Dance Recital Time!!!

Jewelia and Micah have been working hard all year to get ready for their end of the season dance recital.

Jewelia took only ballet this year as she said "tap hurts my feet". Micah continued to take classes in both tap and ballet.

Their costumes were so cute this year.

Micah looked very handsome in his ballet costume:

As you can see, there are actually other BOYS in his ballet class this year. We switched dance studios this year specifically because this new studio had more experience teaching boys, and it had men teachers as well.

Jewelia was beautiful in her ballet costume:

She looks very different than usual because although I don't like it, this dance studio requires all girls to have their hair slicked back in a bun and with no bangs not only for the recital but for the dance pictures as well.

I guess that is more professional or whatever for the performances, but I think they should be able to wear their hair however they want for pictures. Oh, well. It was a very difficult task to get all her hair in a perfect bun and her bangs to stay slicked back, but I was very proud of myself and my abilities.

Micah had the cutest tap costume:

I thought it was awesome because it would probably be one of the very few pictures I will ever have of Micah in anything sports related. He does hate all sports so.

We went to a very long rehearsal where I got a bit of video and a few pictures, and then the recital the next day.

I was very very impressed with all the dancing and choreography that this studio had to offer. Compared to last year's Jewelia heel toe heel toe forever performance, her ballet number had much more going on and was very cute.

Here is a video of Jewelia's ballet number from rehearsal:



Although you can tell a little that she is watching side stage her teacher's instructions, Jewelia did a great job! (Oh, if you couldn't tell, she was the 2nd girl from the left.)

Micah had 2 performances. His first was his tap number. He is doing so well in tap.
Here is a video from his rehearsal:



Isn't he an awesome tapper? I love his little tap spins he does.

Then he was in a ballet dance. While I had seen little bits of his progress earlier in the year, I thought Micah still had a lot to learn. I hadn't really had the time to sit and watch during dance class for the last many months, so I didn't really know how he was doing.

I was really surprised when I went to rehearsal and saw how much he had learned and improved! There was my little Micah boy all spinning and leaping and stuff and he looked good! I was pretty impressed and a pretty proud mom!

Here is video from his ballet performance:



I think it was way cute how they are starting to teach him how to hold and lift the girls. It will be a while until he is actually big enough and strong enough to do that, but I think he'll get there.

The recital was even better than the rehearsal, and Jewelia and Micah did great!
We can't wait to see what awaits us for next year's dance recital! Plus, little Macey will join in taking a dance class as well.

Flag Day 2011

So, often as it has it, we were asked to help with an event at my work.

This time it was for Flag Day. They wanted to have a big flag raising ceremony with the scouts and then they asked if we would sing the National Anthem.

Well, not much notice, but somehow we organized for our teeny little scout troop to come and do a little ceremony. There aren't a lot of boy scouts in our ward, and Micah isn't even 12 yet, but we added him to the bunch.

At my work we have this HUGE American flag. It is so big that it had to be strung across many carts with 5 scouts holding it up as well.

They did a little ceremony to raise this huge flag and had Micah lead everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance. Micah did great leading the group!

But....
At first it took a while.

I think they missed a hook or something, but then once they fixed that they could slowly begin raising it upward.

Up up it went...

And up some more....

And more and more until it was all the way up.


As I said they had asked the kids to perform the National Anthem, but they only gave us about 3 days notice.

At first we were going to have Caleb play it on the piano while Micah and Jewelia sang, but then we found out the song was just a little too high for Micah to sing. So, then we were going to have Caleb play and Jewelia sing, but the arrangements we found were all just too high even for her.

So in the end, we found a karaoke track for her to sing.

Lovely picture this is below (don't look at frumpy me there---I was in work clothes and had gotten up too early!), but it shows Jewelia getting ready to sing.

She only just learned the tune of the Star Spangled Banner and didn't have time to completely memorize it, so we just let her sing with the words.

I know, not super fancy, but we still think she did a good job. I didn't get a complete video of her singing, but our neighbor caught her on her camera:



Maybe next time she can have it memorized. Jewelia loves to perform!

Jewelia's 6 Year Old Pictures

Well, it's only been a month since Jewelia turned 6, but yes, we are finally getting around to getting her professional birthday pictures taken.

Such a pretty girl! I often have problems trying to get pictures of the other kids because they have a funny face or cheesy grin or just aren't smiling, but Jewelia is very photogenic. I had a hard time trying to decide which pictures were best because they all looked cute!

