Father's Day 2009

This is me and my dad a while back chillin under the sun like we often did...

He is pretty much the coolest guy I have ever met. Happy Father's Dad! I love you!

The other cool guy in my life got this way cool cake...

and many very creative gifts (all handmade as Lee likes it) from the kids.
Ben made a "Ben Bucks" coupon book that consisted of Free work in the yard and a Free locker cleanout to name a few. He made sure I understood that since Lee and my lockers are one in the same he would only be doing Lee's stuff and leave all my junk right where it is.


Eva made Lee a book of lots of pictures that she traced. This one below was everyone's favorite. That court jester playing the...something...looks awfully familiar.

Ella also made Lee a book of pretty pictures. This was Lee's favorite...

This picture shows Ella and Lee and the line connecting the two means that they are kissing. The next picture is of Ella and a scribbled out head. Ella said that Lee's HUGE head was too hard to draw.



Emma, with a little (OK a lot of) help from her mom, wrote a song for Lee...

It is to the tune of 7 Things I Hate About You from Miley Cyrus, only we changed it from Hate to Love. The idea was for all the kids to sing it but they all chickened out. Emma agreed that if I sang it with her she would do it. This is precisely why you will not see a recording of it on my blog anytime soon. One of the 7 Things that the kids chose to put that they like about Lee is his breath. Don't know that that would have been one of my 7 Things I love about Lee.

Emma and Eva also made Lee a rockin board game...

It had us cracking up as we played it. These were some of the cards that we picked...

Dad gave you a wedgie. Move back 2 spaces.

Dad brought home a new kitty. Move forward 2 spaces.

Dad pinched you. Go back 1 space.

Dad told you jokes. Move forward 3 spaces.

Dad pulled your hair. Go back 2 spaces.

Dad kissed you. Move forward 12 spaces.

Dad spilled red punch on your new shirt. Go back 3 spaces.


Now, at this very moment, as I am blogging, Lee and the kids are watching High School Musical 2. We all know how much Lee likes High School Musical 2. It's been a good day for him.

I was very impressed by the kids creativity this year. I love them. I am so thankful to their daddy for helping me make them. Happy Father's Day Lee! You are the best Daddy in the whole wide world!

Ooh Lah Lah

So I did it. I got my hair cut. Here is my before...

and my after...

I think this is pretty close to the shortest I have ever had my hair (for real). I love it. I feel like I am not just a big blob of nothing anymore and can start blogging about more important things in life like Father's Day. That IS coming up you know. Get ready for some serious moosh.

Dance Recital 2009

The girls Dance Recital was last weekend. They performed beautifully as always and looked just as beautiful. I love seeing how much they have learned throughout the year. And I really loved seeing Ella tap for the first time on the big stage. She was awesome.

I originally was going to put video on here of each of their dances. That would mean I would have to cut each video down to under a min. to get them to work. I decided that instead of spending hours doing that I would just put all their dances on You Tube. So I spent hours doing that only to delete them. Paranoid me just isn't quite ready to see my kids on You Tube, not to mention the other kids that are in the videos. So for Nani and Grammie, I will make a DVD of all my video footage and send it to you. As for the rest of you, you will just get to enjoy some lovely photos.

My three tiny dancers

Ella's Tap Dance: "Oh You Beautiful Doll"
I was so impressed with Ella. At the dress rehearsal she had a hard time because she was too busy looking at the other dancers next to her that she got all messed up. I took video of it and showed Ella at home and explained to her that if she looked at her teacher the whole time she would do better. So on the night of the recital she took my advice and looked only at the teacher in the front row and nailed it! She was so good I started to cry and when she was done she ran up to me and gave me a huge hug. She knew she did good too.

Emma's 1st Tap Dance: Tarzan

Eva's 1st Ballet Number: Snow White

Eva's 2nd Ballet Number: Music Box

Emma's Jazz Dance: Cold Hearted

Emma with her good friend Gabby just before going on stage

Eva waiting in the dressing room until it was her time to shine

Eva's 1st Tap Dance: Annie

Emma's Hip Hop Dance: Elevator

Emma's 2nd Tap Dance: Put On A Happy Face

Eva's 2nd Tap Dance: Super Fantastic Stars

Emma playing around until her 1st Ballet number: Waltz In B Flat

Emma's 2nd Ballet number: Waltz Of The Snowflakes

Altogether the girls were in 11 dances and all the costume changes that went along with them made for a long night but it was so worth it for me to see them shine on the stage. I love this time of year for that very reason. They are getting better every year and are having such a fun time in the process, which is really what it is all about. I love them and am so proud of them.

"Do" I or Don't I

I recently came across this picture of myself taken about 12 (ish) years ago. I actually have really long hair here. I put it in a ponytail and flipped it forward so what looks like a short do is really the end of my ponytail. That is about as close as I have ever come to short short hair.

I have been feeling a little wild and crazy lately. I am in need of a definite change. Should I do it? Not necessarily that style in the picture. Just something short and sassy. Who knows, one day real soon you may see me and do a double take, hopefully for the better.

