making puppets at the time so there was a paper bag puppet and a sock puppet. The 4 strips of paper were bookmarks.

Here is what was in Lyla's bag.... She is not as interested in the arts as Grace was at 4 years old. She would much rather be doing something more physical rather than sitting at a table. But, she's coming along. She did ask me to write my name on the paper when she was doing all of this so she could try to copy my name. As you can see on the paper at the top there is some sort of foot print. She stepped on a stamp pad and put her partial footprint on the paper. It is just so "Lyla" to do that. She passed up all of the stamps that were on the table that were intended to be used with the stamp pad. Instead, she used her foot! Hilarious and so cute! (the green footprints on the floor were not quite as cute.)

They were both very proud of their gift bags. I have two very sweet little girls.