So, I suppose I cut her bangs maybe a little too short on the ends right before pictures, or maybe they aren't greatly straight, but I got her hair really straight with the flat iron, and I worked on matching up those pink bows for like a half hour!

Oh, the length I go for cuteness!

I found her this really pretty dress off of ebay for like $3 because it had a teeny little pen mark on the front, but her hair covered it anyway.

We even had her take her violin for some different pictures. She is doing so well with it. She really struggled at first and we wondered if it was a good thing for her to play a violin with all the horrible sounds like cats getting their hair pulled out, but she has improved greatly. She sets a timer and practices at least 20 full minutes a day. I think that is pretty good for a 6 year old.

Troy always complains when I get the kids' birthday pictures that they look so old and it makes him sad, so I picked a "young" looking picture of Jewelia for him.

Of course after looking at all the pictures he decided this one was his "least favorite". Gee, thanks.

Jewelia is a cute, smart girl, and she has really grown up over this past year. Maybe it's the whole jump from Kindergarten into first grade, but she fits in well with those soon to be 2nd graders.

The photographer asked her to blow a kiss, but this picture came out more like a fish face. We thought it was pretty funny:

Well, until next year.....I'm sure then Troy can be really depressed at how old she'll look then!

Oh, yeah, I got some extra 4 by 6 prints for relatives, so any of you out there that want a picture let me know---of course you can only choose from 3 different shots; the violin picture, the first one with her eyes above the flowers, or the 2nd to last one with the flowers spread across her dress. Let me know! :)

End of School Awards and Graduation

Well, it is the end of the school year and this year marks a pretty big event--Micah's graduation from 6th grade! That's right! Next fall he starts Junior High School!

Looking at that banner that says the class of 2017, it seems so weird for me. It's still a while away, but 2017? Goodness.

Micah had a nice graduation program where he sang songs and got a certificate. Sorry, no great photos here, well, besides the cheesy self photographed one here below:

While Micah was graduating and saying goodbye to the school, Caleb and Jewelia were busy getting some top awards!

Both Caleb and Jewelia were chosen for the "Clove Award" which is given to only 2 people in each class for highest academics and citizenship. I got a letter in the mail telling me about it, but we kept it a secret from both of them so they were surprised. I think they kind of wondered why I was making them wear nice clothes to school that day.

Macey got dragged along to all these long assemblies.

I think she survived.

Now for SUMMER!!!!

Of course, my kids are weird. Yesterday they were all crying about how they didn't want it to be summer because they like school so much.

What is wrong with these children?!

Happy Late Anniversary Trip

This past weekend Troy and I finally got to go on our anniversary date for our 12 year anniversary. Yes, that was almost 3 months ago, but we've been busy. We got a gift certificate for a bed and breakfast for Christmas and finally were able to use it. (Good thing, because it expired the next day.)

Troy and I went to the Armstrong Mansion. There were all different themed rooms you could choose from corresponding with months of the year. We didn't choose any really fancy room because our gift certificate was for $99 and a lot of the rooms were up to $200, and we didn't want the cheapest room themed "Grandma's Attic" because that is just what it looked like and it creeped me out to sleep in this bed that looked like my Grandma's (sorry Grandma). But anyway, we chose the "October Room" which I thought was cheap enough and had some nice halloweeny stuff. (I like Halloween.)

Of course, things never quite go as planned, and the day before they called me to say there had been water damage and they had to move us to a different room. Oh, well. Life goes on. Actually, we got a lot more expensive room and it turned out pretty nice. (Although the sink was falling off the wall!)

It was a very small room, but then had a connected bathroom,

and around the corner was this little staircase

that went up to the highest part of the mansion to a giant jacuzzi tub.

Pretty fancy, huh?

We spent most of our evening running around the mansion and sneaking into other people's rooms who hadn't arrived yet to see what their rooms looked like.

We hung out in the parlor and tried to take some pictures although our camera sucks and we always come out blurry.

We wondered where everyone else was since it was almost 7 pm and yet half of the rooms were still empty and we know they were all booked.

We took full advantage of the emptiness and took more random pictures.

We ran up and down the staircases and posed by the large banisters.

Troy thinks he is Mr. GQ here.

Most couples might have been pretty bored with it pouring rain outside and no where to go, but we were pretty entertained just running up and down the mansion and exploring. I figure it was because we didn't have to worry what 4 kids were doing. Although we love our kids, it was a nice break.

We'll have to do this every year!

Thanks Dad and Sally for the gift certificate!