Recitals And Programs And Birthdays, Oh My

The past three weeks have been pretty crazy for this family. I believe this time of year is even busier than December for us. Amidst the craziness I was able to get a few pictures. Instead of catching up by posting tons of little posts, I decided I would put it all on one GIANT entry. Here is what we have been up to...

May 19th - Piano Recital (& dance rehearsals)

Dance rehearsals for the girls "little" recital happened to fall on the same day as their Piano recital. We had no choice but to go back and forth. In the car Emma and Eva slipped on a nice dress over their dance stuff, ran into the Piano Recital, played their little hearts out, and then snuck out to quickly go back to dance rehearsals. They were troopers. Even though it was a stressfull night, they still performed beautifully. Unfortunately, Blogger won't let me upload video of them playing. I think maybe the video is too long? Does anybody know the secret to uploading video that is longer than 2 min.? I would love to know.


May 21st - "Little" Recital and Eva's 2nd Grade Program

The girls got to miss some school for their "little" dance recital. I call it the "little" dance recital because they only perform half of the dances as they will at their "Big" recital. As we were driving there I realized that we had forgotten all of Emma's dance shoes. We were almost there so I dropped them off, put Emma in charge of helping Eva and Ella with whatever they might need and drove back home for the shoes. Even though driving to and from dance takes 50 minutes I knew I had a good chance of getting back in time because Emma's dances weren't until the second half of the program. The bad news is I didn't get to see Ella and Eva perform. The good news is that I did make it back in time for Emma's. They looked so pretty. There will be many more pictures and video to come when they have their "Big" recital next week.

After the dance recital, we made it home to eat and then we were off to see Eva in her 2nd grade program. She had the honor of leading the whole 2nd grade and their parents in the Pledge of Allegiance. She did a great job and she sang her songs beautifully.

May 25th - My Birthday

I think we all know what I did for my birthday.


May 28th - Little House On the Prairie Day, Lee's Birthday, Ella's preschool graduation, and Ella's Orientation for her new preschool.

The whole 2nd grade had their Little house On the Priarie Day. It was quite the day for them filled with lots of food and games from that time period.

Unfortunately, we celebrated Lee's birthday by going to Ella's pre-school graduation. We had no time to do much of anything for Lee. I am hoping now that things have died down that we can do something. He deserves much more than I give him. He works so hard for us so that we can be happy and healthy. We love him and really would be lost without him.

Ella's pre-school graduation was very nice. Miss Bridgette always out does herself. So many times during the year Ella would tell me that she wants to go to bed early so that the next preschool day would come quicker. She really had a great time and she learned a lot as well.

Miss Bridgette made really cute scrapbooks for her students which Ella loves to look at over and over again.

I cannot believe my baby is getting so big. After her graduation we went over to her new preschool orientaion. Miss Tiffany will be her teacher. She did an amazing job with both Ben and Eva. I am excited for Ella to have her. I wish I could go back to preschool so I could have Miss Tiffany.

May 29th - Emma's Birthday Party

Emma turned the big 1-0. She wanted to have a "SWEET" late night so that is what we did. Her invites were on candy bars and we played lots of "sweet" games.

Find the smarties in the cool whip...

Who can stack the highest tower of cookies...

WONKA aka BINGO...

And instead of a cake Emma wanted a chocolate fountain. Those girls dipped everything but the kitchen sink in that chocolate. And then when they were done it was my turn.

June 2nd - Emma's Birthday
On Emma's actual day she wanted to go to the store herself to pick out all of her presents. But the very first thing she wanted to do was pick out something for each of her siblings with the birthday money that she received. I love her generosisty. Emma is so giving and is really turning into a pretty special young lady. I love being her mom.

June 3rd - Ben's Kindergarten Program and Ella's Birthday
Ben had his cute little Kindergarten Program. Despite the fact that he was yawning (we were up late from Emma's bday) the whole way through it he had fun up there.

Our favorite song that they sang was "A Tootie Tah". Here's just a little clip of it...

Ben loved his teacher this year. Mrs. Stanford was the reading teacher at the school but decided to try Kindergarten this year. She did a great job. I could tell she really loved each of the kids. And we all loved her too.

Poor little Ella had to wait until late to celebrate her big day. But that didn't stop her from having fun. We had to run countless errands and everywhere we went she made sure everyone knew it was her birthday. We decided to wait until Lee was home from meetings and the girls were home from dance so that we all could be together to celebrate.

Emma and Eva were such a big help to me on this day. I was so busy with some other things I had to do that they wrapped all Ella's presents and frosted the cupcakes for me. I am so lucky that I have such good little helpers.

What?! My baby is four! It doesn't seem possible. I don't want her to grow up. I get so sad thinking of not having any babies in the house. Does this mean I need to have more?

June 5th - Ben's Water Party

I can't think of a better way of ending this crazy time than with a giant water fight with 70+ Kindergarteners. Oh, the things us moms do for our kids.

Now that school and activities have officially ended and the birthdays have all come and gone I can breathe once again. With the exception of one more crazy dance week next week our calendar is clear and boy does that feel good.