Thursday, June 16, 2011
Kitty's last ballet recital was the evening before we left town for Washington. Things were pretty crazy busy at the time. She had a dress rehearsal in the afternoon and then her recital was that same evening. Luckily her group performed towards the beginning of the program and then we hurried and left right after they were finished to get home and finish preparations for our trip. Kitty did really well and I will post some video of it when I get to it. She has seemed to enjoy the class overall but I had to fight her each week to just get her to go to the class. Right now I don't think she will be taking a class again in the fall. Plus the studio we were taking ballet and tumbling at just went out of business so we will need to find a new place to go. Kitty's teacher is now teaching at a new studio that isn't too far so I will have to look into it. The classes are cheaper then we have been paying but I will have to see if we can fit any of the classes into our schedule. I would like to keep Blondie in tumbling and I will possibly sign Kay up for a ballet class - I think she would love it! Plus it will be weird for her having Kitty gone all day long next year when she starts 1st grade.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Spring dance recital - Kitty
School year comes to an end - 2011
Overall it was a good school year for everyone. M&M ended a little over a week before the elementary school kids. She ended up getting straight A's all year long in all of her classes!! She had a pretty smooth transition to middle school and after she adjusted to everything ended up loving it! She also made quite a few new friends and became reacquainted with some old friends.
Kitty's last day was June 9th and Luke and Blondie's last day was June 10th. Luke had the same teacher that M&M had for fourth grade and also did well. Whenever we met with him he would ask us how M&M was doing - she was one of his favorite students.
All of the kids' teachers have been teaching for 20+ years so things went pretty smoothly for everyone. We already know who Luke and Blondie will have for their teachers next year. Blondie will have one of the teachers that M&M had for third grade and she is also the wife of M&M's soccer coach. We are really excited to have her for Blondie's teacher next year.
Blondie and Luke's classes didn't have any end of the year programs this year! It was kind of weird. So I ended up going to the school the second to last day to get some pictures of the kids with their teachers. I was doing pretty good with all of the end of the year stuff (since there were only kindergarten programs) until Kitty's last day of school. She was supposed to bring a lunch and some items from home for a teddy bear picnic and I completely spaced it! Kitty apparently tried calling home but I wasn't there yet and M&M didn't answer the phone and Kitty didn't leave a message. Kitty's teacher was able to get a lunchable for her to eat and some of the kids in her class shared some things with her too. I felt so bad when I found out!!
Monday, June 13, 2011
E is for Eclair
M&M had to bring a treat to YW last week that started with the first letter of her name. We thought about it a little and decided to make some mini eclairs. We thought about just buying some at the store but she thought it would be more fun to learn how to make them. I helped her with the recipe and we tried piping out a few different sizes with some decorator bags. She filled and frosted most of them by herself. They turned out really good (although the rest of the kids in the family didn't think they were sweet enough). They were filled with vanilla instant pudding and then the chocolate glaze on the top was made from scratch. All of them that she took to the activity were eaten there!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Kindergarten Zoo Field Trip
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
M&M, Kay, MJ, my mom and I all drove down to the zoo together to meet up with Kitty's kindergarten class. We were all late in arriving (even the school buses) because of some horrible traffic on the road to the zoo. It was a fairly nice day weather wise and it was definitely more crowded than other times that we have been. It was nice having my mom and M&M there to help out with the little ones. After we met up with Kitty we went to see the bird show which is always a favorite activity of ours. It's amazing how the birds fly so low over our heads!!
Our obligatory pictures on the tiger statue:
I was a little nervous at what I would find when taking the kids over to the giraffes. There was a big sign on the way that said, "Quiet please! Breeding in progress." Thankfully all we found were two giraffes sitting on the ground!
