dance recital

Audrey and Elliot's dance recital is coming up on May 19 and they are pretty darn excited. Audrey and the other girls got their costume about 6 weeks ago and Elliot has been waiting and waiting and WAITING! Finally, the day arrived and he did a happy, giggly, jolly jig as Miss Hannah pulled it out of the bag. He tried it on and got to dance in it yesterday, then both kids put their costumes on at home for some pictures. They are so adorable, if I do say so myself.

Their starting pose for "Jesus Loves Me"

How the dance ends.

It's going to be ok

Sometimes, when a person is feeling generally incompetent, a certain kid will walk alongside her, grab her hand and say, "Every time I ask you to hold my hand, you say yes."

And that person will realize she's not doing too shabby after all.

A day in the life

It was a nice little Friday around here.

 Audrey graduated to level 3 readers and early chapter books and spent the better part of the day immersed in her books.

 Isaac's creative writing class is hosting Author Day on Tuesday, so he was hard at work using his very best handwriting to write his final draft of "The Mystery at the Super Bowl: The adventure of Tintin." He'll illustrate it over the weekend. He's on a rushed schedule because we missed co-op the day they got their rough draft back so instead of three weeks, he's got one week. He's been working so hard to put all the pieces together.

 Elliot used measuring cups, muffin tins, and cake pans to pour and measure dry rice and beans. Then we filled the sink up with bubbles and he washed his dishes.

 Once we got all of our work done, we headed out to enjoy the windy, sunny day. Elliot dresses himself, obviously. We had a great time playing hockey with a basketball.

 Audrey got all bundled up and scootered around.

Isaac worked on his alley-oops, 360s, and other dunks worthy of the driveway dunk contest. We also got a nice game of horse in.

Then my insane children decided to ice climb and luge on the little hill on the side of our house without snow pants. That means they'd slide down face first on their stomachs and then climb up like a dog. Brrr. Crazy. And more brrrr.

Yes, it was a nice little Friday around here.

always up for the challenge

I went for a run with a friend this afternoon. Isaac ran with us and Audrey and Elliot were in the stroller. Audrey fancies herself quite the runner and is actively training for her 2k in August. The boys went home as we ran past our house since Jim was home by that time, but Audrey wanted to stay with me. We dropped my friend off at her car and Audrey asked if she could run home with me. Of course I said yes and she was off, running with her thumbs up like she always does so she can give herself a little "way to go" with each step.

looking like a shampoo commercial

 She got tired, so we walked, holding hands and she giggled that it was just the girls and we were so much alike and isn't it fun when it's just the girls. Dang I love that girl. We rounded a bend in the path and she saw a hill coming up. It's actually a slight incline, but in Blaine that counts for hills. She said, "Can we run up that hill for a challenge?" That's my girl!

all smiles on our walk home