Piano "recital"

We hosted a little piano recital for immediate family, next door neighbors, and Em's best friend and family on Christmas Eve. Emily had learned four Christmas songs and wanted the chance to show them off!

We baked a bunch of cookies to set out, and purchased some juice to set out as well, then invited people to arrive at 1pm for the show. My mom suggested printing out words to the songs so people could sing along, so I decided to really do it up and make cute little programs to hand out to our guests. This is the cover, and then the words to the songs were printed inside and on the back.


Emily played Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, and Up on the Housetop.


She kept getting really shy/embarrassed and was turning to her daddy and I for support and encouragement!


I had her play through the songs first by herself, and then she played through them a 2nd time while we all sang along. Afterward, the adults visited for awhile, and the kids all ran around and played. It was a really nice time, and Em has already asked if we can do it again in the spring! (we'll see!)

Emily's Dance

Em's dance studio changed things up this year and elected to only host a holiday dance show for levels 3 and up. The lower levels (Em is level 2) prepared a little routine to be shown to their parents during the "parent viewing week".

Em and some of her dance classmates warming up at the beginning of class:


during the cute little routine:






During her tap routine:


(I didn't get any other good ones from that routine to share!)

Emily Grace is anxiously awaiting JUNE when she gets to perform on stage!

Career Opportunity

Em might just be able to make a career as a cookie decorator! Look how carefully she decorated!


That was just two of the five cookies she decorated, too. I forgot to take another picture once she'd finished!

Santa Singers

Emily participated in a group called the Santa Singers last Friday night through her Elementary School. There was a holiday-themed "breakfast for dinner" event, and kids who wanted to give up a few recesses each week to rehearse go join and participate. She had a GREAT time!




The group is a prelude to a more formal choral group starting in January that she's interested in joining. Supposedly, it's set for Fridays after school, which won't conflict with her other activities OR her homework, so we'll probably go ahead and let her join. We'll see for sure when the official information comes home. This group will even get to perform at different events around the community, which she is UBER excited about!

Emily the hairstylist

She's got appointments available during the holidays, ladies! Reasonable prices, too... *grin*

Emily Elizabeth and Emily Grace

We went to the Seattle Children's Museum over the weekend, and the current "traveling" exhibit is Clifford.

I couldn't resist posing Emily!




It was actually HER idea to pose like in the 1st picture. Pretty funny!!

Toothfairy Time!

Emily Grace wants to be The Toothfairy for Halloween. I set to work on a colorful tutu for her to wear, dug up the wings and wand from when I was The Toothfairy last year, and ordered her a long-sleeved white leotard (she'll wear white leggings underneath as well). I think the overall result is pretty dang cute! We'll foo-foo her hair up, and add a little tiara and hair glitter to complete the look when it's actually Halloween.





FYI, as gorgeous as the pink sparkly tule is (pictures don't do the color of the tutu justice), I will NEVER purposely use it again. It's stiff and hard to work with, and that's not even mentioning how much GLITTER ends up EVERYWHERE. AND. I. MEAN. EVERYWHERE. (everywhere). It also acts much more velcro-y than regular tule, so the whole tutu ends up in a jumbled mess rather quickly, which makes me sad because of how hard I worked on the darn thing, but Emily is SUPER thrilled with it, and that's what matters most anyway.

Well, Looky There...

The child who liked the minibike the least finally gave it a fair shot and what do you know? Turns out she likes it quite a lot!

Putty Fun

The kids recently got some putty from the prize box at their dentist's office. After they got home, Emily and Jared charged right into playing with it!

I hear a piano!

Emily Grace started piano lessons this week. She had a blast!!! Her new piano teacher only lives a few minutes from our house, which makes it handy, and she's really nice!

I took a picture of Emily at their piano at the start of the lesson:


And I took another one a few minutes later while the piano teacher was showing Emily where to position herself in front of the piano and how to have proper posture and whatnot.


And then I hightailed it off to the car because I had other kids waiting for me, and because I figured Emily would do better without me hovering. I honestly don't know where we're going to fit it piano practice every day, but we're aiming for sometime in the morning between getting ready for school and heading to the bus!

I look forward to seeing where she goes with this. I've always enjoyed hearing piano music and have wished for years that I knew how to play. Em seems super eager to learn, and her teacher said she gave her a bigger size amount of work than she normally would for a new student because Em was picking up the pages so quickly during this first lesson.

I'll be sure to post a video of her once she starts playing some actual pieces of music!

Pampered princess!

My friend Nikki has a spa that she runs out of her home. As a treat for the end of the summer, I set Em up with an appointment for a kid facial. Because Nikki loves my girl, she gave her the regular facial for the kid facial price (and because we love Nikki, I met her somewhere in the middle... LOL).

Em LOVED the facial!

getting her face washed


and exfoliated


a mask, some steam, and some fake cucumbers


mask #2


My pampered princess would have stayed all day!

1st day of school

The kids started school last week. Hard to believe the summer is over and done just like that.

My big third grader!




My big first grader!






They both had great first days and have really nice teachers! Should be a great year for them.

Overnight Camp

Emily attended overnight camp the first week of August through our local YMCA. She was gone Sunday-Friday of that week. We were able to email her while she was at camp, but she was not able to reply (they print emails for the campers and pass them out at dinner time). The campers were able to send snail-mail letters if they'd brought pre-addressed and stamped envelopes. I sent some with Emily and told her she'd better write to me at least once!! We got a letter from her Thursday of that week that said it was Monday (24 hours into her stay at camp) and she was having the best time of her life. LOL! I loved it.

