Emily sings karaoke

Emily got a karaoke machine for Christmas and she's been having a BLAST with it. On Christmas day, she didn't have any karaoke CD's yet, so she was singing along with her regular CD's instead. Didn't curb her enthusiasm any, and I couldn't resist taking some video of her sporting her flashy new hat, singing along with The Beatles. Unfortunately, no matter what I've tried, I can't get the video to upload! It was "uploading video" alllllllllllllllll NIGHT, and still isn't finished. Not sure what's wrong. I'll try again later today and see what I can do. SHEESH!

Exciting Night!

If my kids weren't excited enough about SANTA coming to visit us Christmas Eve, Emily added to the excitement by losing a tooth and getting a visit from the Toothfairy on Christmas Eve as well. It was a pretty exciting night, and she enjoyed getting to pose with her stocking AND her tooth pillow on Christmas day!

Emily's Dance Recital--Part Two

Emily and one of her best friends, Katie, before the recital (they hadn't been given their soldier hats yet)


Emily during the ballet performance


Emily during the tap performance


Emily and her cousin, Ali, after the recital


I hadn't thought about it enough in advance to actually follow through in time for the recital, but I wanted Emily to give both of her dance teachers thank you cards for their work in getting the girls ready for the recital, and choreographing everything, etc, so I spent some time Monday afternoon putting together a thank you card for each teacher. I thought it would be fun to use my new Cricut Cartridge (Everyday Paper Dolls) to try to create a card resembling the dance costumes Emily wore. The lighting in the picture STINKS, but you can get the main idea of the cards. I think they came out pretty well! (if I do say so myself...LOL)


I cut out a yellow football jersey then cut off the big shoulders and fringed it to use for the epaulettes, and cut strips for the shirt. I had to make the hat on my own. I realize now I forgot a little yellow brim, but o'well. I saw Em's ballet teacher receive her card, and she loved that it matched the girls' costumes. I didn't get to see the tap teacher receive her card, but Emily said she liked it.

My little dancing queen is already asking when she can have another dance recital...

Emily's Dance Recital

Emily had her dance recital this past Saturday. It was the "holiday" show, so some shows had Christmas music, and others didn't. All the costumes were sort of put together with stuff we already had, or could get cheaply, but it came together really nicely, I think! Em's first performance was for her ballet 2 class, which was combined with the ballet 1 class. The 2's were soldiers and the 1's were ballerina dolls. VERY cute, but not my favorite, simply because there wasn't a lot of DANCING involved for Emily, and lots of standing around doing soldier poses. However, like I said, it was totally cute. The two other girls I zoom in more closely on are her good friends Katie and "friend" Emily.



I LOVED the tap performance. I didn't get to see much of this one being rehearsed because the class is held in one of the dance rooms you can't see into unless you stand outside in the cold, and I am not that die-hard. I was very pleased with how it all turned out. Emily had a BLAST!!!!!!!



They held the rehearsal and the recital in the same day (I will say I am NOT a fan of this, btw, what a LONG and stressful day for the parents! LOL!!!), and after the rehearsal was over, I was trying to get her back into street clothes so we could go get some food before the recital, and she was wiggling all over with excitement. It was adorable!

Sugar and Spice?

My sweet little Emily apparently made Connor pinky promise her that he wouldn't go into her room and mess around with her new desk without her permission. And then she told him if he broke his pinky promise, she'd break his pinky finger! WOW! I had a little chat about not making violent threats to her brother, then informed Connor that his pinky was safe (but that he'd still better not get into Em's stuff without permission!).

The next day, Connor broke something (fell down, dropped what he'd been carrying, and it broke. The kid's a walking disaster some days!!), and Dan asked him, "Why are you always breaking things?" Connor replied, "I don't break EVERYTHING! I don't break pinky promises!"

Clearly, it's been weighing on his mind. LOL!!

Poor Emily

Emily got off the bus yesterday, looking entirely EXHAUSTED, and also a little sad. The bus was late in dropping her off, and we BARELY had time to get home, change her into her ballet outfit, and head out the door to dance, so I didn't question her right away. But as soon as we got into the car to head for home, she fell apart and insisted it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (ever read that book? My kids enjoy it!). Apparently, a classmate had spilled some juice at lunch, and decided to use Em's knit poncho/shawl as a rag to clean it up. And a girl on the bus (friend/neighbor girl, which made it worse!) reached down and stole the shoe off Em's foot, threw it to the front of the bus, and EMILY got in trouble for it. She couldn't find her best friend at recess, and ran out of time to finish a math paper in class.

I'd agree it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

Thankfully, dance class cheered her right back up; she came home and did awesome on the online math program she was supposed to do, AND she was enjoying her new fairy book so much that she BEGGED to read longer than the required 20 minutes!!

So funny!

My friend Jami gave me this picture after Emily had spent the night over there earlier this summer (Katie is on the left, and is in Em's grade. Friend Emily is in the middle and is one grade younger. We refer to the other Emily as "Friend Emily" when we discuss her at home to avoid confusion with OUR Emily! LOL!).



