Dance Recital - 2015

The girls participated in their annual dance recital this last weekend.  It was Samantha's third year (but her first time dancing in TWO dances) and Sophia's first year.  They were SO excited ... even on the dress rehearsal, which was on Friday night.

For the dress rehearsal, Steve stayed home with Jack and my mom went with me so that she would have a chance to see the girls dance.  Then on Saturday afternoon, she stayed home with Jack and Steve went with me to watch the recital.  It was the perfect plan.

We arrived at the high school in Lansing early so that the girls could get their pictures taken before the rehearsal.  I opted to have them pose together (far more economical), so Samantha wore her ballet costume to complement Sophia's costume.

Waiting in line to have their picture taken professionally:

After they had their picture taken, the girls quickly undressed and we left in search of a quick dinner.  We had to go to Plan B for that ... rushing through it ... but managed to make it back in enough time to get the girls dress, yet again, and head down to the auditorium.  With a few minutes to spare, the girls got to play around on the big stage before the rehearsal began.

Sophia was completely in her element.  She loved everything about it -- the make-up, the costumes, the lights, the size of the stage and the music.

My girls all dressed up and ready to go:

I recorded their dances and then only used my camera to take one or two pictures; its difficult to do both!

Here, Sophia was exiting the stage after they practiced their mini finale:

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful Spring day for the recital ...

Getting ready to load up in the van to head to the recital:

It goes without saying that Sophia absolutely LOVED her costume.  After all, pink and purple are her two favorite colors.

And when did this girl turn 12?  She looks so grown up to me.

In the backstage dressing room:

One last picture before I left to join Steve in the audience:

We are so proud of the girls.  Sophia was able to join us in the audience after her mini finale (ten dances after the start), and she watched the remaining show on our laps.  She did well for having to sit there for two hours while I kept running back and forth to check on Sam and help with wardrobe changes.

Afterwards, I got the girls changed and we headed to a special dinner at Applebee's.  They have been begging to go for quite some time, and it was special to have a meal with just them.  And Jack?  He was a perfect angel for Grammy!

Happy Dirt Day!

After a long morning of moving dirt around outside, Samantha came in the house and wrote the words, "Happy Dirt Day!" on her dry erase easel.  We chuckled because it couldn't have been more fitting or appropriate. 

We had made a quick trip to the Landscaping Supply Store and loaded up with a yard of dirt to fill in some areas in the back yard.  Then we turned the kids loose to play in it for awhile in between trips to the backyard.  I busied myself cleaning and organizing the garage -- a never-ending task for us -- while snapping a few pictures here and there.

Assessing the situation before "digging in:"

It wasn't long before they gathered shovels (snow shovels, that is), a rake and some buckets:

Loading it into a small trailer to be pulled into the backyard:

Definite teamwork:

Jack started filling his own personal bucket, by hand:

Someone was getting a bit tired:

But when his daddy jumped in the scene, he perked right up and got back to work:

That dirt was so tempting ...

Afterwards, I think that it goes without saying that the kids stripped down and got in the tub immediately upon entering the house.  After a fresh bath and clean clothes -- and a good lunch -- those kids took great afternoon naps ...

Happy Dirt Day!

Jack is 23 Months Old

In one month, I will have a two-year little boy.  His party preparations are underway (most of them are still in my head), but I will begin pulling things together in the next couple of weeks.  I know that he is going to be SO happy with the Curious George (ahem, Curious Jack!) theme -- he loves that little monkey!  We have been talking about his upcoming birthday -- singing to him and asking him how old he is going to be.  He totally understands ... and I love that.

This last month was a challenge; and I think that I am using that word in a subtle way.  There were a lot of struggles.  And I'm not going to lie.  I'm kind of glad that it is over.

With the transition out of the crib and onto a mattress on the floor, the timing is everything.  In my opinion, it's best to do this when the child is young enough that they can be trained to stay in bed (not argue with you), but also at a point where they are not going through any other major changes (night terrors, sickness, etc). 