Unfortunately neither Kitty nor Kay were very cooperative at the zoo and neither of them seemed very interested in any of the animals. At one point I took Kitty and Kay over to ride the Carousel while my mom and M&M went and watched the elephant demonstration. MJ did awesome though! I just nursed her once at lunchtime and then after the small animal house I put her back in her stroller and she fell right asleep and slept all the way until we got back home!Carousel ride:
Soccer season comes to an end - 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
This was our last day for soccer games for this spring season. For Luke and Blondie we were happy to see it come to an end, for M&M it was a sad day! M&M has absolutely loved her coach and team!! It was a great bunch of kids that played well together and the coach was just awesome!! He was hard in the sense that he expected a lot from his players, but he was by no means unreasonable and he was very personable and sympathetic as well. He knew the game well and ran some excellent practices. Her coach never played favorites in the games and he switched people around and had them play all different positions in the same game sometimes. At the beginning of the fall season M&M wasn't sure if she had made the right choice on what team to sign up with, but by the end she was almost in mourning that last day because it has been such a positive and enjoyable experience for her! After her game the team got together at someone's house for an end of the season party with hot dogs and fun! The coach gave an emotional farewell speech at the party and since most of the kids go to the same school, he told them all to look out for each other, and especially to look out for M&M and the other girl on the team. Most of M&M's team are 8th graders that move up to the high school level next year (as well as the coach's son) so the team was dissolving after this season. We will definitely miss this group when soccer season comes around again in the fall...
Luke's team unfortunately had a losing season and they lost their last game by one point. The highlight of the game though was the goal that Luke scored - he headed the ball in the goal after it bounced off of the goalie!! And DH even got it on the video camera so I will post it later! It was an awesome goal!!
We were really disappointed with Blondie's soccer season. The team basically dwindled to nothing by the end of the year and it was disappointing to see. Her last soccer practice had just 3 girls at it (one of them being the soccer coach's daughter) and for the last game they didn't even have enough kids to play the game - they were one short. So the other team gave us one of their extra players to play goalie for each half and our girls had to play the whole game in the heat and wore themselves out! (We finally had a hot day for the last games of the season!) Unfortunately I think her soccer experience this year was a complete waste of time and money for us... I did get some good pictures of her at the last game though.
Deciding what to do with the kids for next year has been quite a chore. We know some kids in the ward & neighborhood that are Blondie's age that play on a coed team so we decided to sign her up with that group. At first it was looking like I might end up coaching it but then one of the kids decided not to try out for comp next year so his dad will be coaching. I will probably end up being the assistant coach for her team. Then we were thinking that I might coach Luke's team because we didn't want him with the same coach he has had this year. We ended up finding another local team with some kids that he has played with before and signed him and a couple of other players from our team up with that group. Hopefully that will turn out alright. At first the coach wasn't going to coach again but his son ended up not making the comp team so he is going to coach after all.
M&M has been the toughest decision for us. We finally ended up signing her up with a neighborhood team that was a 5/6 grade team this year. They will be a younger group in the 7/8 grade level, but M&M knows several of the kids on the team and hopefully it will be a good experience for her. Then we will have to decide the following year if we want her to play at the high school level. The rec league does 5 vs 5 for the high school level and it is pretty intense.
Swing time!!
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Waiting for M&M's last soccer game to begin! Left to Right: Luke, Kay, Kitty, Blondie - with DH walking behind pushing everyone!
Kindergarten Dance Program
Friday, June 3, 2011
Kitty's class also did a dance program at the end of the year. This one was just for her class and one other afternoon kindergarten class so it was much more enjoyable to attend! Since M&M was finished with school earlier in the week she was able to come with me and watch as well as help out with Kay and MJ!
M&M finishes 7th Grade!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Last day of school for M&M!! She had a great school year! She made some really good friends and really enjoyed the change in format from Elementary School. She even managed to get straight A's all year long!!
For band she ended off the year playing bassoon and has really enjoyed it. It is a much different instrument from the flute! We also were able to check out an oboe for the summer so as soon as I get her some reeds for it she can start learning to play that as well. She will be in the Symphonic (Advanced) Band next year and is looking forward to that - although a lot of her friends will be in the Concert (Intermediate) Band. They will hopefully all stick with band though so they can join her in Symphonic the following year.