Do you know how many times I looked at this picture before I realized there is a bird sitting on Emily's head? I focused straight on the girls' pretty smiling faces every time. Now that I've seen the bird, I can't figure out for the life of me how I missed it the first few times around! ha!

In case you are wondering, the bird is a Lovebird named Mango.

Thoughtful Student of the Month

Emily Grace was nominated by her teacher to be a Thoughtful Student of the Month at her elementary school. There was an assembly yesterday afternoon where one student from each class was recognized with a certificate, and had a small paragraph read about their thoughtfulness. I've requested a copy of what was written about Emily; we'll see if they follow through! I was very proud of my girl!

(she's in the red shirt, and it's grainy because I had to use HER camera as mine doesn't have a lense that will zoom that far yet, and her camera doesn't take very good pictures...LOL)




Way to go, Emily!!!

Next month they will be focusing on kids being Enthusiastic. Jared says he knows how to be REALLY enthusiastic so that he can win an award next month. I guess we shall see!

My brothers have names

Here's another entry from Emily's journal last year!


I thought it was so funny that she pointed out that her brothers have names!! It also reminded me of the Disney movie, Mulan, where the leader is asking for her name, and she says, "I have a name, and it's a boy's name, too!" LOL

Alice the camel has ONE hump

For $5/each, Emily and Connor got to ride a camel at our local zoo last week. Jared wanted no part of it. Emily and Connor grinned and giggled the whole time, and really enjoyed the ride!

Wishful thinking and some hilarity

Another entry from Emily's journal last year:


Wishful thinking: that she got her own computer, that her littlest brother got a stereo
hilarity: that Jared got a chew toy because of a wiggly tooth??!!??

*and milk came out my nose* (to quote Shan!)

A Grandmother's Love

My mom came over yesterday afternoon to stay with my kids while I attended the "no kids allowed" Kindergarten Orientation for Jared's class. When I came home, I stepped out into the back yard to find Emily Grace painting my mother's fingernails. I have NEVER, in all my 31 years, seen my mother with painted fingernails. Nor was I allowed to own, or WEAR, fingernail polish until I was in High School!

That my mother would sit and allow my 7 year old to paint her fingernails, speaks volumes, I think.



They don't even look half bad in this picture! (and believe me, they weren't great... ha ha!)


In Em's defense, it was over 80 degrees outside and the polish was drying rather rapidly, not leaving her much time to smooth it out...

Day 2 of our trip

Connor wasted ZERO time getting down and dirty in the sand


Emily wasted ZERO time getting into the water, though she ended up getting more than she bargained for (that wave hit her good from behind and the backsplash ended up right in her mouth!)


Jared was a little more hesitant about the waves...


Connor was a little iffy about the waves at first as well... He was busy throwing sand at the waves, then a larger wave than "normal" came towards him and he took off, mid-throw!


They all ended up in the water, soaked and sandy, by the end of the day!


The kids also enjoyed kite flying, for all of about five minutes






I loved seeing all the little footprints in the sand:


PS Happy Birthday to my Mama!!

Day 1 of our trip

On the drive down to the coast, we saw this ENORMOUS American flag. I wish I would have had more time to line up a shot to show a size comparison, but as you're driving down the road, you take what you can get. It was HUGE!


We spent the first part of the trip listening to the music on Dan's ipod. He's got a "kids" playlist that we listen to, which is basically every song on his ipod that doesn't have swear words of any kind (which means we listen to a lot of Beatles, basically! LOL). One particularly rock-ish song came on and Jared grabbed up his ball yo-yo (that winds itself back up again so you LOOK like you can yo-yo) and hooked it up to the hook in the ceiling of the van, then pulled the ball part down low like a microphone and started rocking out, singing along with the song. It was soooooooo funny! He had his head banging and everything. So cute!


We arrived at about 6:30pm, and unloaded our stuff. This is the beach house we rented (that topmost section is the loft bedroom that Dan and I slept in, the middle section windows you see are the kitchen and livingroom, and then there was also another bedroom, and a bathroom. The lower floor windows you see are the bunk room, which had TWO bunk beds, a couch, and a TV, plus plenty of floor space for kids to play; also on the lower floor was yet another bedroom, a bathroom, and a huge laundryroom)


After we unpacked, we had dinner, and then decided that although it was getting dark, we wanted to go down and "say hello" to the beach quickly before bed. We walked down the path and wandered in the sand a bit. Then Dan wanted to go check out a rock that was right on the edge of the water. One extra big wave came through and suddenly all three kids are wet from the knees down, while fully clothed. Next thing I know, Jared's sitting in the water up to his waist, Connor's splashing around like crazy, and Em's wet up to mid-thigh. LOL All in a matter of seconds!!! At that point, we figured they may as well just go for it, so we stayed down for another half hour, letting them splash and go crazy in their clothes, in the darkening night.



(this was just as we were arriving down at the beach, but he made me laugh INSISTING on having his sunglasses, even though it was past sunset AND it was an extremely overcast day)


Now you can see him SOAKED up to about his armpits...