Unfortunately, at the exact time that we transitioned Jack, he began fighting a cold that later turned into a rotavirus infection.  Between the coughing/lack of sleep/overtiredness/clinging to momma ... well, it wasn't a totally smooth transition.  And so began a vicious cycle of him crying out for me in the middle of the night. 

I was torn on what to do -- let him cry it out, remove a nightlight, add a nightlight, go up and soothe him ... The best thing is to simply pick him up (once he comes out into the hallway) and without saying anything, place him back in bed, cover him up and leave.  He usually goes right back to sleep.

At this point, he usually gets up once in the middle of the night -- I always hear him -- and I follow the procedure above.  Then, he sleeps until about 6 am.  Sometimes I can get him to go back to bed for another 30 minutes or so.  If not, he gets up and plays while I am getting ready for my day.  I am finding that he just likes to be up by that time of the morning.  He is well-rested and happy.

He takes one good nap in the afternoon from 1 pm to about 3:30-4 pm.  Sometimes he will fight me a little when it is time to get tucked in, but after a couple of books and a song, he falls asleep within 15 minutes.  Some days, he will fall asleep in my arms while I rock him by 12:30 pm.  It's hard work playing hard for 6 hours straight!

Here, he came downstairs after a short nap, climbed up in the chair and fell asleep.  You can tell from his red cheeks that he was sick.

Jack is working on brushing his teeth.  He loves the idea of it -- pulling up the stool, putting the water and toothpaste on his brush, actually putting the toothbrush in his mouth, spitting -- but he is not very efficient at the process, obviously. 

And he is not willing to let us help without putting up a fight.  We are working on giving up a little of his independence.

Jack tries to do everything that his big sisters are doing and that includes using dry erase markers on the easel.  The girls are often not willing to give him the space to draw on it, so he is usually on his own with a miniature version of the floor, creating his own masterpieces.

Jack loves washing his hands and that is a good thing, especially with all of the germs that filtered through my house this last month.  He knows that he needs to wash his hands before every meal and whenever he comes back inside from playing outside.

The temper tantrums that Jack throws are vicious.  I never went through this with the girls; they seemed to skip the Terrible Twos and struggled a little bit with the Terrible Threes. 

Jack entered the Terrible Twos about 6 months ago, and it has surely challenged my every last nerve.  Some days, I just have to walk away for a few minutes and regain some composure before I attempt to deal with him.  He has very exact ideas about what he wants to do and when, and lacks the vocabulary and patience to demonstrate those ideas. 

He doesn't like the word "no," and doesn't like to be told "just a minute."  Those things just set him off into a screaming/kicking fit.  Usually some time in "time out" on the bench helps, sometimes we have to take things away from him.  We are working on it though ... one day at a time.

With the warmer weather upon us (I think!), we will be spending more time outside and this is something that Jack loves.  As long as he is occupied and in nature, he is the happiest.  He'll be wearing his new summer crocs a lot ...

And burning off any excess energy!

Easter 2015

As usual, the Easter Bunny visited our house and filled the kids' baskets for them for Easter.  He also set out their plastic buckets on the table so that they could use those to collect the plastic eggs that he had hidden throughout the house.

 

Jack's basket:

Sophia's basket:

Samantha's basket:

The Easter Bunny enjoyed sampling the stalk of celery and little carrots that the girls set out for him the night before.  And, he left a scattering of jelly beans behind,

Digging deep inside her basket:

Jack took a cue from Sophia and set to work checking out all of his goodies:

Holding up some of their special items:

They were all pretty excited ...

Showing off their Palace Pets -- something that Samantha mentioned more than once that she really wanted.  The Easter Bunny did not disappoint ... Ha!

Hunting for eggs; we separated the girls from Jack so that he could take his time.  It wasn't long before he caught on and started filling his basket.

He found an egg on the door handle -- it was at the perfect height for him.

Searching for eggs with her Palace Pet in tow:

Sophia was very serious about her egg hunt:

Jack found his sister's bunny ears and modeled them for me:

"I found one, Momma!"

