Dancing through the years!

If you are familiar with Emily, you know she loves dance. Emily fell in love with the costumes, moves and being in front of a crowd. She started in kindergarten. Emily had a friend named Jaquelyn who introduced us to You Can Danz Dance Company. It has been fun to watch Em grow up in the different dance classes. Here she is in the first grade class.

Here she is in second grade.

This is her fourth grade pictureEach year has been fun. She has danced at the MOA and Timberwolves half time each year. One year, she even got to dance a the Twins baseball game. This past year, Em has been in the fifth grade and up class. This means she got to participate in the cool light stick performance AND best of all the Daddy/Daughter dance. Each year the Daddy/daughter dance has a theme. This year was Gone Country. Erik and Em got to perform dance routines (in the front row) to Born to Boggie, Hoe Down Throw Down, Buttterfly Fly Away. Yes Erik learned THREE different dance routines!
I had every intention of laughing at Erik during the dance. After all, Erik doesn't usually grab a bandana and go country...but the dance was so sweet. Emily and Erik looked so good out there. Emily is growing up so fast.

The dad's did do their own routine too. Enjoy..and yes I now see some humor in the video! That is Erik in the front center of the screen with the red bandanna. When they do the long kick line he is the second one in from the right. He was such a good sport. If you make it far enough into the video...you can see how excited Ry and Andrew are to be watching their dad dance.

All for under 20 bucks!

I was first introduced to the Harlem Globetrotters when they appeared on Scooby-Doo. Somehow the Scooby gang would run into them from time to time and it was sure to be a silly crazy episode.Do you remember these episodes or is it just me?

Fast forward MANY years later, to me sitting in a Complex Kids workshop. My cooperating teacher leans over and asks if I want free tickets to the Harlem Globetrotters for the upcoming weekend. I thought about it for about 1/2 a second and "YES!" I am a sucker for free stuff. They were playing/performing at the Target Center. The seats were up close and we absolutely had a fabulous time. We were dazzled by the basketball skills: the jumping, the shooting, the spinning and we loved booing at the Washington Generals. Of course we thought Globey the mascot was funny. It was quite a show. I think one of our favorite parts was actually captured on film. It will give you a glimpse into our family's sense of humor. Get ready for it... watch out for the masked man standing behind you!
(I am not sure the Elmo boxers are the best choice for this part of the show. Elmo's nose and mouth have an awkward placement)

Beginnings and Endings

It seems like everything happens in one night. I guess it is true sometimes. Tonight was Andrew's first night of soccer. In fact, this is his first soccer team. After school, I took him to buy shin guards and cleats. He is excited to start the season. He signed up with James, a friend from church, and ended up knowing a few of the other boys on the team as well. They are the Lime Green team and get their uniforms on Thursday. Andrew had a great time and is already learning a lot about soccer. He has good instincts. Go Lime Green!

We had to leave soccer practice 10 minutes early to make it to Emily's last band concert. Andrew and I walked in just as they were finishing their first song. I am always impressed with our school's fifth grade band. They put on a great show and even had some audience participation. Andrew was chosen to accompany the band during one of the songs. I think he got to hit an ice-cream bucket with a spoon. It was hard to tell, because he played the entire song with his back to the audience. Good stuff : ). Band has been a great experience with great friends. Emily has practiced her flute diligently all year. Now that fifth grade band is ending, she is looking forward to middle school band. We are both happy that next year, big band will be during the school day and not at 7:20 in the morning.

Annie

I have a first grader. That means at some point in the school year he gets to go to the Children's Theater. This is one of my FAVORITE field trips. I remember going to see the Secret Garden at the Children's Theater when I was in elementary school. I loved it. I can still remember where we sat in the theater. I am so happy my kids get to take this same trip. At our school, they have a lottery to decide who gets to chaperone. I did not get to go with Ryan's class. They went to see Aladdin. I heard it was a wonderful show.
I did get to see The BFG with Emily's class. It was a wonderful show. Of course the kids (Ok, I laughed too : ) loved the part with the bubbly water when the bubbles go down instead of up...so instead of burping the gas escapes out a different way. Do you remember that part of the story?

Anyway, this year I volunteered to go with Andrew's class (his teacher actually had told me that she wanted me to go with the class, so when I volunteered I pretty much knew I would get to go). I took a day off from student teaching and jumped on the bus with Andrew. The bus is not my favorite place to be, but luckily I had a deck of cards in my purse and we were able to play War the whole way to the play...Andrew won. When he wasn't looking, I slipped him almost all my cards or else we would still be playing-war is a long game!We went to see Annie. Even though I cannot carry a tune, I did go through a phase during my childhood in which I wanted to be Annie in a play or movie. So, today I was quietly singing along to all the songs. We had so much fun! I love Andrew's class. I love the Children's Theater and I love Annie. I thought the production was really well done. Most important: the kids were happy. At one point I looked over to the two girls I was supposed to be watching. Then I looked over to Andrew. They were each curled up in their big chair fascinated by the stage. I was hit by their smallness. I know these kiddos are getting bigger by the day...but they are still little too. I love first graders!After the show, we had lunch at Andrew's desk. Then I decided to sign him out early for the afternoon. Doesn't he look thrilled? He loves it when I take his picture in his classroom!

The hunt

Here is how the hunt goes down at our house. The Easter bunny hides the eggs that we decorated the night before...He sets up three different hunts. It is very exciting. This year, he had the added challenge of hiding eggs in Emily's room while she was sleeping. We have a very sneaky Easter Bunny.

Emily found all 19 eggs in her room. Some were in pretty tricky spots. Good job Em!Ryan had 24 eggs hidden all over the dining room. Nutmeg even had one in her cage!

Andrew found all 22 of his eggs in the living room. They were all over the place..behind picture frames, in couches and under toys. The bunny could not fool him!

The lovely Easter Egg

It's Easter weekend. We are going to ignore the fact that is snowed earlier in the week and focus on the fact that it is Spring and the Easter season. We had a wonderful beginning to this fun holiday.

This afternoon some friends met at the park. We had an Easter egg hunt. Even though it was cold, the kiddos had a great time!!Can you find Emily, Andrew and Ry? They are the happy ones. Oh wait, they all look pretty happy. The kids had a great time finding eggs in trees, around the playground, near rocks, up on walls and even in the Frisbee golf stations. Afterwords, they got a chance to open the eggs and see what was inside. They found stickers, candies and even Play-doh. Good times. I hope we do that again next year (only hopefully it will be warmer)!

Right after the Easter egg hunt, we went over to my parents' house for our traditional Easter egg decorating party. Erik has taught us all the joys of decorating many Easter Eggs. We take Easter egg decorating very seriously in our family. We decorated six DOZEN eggs. The colors were beautiful! The stickers were fun and the shrink wraps were cool. This year, Em decided to put her name on each and everyone of her eggs. Does that mean she has to eat all of them too? Even my aunt Gail got into the decorating! The Easter bunny is going to be busy hiding all these bad boys tonight!

What's that noise?

I opened a kitchen window, and I heard a sound today that I have not heard in months. It was the happy sound of brothers playing outside. I had to investigate. When I got to the path, I found this..
Boys on scooters planning to take a trip to their clubhouse, both happy to be back on wheels. After a few minutes, they made their way to the trampoline. Which incidentally is one of Totoro's favorite places to play. All three of them were having fun jumping, running and throwing sticks and a tennis ball. I actually heard Andrew say, "this is better than video games." WOW...it must be good out there. It is amazing what sun and a little warmth can do!