On the Friday we got to pick her up from camp, we were waiting at the campfire (parents and siblings got to attend the final campfire to see a bit of what camp life was like) and she walked in with her group. I was so happy to see her! We gave very tearful hugs and kisses before I had to send her back with her group. After she was sitting down (two rows down from us), the boys rushed over and wanted to give her loves as well.




They ended the campfire deal with a song about having made new friends and whatnot, and how next summer, I'll meet you right here (coming back and reuniting with camp friends, etc.). I am a sap on a good day, but was an emotional wreck during this song, with all the emotions tied into missing Emily and seeing her again after a whole week. ha! In my defense, there were LOTS of other mommies wiping tears! They have a sign at the entrance to the campfire area:


After the campfire, we got to enjoy a BBQ meal, and then our campers got to take us on a tour of the camp and talk to us about the different stuff they did. Em took us straight to her cabin where I posed her with her two leaders, Banana (left) and Sass (right):


Em slept on the top bunk right behind their heads in the above picture. It sounds like she had a wonderful time, but she did miss home. She flip flops about whether she wants to do it again next summer or not. One day she says she can't wait, and then the next she says she'll miss us too much. I'm sure that by the time next summer rolls around, she'll be dying to go back. I think us having been away from her so recently while we were in Jamaica had something to do with her missing us this year...

I sent a disposable camera with her to camp figuring she'd take all sorts of pictures of her friends and her experiences, but she took a whopping FIVE pictures, which I haven't developed because we haven't used up the roll yet!!

Ready, set, GO!!

Happy Birthday Emily Grace!

Hard to believe that 8 years ago, my sweet Emily Grace was born. She was the perfect Mother's Day present, and has continued to be such a blessing. She's really growing up to be quite an amazing young lady. She's sweet and funny, helpful, considerate. She harrasses her younger brothers, but I think that's just how it goes when you're the oldest (and they do their fair share of harrassing in return...LOL). She loves to sing and dance. She loves to be surrounded by friends, but she also loves to curl up with a good book at night to read (she's read no less than six chapter books in the last two weeks!). She's quiet and polite, but has a touch of a wild streak in her when you catch her in just the right mood. She once had a pale pink pair of ballet-style flats with a pretty little bow on top, which also were peppered with white skull and crossbones. I always felt those shoes summed up Emily perfectly; Girly and sweet, with a touch of rebel/spunk!

I couldn't ask for anything better than this amazing little girl in my life, and while I feel she's getting way too big, way too fast, I'm enjoying the ride, and look forward to the rest of our adventure together.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my beautiful, sweet little girl! May your day be full of wonderful things, and may the coming year bring you health, happiness, and dreams come true. I LOVE YOU Lulu Bug!!

Rollerskating

Emily had her birthday party at a local rollerskating rink over the weekend. The kids had a blast! I didn't get permission from parents to post their kids on my blog, so I'll only be showing you my own kids. I truly thought I was taking a bunch of pictures, but still managed to not end up with pictures of some of the kids (good ones, anyway), and a lot of what I took was blurry (kids moving too fast on their skates, I guess!).

Miss Em, in her new outfit from her favorite store: JUSTICE!! She was THRILLED to finally have a bigger area to skate in, besides the narrow loop through our kitchen, diningroom, hallway, and entryway... LOL


Jared spent the first few laps hanging onto the wall (having never rollerskated before), but got the hang of it quite quickly and charged around as best he could. He made me LAUGH. As fast as he'd fall, he'd be right up back again before you could barely blink. Reminded me of a Jack-in-the-box or something. He's begging for his own skates now!


Connor mostly clung to the wall, but was getting more brave after awhile and making attempts at skating. At this point, he'd fallen down and I was on the other side of the rink from him (he'd refused to let me help him AT ALL, wanting to do it on his own), and couldn't quite get back up again, so started doing the crab walk! He flopped back down by the time I'd dashed over to grab the camera, but you can kind of see how he must have looked. SO FUNNY!


At one point, they called all the kids having their birthday parties to the center of the rink, and then gathered around them to do the Hokey Pokey. Kids were having problems figuring out where to form the circle, so the DJ asked the birthday party kids to raise their hands so everyone knew where to start gathering.


You put your right hip in...


You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself about... (sorry, it made me laugh to see Dan in his tacky Hawaiian shirt out doing the Hokey Pokey on skates...LOL)


I showed up at the grocery store the day before Em's party to figure out ordering a cake. I had no clue what I should get (I figured there wasn't going to be any rollerskating themes, and she's past the Disney Princess stage...), so just started flipping through the sample book and came across this one, and it called out to me (it's girly without being little girl, AND it has butterflies, which is what her research project has been this school year).


Let's just say I earned brownie points with that cake. The girl was jumping up and down screaming in excitement. She LOVED it. It tasted good, too! White cake with FUDGE filling. YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!

Make a wish!


Emily, who is normally pretty stone-faced when opening presents (leaving the gift givers to wonder if she even liked what they gave her), was rather animated and lively this year. I don't think there was any confusion this year as to whether she liked her gifts or not!












And I was reminded that it's not always easy capturing decent pictures when paper is flying everywhere, kids are crowding around, and "party consultants" are wanting to discuss the bill... (Do you think I could have at least noticed her face was covered?)




My kids have been begging every since Saturday to go back and rollerskate some more. I think we'll have to make more of a habit of going!!!! It wasn't even very crowded, though it was a GORGEOUS day (first we've had in awhile), so it might have just been that everyone was out enjoying the sun instead. I guess we'll see next time!