Opening all of the eggs and separating the candy from the coins:

Later that afternoon, we headed over to Steve's sister's house for dinner.  The kids had all rested first (after being up bright and early) and I used that time to put together the appetizers for the meal.  Then we loaded up the van (why do we always have so much stuff?) and drove over to Williamston.  The weather was beautiful -- a sign that Spring is here!

Easter Eve

After most of my family headed home on Easter Eve, Steve and I set up the kitchen so that the kids could color Easter eggs.  In the past, we have always done this right before bath-time so that the kids could be stripped down and put in the tub after the exciting event.  I decided that we had just enough time to do it before dinner this year, so we called into the kitchen and everyone took their place at the counter. 

(I would like to note that this is the first year that everyone has been able to participate; we have almost always had someone in the highchair or bouncy seat merely observing because they were too young to enjoy the festivities themselves).

The girls look tired because they skipped their naps while my family was here ...

Jack was really intrigued with the whole process.

Carefully pulling the eggs out of the dye ... without breaking any of the eggs.

Jack got to try putting the eggs in by himself.  He was actually pretty patient.

The girls are trained professionals now ...

The finished products:

Over the years, we have really perfected the whole process.  We like using the glass punch bowl cups (they belonged to my Grandma) to fill with a bit of vinegar and water.  We simply use the color tablets (that I pick-up on clearance after the Easter the year before and pack away with the Easter decorations).  We lay an old towel down on the counter -- one that can be bleached afterwards, and bring up the long drywall bench from the basement for the kids to stand on.  Once the eggs are pulled out of the dye, we place them on a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet until they are dry.

Maybe when the kids are a little older, we may experiment with some other fancier dyes/colors, but for now, these are perfect. 

I just love traditions ...

Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Park

We have started a family tradition where we head down to the subdivision park on the day before Easter and partake in an Easter Egg Hunt.  My family likes to attend and then we have our Easter meal back at our house (we usually spend Easter Day with Steve's family). 

It is apparently also tradition that that weather be absolutely frigid -- thus, is the life of a Michigander, I guess.  The kids held out as long as they could and then we raced back home to a nice fire going in the fireplace (hopefully one of the last ones of the season!).

While we were waiting for the 10 am start time (the longest, coldest 10 minutes ever!), the kids did a ring toss to try and get rings over the bunny ears.  Sophia tried really hard.

I particularly loved her form:

In typical Jack fashion, he just cut to the chase and helped himself to a prize!

Sophia's nose was running and she was cold, but she knows her momma so well ... and posed for a picture.

Sam looked like she was ready to get this freezing show on the road ...

And it was finally time.  The girls took off like the experienced egg hunters that they are.  Jack took his sweet time.

Yes, it was hard to keep up with the girls. They definitely knew what they were doing.

 



In no time at all, Sophia managed to fill her basket.  But, this momma is prepared.  I brought a bag to dump her loot in ... and off she went again.

The kids were all told that there were 6 golden eggs and that those golden eggs would win them a prize.  Sam started collecting all of the yellow eggs -- thinking that those were the golden eggs.

 

You can imagine her disappointment when I informed her that those were not the prize-winning golden eggs.  Luckily, Aunt Minnie came through for her and discovered one, thus edging her in the right direction to find it!

 

Sophia had since headed home (she was too cold!), but Sam was generous enough to ask if her sister could have a golden egg and a prize.  Awww ... and Mrs. Carrie agreed.

 

 

Once we arrived back home, the kids wasted no time unpacking the Easter basket that Grammy and Papa brought for them.  It was chaos for a few minutes, but so much fun!

 

Sophia was sporting the bunny ears that Samantha had picked out for her as the "golden egg prize."

Jack was practicing opening presents in preparation for his upcoming birthday:

New sunglasses!

And Sophia got some too!

 

 

We feasted on ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, fruit ... and of course, dessert!  It was a beautiful day celebrating with my family ...