Ballet Recital

Rebecca had a ballet recital last night at the Phillips Center. She was very excited to be on stage and thoroughly enjoyed watching the other classes dance as well. She looked BEAUTIFUL in her costume and did a GREAT job dancing her part. Grandpa even got tears in his eyes watching her dance. I had a challenging time getting her to smile naturally for the camera instead of hamming it up, but I think you can get the picture here. Clips from dress rehearsal are on the video bar to the right. I hope to get the recital performance up later today.

VPK Graduation

Well, the moment finally arrived. Rebecca's passage from little girl to big girl is starting. St. Michael's Day School had a graduation ceremony for all the Pre-K graduates. (VPK in Florida.) They all looked sooooo cute in their caps and gowns. The kids sang several songs for the event, but my favorite was "I'll Be Going to Kindergarten When I'm Five." Sung to the tune of "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain." The lyrics went like this: "I'll be going to Kingergarten when I'm five. (Repeat) I'll learn to read and write. I'll draw pictures big and bright. I'll be going to Kindergarten when I'm five."




The teachers made gifts for all the kids, which included artwork and pictures from the year.

Here is Rebecca and her best friend, Kaitlyn- who never takes a bad picture.

Disney with Daddy

We convinced Art to go with us to Disney for the Day. This was his first trip since he was a kid. Although it was very hot (in the 90's) the lines were short and we spent most of the day inside in air conditioning. I think we visited more than 10 attractions! For the first time, Ryan was not scared of the dark or the loud noises, and LOVED the Buzz Lightyear ride. Yea!

A highlight of this trip was that Rebecca and Ryan were both pulled from the crowd to participate in the Woody's Roundup show in Frontierland. They got to be part of the show by singing and dancing and riding wooden horses. They could not have been happier.

Ryan liked making the ride go higher and higher. Art liked the ride to go lower and lower. But Ryan had control of the lever!

The beach

Isn't this the best picture of Ryan? We finally had a great trip to the beach. The first three trips we tried with the kids were all busts for various reasons, mostly that Ryan wasn't into it before. I was worried that I had produced a child who was not going to be a beach lover. (Horror!) However, this time, he LOVED it. At first, he was a little scared of the big waves and kept running back to the sand every time the water touched his toes, but after 5 tries, he was hooked. In fact, after about 30 minutes of Art and I lifting the kids up so they could "jump" the waves, we got a little tired and tried to coax them into building sand castles, but they wouldn't hear of it. More More More! Again Again Again! So, I think we'll be making a bunch of trips to the beach this summer!

Naked gardener

So, here's my little pumpkin, hard at work. We gave him a hose to play with outside and he promptly stripped off his clothes so he wouldn't get wet. Is there any better way to play outside?