Lauren's Dance Pics

Lauren finished up her dance year with Encore a couple of weeks ago with a two day recital that was about 4 hours long each day! Crazy! We went to the recital on Saturday which started at 2:00 and finally left at 4:40 when her second dance ended. We left because she had to get to a birthday party at 5:00, but the recital still had 20 dances left! Then, Sunday was Mother's Day and I told the studio owner we would not be there that day. I think I would have gone absolutely out of mind sitting through hours of the same dances again. Needless to say, she will be trying dance at the YMCA next year. We went and observed their recital a couple of weeks ago, and I was so impressed with what we saw. Lauren's taking a dance prep class twice a week every week in June and then trying out for their competitive dance team in July. Even if she doesn't make that team, we will still keep her at the Y and put her into their dance academy. She's very excited and really wants to make the competitive team so wish her luck! Here are her dance pics from this past year. They wanted the girls to wear red lipstick, mascara, blush, eyeshadow, and false eyelashes were optional! I had a hard time with this, but finally gave in. We really did put the make up on as natural and light as possible, but you can definitely tell she has on red lipstick and eyeshadow. She looks absolutely beautiful, and I'm so glad she didn't have to end up looking like a clown with a bunch of colored gook on her face! The theme was "Let's Go To the Movies," and her ballet performance was to a Harry Potter theme, and her tap performance was to a song from The Mask. She loved the costumes, but the feathers from the red costume shed everywhere! Despite everything, she danced wonderfully and I'm proud of her.

Cool Dude Is 12!

Evan turned 12 last week and had a camp out with 6 friends to celebrate. I have a new found respect for parents of only boys, and so appreciated how my hubby could handle all of the "boyness" that was going on. Lauren and I ended up retiring to my bedroom to hang out and watch movies all night while Roger was able to keep the boys in check. We had pizza, cake, and they did archery, the trampoline, climbed trees, played soccer, and ended the night watching The Avengers and eating popcorn. We did have some drama, which I won't get into, but it was intense. Again, thankful that Roger was able to handle it well. It took them a long time to quiet down once inside the tent and I think they were told to be quiet and go to sleep about 5 times. It was around 1am when I didn't hear any more talking. I heard noises at 7am so got up and Roger and I made pancakes and bacon. Then they all played outside again until their parents picked them up at 10:00. Evan had a great time, but honestly, I don't know if I could go through all of that again!

Camping themed cake--we forgot to add Lego people on the bridge and canoe

Opening presents

Soccer

Archery

Eating breakfast on the deck

Lookin' all nice...

Lookin' like the wild and rough-n-tough boys they really are

Did You See That Snake!?

Last Thursday something kind of scary/interesting happened. It was a beautiful day so all of the windows and patio doors were opened to allow the fresh air into the house. I was working on the computer in my bedroom when one of the older neighbor boys and some of his friends came driving through the backyard on their riding lawn mower. All of a sudden I heard one of the boys cry, "Did you see that snake!?" They stopped the mower to look at the snake, and I saw the boy's mom come running from her yard to our yard. I went out on the deck to see what was going on. I figured they had just found some small snake. Uh, no! They had the tail of the snake and it must have been about 4 feet long (I'm not sure--I'm horrible at estimations). I went and got my camera and went out to the backyard. Everybody had helped the snake to the water--I have no idea if that's the direction it was originally headed, or if it had come out of the pond. Nobody had any idea what kind of snake it was. My neighbor ran to get her phone to try to look up info on the snake while one of the neighborhood dogs kept the snake in the water while constantly barking at it, and getting too close and struck at twice, but didn't get bit. I took some pics of the snake and tried to find out more info about it, but couldn't come to anything conclusive. We were wishing that the neighbor's husband was home because he is the assistant director of our city's zoo and he would probably have know what type of snake it was. We all concluded it was either some kind of water snake, or corn snake. I don't know where it ended up, but I hope it just kept moving away from us. I'm sure we'll be seeing more snakes this summer, I just pray we don't find one in our house. If Roger isn't home to take care of a snake that we might find, whether or not it's harmless (because I probably wouldn't know for sure) that snake will get a whooping by me and a shovel. Sorry snake.