Memorial Weekend
For Memorial Weekend I was asked to speak in church on Sunday. The topic was a talk in General Conference from April 2010 called "We Are His Hands" by President Uchtdorf. Maybe I'll post the talk later when I get a free moment.
Later on in the evening we packed the family in the car and drove down to Lehi to visit the Lehi City Cemetery. DH has some ancestors buried there so we spent some time searching for their graves and then DH took some pictures of the headstones. Unfortunately it was a very rainy, drizzly, chilly day and we all got wet. I had the kids take turns sitting in the car with MJ so she didn't have to endure the cold and rain.
On Memorial Day we met up with my parents at the Salt Lake City Cemetery to visit the graves of some of my grandparents and great-grandparents. We were also able to find a couple of Tanners from DH's family. That cemetery is very old, very big and very hilly!! It was also very crowded (at least parts of it were). Thankfully we went in the morning because it was filling up with people quickly! Next we went to another cemetery where my other grandparents and a couple of aunts and uncles are buried.
Later on in the day my parents came over for a barbecue dinner. It was a very different day than we have had in the past on Memorial Day. This was the first year that we haven't had the extended White family reunion for DH's side of the family!
Rub a dub dub
Four girls in the tub!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
I put DH in charge of bathing the girls this day because I was trying to prepare my talk that I was giving in church the following day. He thought that it would be quick and easy to do them all at once. It was fine for the first few minutes but he quickly learned that it is pretty tight quarters trying to clean everyone and get their hair washed when they are all in there at once! Plus Kay and MJ love to splash a lot and Kitty hates getting splashed!
This was the best picture I got of the girls. The camera was having a hard time with the lighting in the room and every time the flash went off on the camera, Kitty closed her eyes. Then we had Kay who wouldn't sit still for 2 seconds at a time!
Kindergarten Program
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The school had their end of the year Kindergarten program on May 26th this year. It is something that I never seem to look forward to because there are soooo many people that go and just care about seeing their kindergartner. I wish they would break the group up into smaller groups instead of doing all of the classes at once. I think it would make the experience a little more enjoyable for everyone.
Kitty was our first kindergartner to get a speaking part in the program. She just had one line and it was towards the beginning of the program, but she did great on it. Thankfully DH was able to come and he stood in the back and recorded parts of the program while I tried to contain and entertain MJ and Kay. Kitty was also my first afternoon kindergartner so the rehearsals for the end of the year program made our schedule a little more hectic. The practices that they do for the program during the week of the program were in the morning so Kitty had a full week where she rode the bus with the older kids to school in the morning and then I had to remember to pick her up around lunchtime. She also had to go in the morning for field day, the zoo field trip and the school performance.
This year there were 6 kindergarten classes in the program. In the picture above you can see Kitty on the left wearing a turquoise shirt (you may have to click on the picture to see a bigger version of it). Also if you look closely in the picture you may notice an empty section on the upper left of the risers. Apparently towards the end of the program one of the kids that was sitting on the back row got sick and threw up! I didn't see it happen but I noticed a mom walk up and pick up her son and carry him off the stage. Then all of the kids that were sitting around him starting pointing and making faces so I knew that something was up. The teachers had to move everyone that was sitting up in that area to the floor while they carried on with the program. And no, DH was not video recording at the time...
Friday, June 10, 2011
Kay talk
* A couple of mornings ago Kay was telling us that MJ was her sister. Then I asked her if she liked her sister and she said, "She's very unquietly."
* Yesterday I was taking Kay downstairs to get her some breakfast and she said, "Mom, you're a genius!"
* Last night I was putting Kay to bed and she asked me to read her a book. I picked a book that she knows most of the words to so I would read a little bit and then point to the next part to see if she remembered what came next. One time after I read a few of the words to her she said, "Good job Mom!"
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, June 3, 2011
Kay talk
Kay: Look, an Aurora shoe! Where's the other one? ... I found it! The other Aurora shoe! Three of them!
Me: Uh, no. That would make two of them.
Kay: Ohhh. You're right! That's two of them!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