This one was before he got TOO wet


Connor's shorts were so heavy with water they kept falling down, so he'd walk around pulling them back up every few steps. LOL!


I was trying to self-take a family photo, but Jared refused to scrunch in close, and Connor only willingly stood there for one picture, and as you can see, it was a failed attempt. LOL


And I had originally had the camera turned sideways, then at the last minute changed my mind to orient it tallwise instead, and I somehow managed to take this picture! Crazy! I tried desperately to recreate it "just for fun", but I never could.

Jingle Bells and Meanies

More hilarity from Emily's 1st Grade journal:

She sells sea shells

More from Em's journal from 1st grade! I got a kick out of the drawing at the bottom. LOL!

World's Largest Cat

Okay, so maybe Bella isn't the world's largest cat, but after spending time with 2lb Charlie, she sure SEEMS like it!


Bella is slowly but surely coming out of "hiding" (aka, taking up residence during the daytime hours in my bedroom where she's guaranteed a decent amount of time alone), and is allowing us to spend time with her again. She's never been entirely interested in the boys (especially Connor!), but Emily and I have been used to finding Bella jumping up into our laps as we're sitting down for any length of time. Emily was thrilled today when Bella not only came out of my bedroom, but let Emily walk right up and pick her up.

Bella still doesn't want anything to do with Charlie, though. Last night, she didn't realize he was sleeping next to me on the chair and jumped up into my lap. Charlie lifted his head to look at her and she puffed up, hissed, and smacked him in the face!

I still hold out hope they'll learn to be friends.

Thumbs Up!

I found these card holders for the kids at Target, and to be honest, I was rather skeptical on how well they'd work, and if they'd be worth the money, but we don't play many card games with the kids because they get too frustrated by handfulls of cards they can't organize and don't want us to see if we help, etc, and it seemed like they'd be worth a try. We love them!! It's not a perfect solution in that if cards get piled too thickly together in one area, you pull one out of the holder and all the ones in the surrounding area come out, too, but my kids have gotten the idea pretty quickly. Also, I can hold the holder with the back to me and adjust their cards without ever seeing a single one, the kids are more able to view the cards in their hands, and we're all MUCH happier by the end of a card game! We give this product a thumbs up.

Four Generations

I didn't realize everyone was so slumped over until I got home and started working on creating this post! LOL

1st gen: Daniel Steven
2nd gen: Daniel Vincent
3rd gen: Daniel Vincent, Jr.
4th gen: Jared Daniel, Connor Jeffery

I also got a nice picture of the kids with their Great-Grandpa

(and to save you the trouble of asking, Em's cheeks are bright red because she's currently experiencing an unknown skin condition, which they claim is the result of a sunburn, but she hasn't even HAD a sunburn... The steroid cream the docs put her on has made a HUGE difference in the last two days, but at the end of the day, her face gets bright red and blotchy again...)

Lastly, I got a nice picture of the kids with their Great-Aunt Danielle

Florida Vacation pics!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

At Disney World, for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor show, they used the joke of Em's that I'd texted into the show for her! She thought it was REALLY awesome (especially considering they only used three jokes)! She LOVED Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, and would have happily done them both several times over, but we had too many other things to see and do! Unfortunately, Space Mountain was closed for maintanance, and will be until November. Emily would have really enjoyed it!! She thought meeting the princesses (especially Cinderella!) was pretty neat, and the parade and fireworks show at the end of the day were both really neat as well.

Seeing the manatees in the water near us at Anna Maria Island was an INCREDIBLE experience, even if I did momentarily panic and think the dark shapes in the water were sharks! I guess manatee sightings that close to shore are on the rare side. Emily and I both really enjoyed the WARM waters and the pretty white (soft!!) sand of the beaches. Even on a gloomy and rainy day, it was still warm enough to be at the beach! WOW!

The grass in people's yards in FL is REALLY odd. Very large blades of grass and you have to keep it around 4 inches tall. When you walk on it, you sink WAY down, and it's very spongy feeling. In the pic of Emily and I next to the cactus, we almost look like we have no feet, and that lawn had just been mowed the day before!!

Our flights TO Florida were riddled with kids kicking our seats at regular and FREQUENT intervals, and then siblings hitting and screaming at each other the whole flight. Our flights HOME were rather uneventful, but I could have done without the 4.5 hour layover at LAX, and having to go through security all over again becuase LAX has so many disconnected terminals! GRRRRRRRRRR! LAX was REALLY strict about the security, too. Shoes couldn't go in trays, cameras, video camera, DVD players and laptops all had to be out of their cases and in separate bins, with cases not in trays. Coats/sweatshirts each in individual bins, toiletries in own bin, etc. So we had eight bins, and then shoes and electronic equipment cases, sweatshirts, backpacks, carry-on suitcases, and my purse all strewn out everywhere. It was lovely! LOL

I hadn't gotten much sleep all week and it was two REALLY long travel days going there and coming back, so I ended up sleeping 9 hours the night we got back! I could use another night like that, but I've stayed up INCREDIBLY late putting together that slide show to share with you all today!

ENJOY!