Busy Weekend

I'm including Friday as part of our busy weekend in this post. On that day we had a skating party with from 10:00-noon with Maize Virtual Preparatory School, the YMCA P.E. class from 1:00-2:00, and then I had to run Evan out to a friend's house 30 minutes away so he could participate in a camp out on their farm that night.

Saturday morning Lauren and I went to a Pancakes and Pajamas breakfast at church. That was fun. There were about 10 tables each with a different decorating theme. I let Lauren pick which table she wanted to sit at and she chose a Hawaiian themed table. We both dressed in our pjs and slippers. Our pastor's wife spoke about choosing to see ourselves the way God sees us. After that it was time to get ready for Lauren's dance recital. It started at 2:00 and right after Lauren's final dance which ended at 4:40 we had to leave to get her to a birthday party that started at 5:00.

Lauren and her friend trying to win the toss and catch 5 pancakes game

Ballet costume

Tap costume

Sunday was Mother's Day and very quiet. Unfortunately Evan had developed a fever Saturday night, so I ran to church Sunday morning to teach Sunday School but then came home afterwards. Roger had been fighting a cold for several days, and Lauren had such a full Saturday that they all slept in Sunday and we simply stayed home all day. Naps were taken, movies watched, and it was kind of nice being lazy. I was given a pretty painting from Lauren, a Lilac smelling candle, and a t-shirt that says Awesome Fantastic Caring Understanding Mom! Oh, if only I could live up to those words more often. I have such a wonderful family!

9 Years Old

I just can't believe my baby girl turned 9 years old this year! We opted to have her party at our house so it was cheaper and she could invite as many girls as she wanted. Including Lauren we had a total of 12 girls and all of the parents dropped their kiddos off and decided not to stay so that meant Hubby and I were the only adults! But, the girls did great and had a lot of fun.

We decided to make the party theme garden/bugs. I was searching the internet for ideas of how to make that kind of a themed cake, and when I posted on facebook that this was the theme, a friend replied that she had a special cake pan that made 8 individual bug cakes. When Lauren and I saw it we loved it. The day before the party Evan and Lauren helped me frost the cakes. They actually decorated most of the cakes on their own and they did a fantastic job!

Ladybugs and butterflies

Dragonflies and bees

We took a trip to Party City to see what kind of decorations they had for the party and I was so happy to see that they had a bunch of things for our theme. One of the things was cute bug antenna tiaras that you see in the pictures. We also bought goodie bags and cute bottles of bubbles, tattoos, and pencils all in our theme.

The time for the party was 2 1/2 hours. The first 30 minutes the girls spent playing in our playroom downstairs and that allowed time for all of the late guests to arrive. When everyone was present, it was time for cake and presents.

Lauren chose the pink ladybug with purple spots for her cake

The next activity was painting nails. We had the girls sit on the floor lined up against the fireplace with their hands on the floor. Roger started at one end and i started at the other until we met in the middle. We painted the girls' nails red then went back and with nail polish pens put black polka dots on the red so their nails looked like ladybugs. It was really cute, but I didn't get a pic of the finished product. I think Roger should be nominated for Dad of the Year and Husband of the Year for helping me with this activity! Also, I am happy to say that no polish spilled on the carpet. (It's old and ugly and we hope to replace it in the not so distant future, but still...no spills!)

After this we went and played pin the spot on the lady bug--our version of pin the tail on the donkey. We got this idea from Party City who had this game already packaged up and ready for you to buy at $4.99. We knew at home we had a large piece of paper and could make our own and that's just what Lauren did. She drew the ladybug and cut out all of the spots. During the game we wrote the girls' names on their spots so they could see where their spots landed on the bug, or wall. It was a lot of fun.

Lauren blindfolded and getting spun 3 times

Close!

 

 

 

 

The last activity was outdoors. I had found butterfly nets at Target for only $1 a piece so I had bought a bunch along with some lightweight orange balls which acted as bugs and the girls paired up and threw the bugs back and forth to each other and caught them in their nets. They had a lot of fun with this game, too, and the girls got to take a net home with them along with their goodie bags. After this we brought out jump ropes, hula hoops, bubbles and they played outside until their parents came to pick them up.

Over all, Lauren's party was a huge success and I'm so glad we did it at our house and got creative with our cake, games, and activities. Believe it or not...she already knows what she wants as her party theme next year!