Give a dancer some props

If you give a dancer some props, she will put on a great smile and perform in a fabulous show!

Lauren ended the year of her hip-hop class with the recital a few weeks ago. I am just now getting the pictures uploaded, so bear with me. She generally liked the class, and I thought it fit her perfectly. In the past, she has taken both tap and ballet classes and did well, but they may not have been her thing. She is definitely my spunky child and can get away with a bit of flair. I loved many of the gorgeous ballet and traditional costumes that other girls were wearing, but I thought that this was cute on Lauren.



There were two performances (we were the second-yes!) and it was standing room only! When we arrived there were seats, but you know how people can be-sitting on the ends, using their stuff to reserve the seat, etc. I'm not sure that the boys would have sat for that length of time anyway. The theatre seats are just too fun to sit in- up, down, up, down. Everything seemed to flow well, thanks to the staff, which happened to include a fellow blogger. I am very thankful that Casey didn't give my rambunctious boys the "stink eye" during the performance, even though they were fighting over a drink and snacks for what seemed to me like the entire performance. Logan has this loud, piercing whine when he doesn't get his way. I usually ignore it, but when we are in public and trying to maintain a nice family presentation....sometimes I do whatever to appease him. I am sure that I will pay for it later. I'm just doing what works, right?
Lauren was really surprised to get flowers from her adoring fans, (i.e. her family and her BFF), who came along to cheer her on! That made it all the more fun!


I felt some sadness because I have a feeling that my days of have girly recitals are coming to a close. I have enjoyed them these past years. I participated in dance and sports when I was young, so I know how interests change. My girls just seem to have other interests like cheer leading, swimming, gymnastics and friends. I hope that dance will continue, but if not, I will support them and be inwardly sad.

The brothers were given some props after the show and considered putting together a rock band. Negotiations are still ongoing.
Speaking of negotiations, this is a super cute photo and story. Nicholas had only a few pictures of children from his class. I never seem to take them when I have been visiting his school. Maybe because I am running after Logan in Kindergarten Heaven? So when we saw one of his cute classmates was performing I saw a photo op and couldn't pass it up. I gave her one of the flowers that we had and told her that she did a wonderful performance, and asked if she would take a picture with Nick.

From the first day of school I have remembered her because she reminds us so much of one of Nick's first girl friends who lived in England with us. They have known each other since they were two and four-months old. Anyway. Here is the resulting picture. After I pried Nicholas off the floor, he reluctantly agreed. He seems to like her and now I have proof. The face is priceless.

While I was staying busy

...this happened.My oldest graduated from 6th grade last week! I am speechless. How could this happen? When did my little baby decide that it was okay to do this?? She received awards for A- Honor Roll this quarter, A/B- Honor Roll for the year, The President's Gold Academic Award, and some others that I cannot remember. I mentioned the big ones, right?


She graciously accepted her awards and flowers, took glam photos with her BFF friends, celebrated with a class BBQ (dunking booth included), and went merrily on her way to Middle School.

More drama to follow.

That is one thing of which I am sure.

Busy!

I am so, so sorry about the lack of posting. I actually have several posts in the drafts that need some tweaking. My excuse? Ummm..busy???

I have been single parenting at the busiest time of the year. In the past weeks we have had numerous baseball and softball practice and games, dance rehearsals and recitals, end of school year events, and

Life in General.

Factor in the destructive behavior of the two-year-old (?!?!?!), the whiny four-year-old (nothing new), and the drama of the others........

My dishwasher also decided that the pump had had it and I have been at the mercy of my landlord during the repair phase. I have been told that a replacement will be installed tomorrow until mine is repaired. Really, washing the massive amount of dishes that I have in a single 12x12 sink is getting very old. Very old. Dishwater hands? Got those too.

We have another pre-teen staying with us while her parents have a restful holiday after her dad returned from a year in Iraq. It has been nice having an extra pair of hands!

I am hoping that Sunday will be a low key day and I can get more pictures and posts uploaded.

You do what you gotta do

I was doing dinner on my own tonight. I wanted a simple cook and clean-up experience, so I went with my "stand-by" of cheese-eggs in wheat tortillas and sliced fruit. Since I completely wanted to avoid the CHA-OS that has been a reoccurring dinner event, I found myself doing the following:

I made some cinnamon rolls (the pop-up kind---eeekk---HATE opening them) and proclaimed that ANY bad behavior, complaining or lack of eating dinner would result in NO cinnamon roll. Nada. Not even a smidgen of icing.

It worked.

As parents, we try not to give sweets as a reward, but I had a feeling this would be the golden ticket.

After dinner, my daughter and I cleaned up the table while my oldest son helped his brother get into his pyjamas. I then told the boys that they could watch 10-15 minutes of SB (the square, yellow guy), while I folded laundry.

Yep. Used it as a babysitter.

A book was read and bedtime was a breeze.

Chaos contained.
Success.
No guilt.whatsoever.

Cleaning out the old blog posts

Easter 2009

I saw this draft in my posting list.

I have no idea why it is still sitting there, un-posted.

I guess things have been super busy lately! These are some of those "jiggler" eggs that we made and some egg nest cookies that I found in a German store. For the record, the cookies are super cute but have a strange coconut flavor and very hard candies. Needless to say, they just looked pretty. Even the kids wouldn't eat them-and that's saying a lot!
Lauren just had to find a caterpillar while she was in her nice dress.

I love the girls in these dresses!! You just might see Ashlyn's dress again for her "moving up" 6th-grade graduation ceremony. We'll see.

Nicholas loves hanging out with his dad! They are either getting along or egging each other on....
This is the only basket photo that I could manage before they were opened!!
Logan had a fuzzy monkey in his basket. This kid climbs on everything and figures out any type of gadget~hence the name "Monkey".
When you are one of five kids in a competition such as an egg hunt where a golden egg and candy are involved, you need to move fast!

Bwhahahaha! That Easter Bunny even placed an egg high on the tree branch! Ryan jumped for a little while until someone finally shook the branch.
Logan must sample all chocolate before he can continue his searching.

Lauren found some treat eggs among our egg tree in the back garden. You see these plastic eggs hung on trees and bushes all around our German town. This is actually a living tree that we had several Christmas' ago. It seems to be doing well, despite the fact that we neglected to water it after Christmas and Allen let it fall from the third floor window so we wouldn't have needles on four flights of stairs!

Okay, I saw another old blog post that I need to add soon. So embarrassing-I can't believe it.

Picture perfect

http://shaunamaness.squarespace.com/shauna-maness-photography/2009/5/7/miles-kiddos.html

I love seeing these pictures of the kids! We tempted fate last week on a rainy day and had a photo shoot near a local field. Shauna spent so much time getting to know the kids and took tons of shots! She is so talented and fun. We have been blessed to know her. Maybe our paths will cross again some day in Texas. I can't wait to see the rest. This is just a preview.



Now we return to regularly scheduled baseball games and practices, softball games and practices, appointments, school activities, laundry, hip-hop dance class, youth group...........be back soon.

Frohe Ostern!

Egg Hunts at Ramstein......

The Easter Bunny made an appearance.
Golden egg #1



Golden egg#2!!!

No golden egg. Apparently some girl tackled Ashlyn and grabbed it!
Easter cookies....

and colored eggs.