Jeanne's School of Dance presents...World of Dance

Once again, we have come to the girls dance recital. I dread and love this time every year. It is so much work and ends up being such a long day, but I absolutely love to watch my girls dance and see the growth they've made in the past year. Here's some evidence we enjoyed the day:

Katelyn in her Can-can costume on our way to the show

Megan in her Can-can costume ready for the opening number

Adam needed to join in the dance pose fun :)

Megan in the front right with the Mini Starz doing "Bouncin' Around the World"

Beautiful Katelyn in the middle in her lyrical number

Great pointed toes Katelyn! This is her "Kung Fu Fighting" jazz dance

Megan starting off her tumbling routine

Katelyn in tumbling

Megan in Surfin' USA

This one was Katelyn's favorite dance. It's tap to "Walk Like an Egyptian"

Katelyn gets glasses

Katelyn had been complaining of headaches after school for a while. I started asking more questions and realized she couldn't see the white board at school. Time to visit the eye doctor and get glasses! She looks so grown up in them. And she loves them and loves that she can see!

Katelyn is a Rock Star!

I admit I'm one of those mean moms that doesn't let their kids have a friend birthday party every year. We always celebrate with the family, but I stress out too much about the big themed birthday parties with the friends and just don't want to do it big every year. On their "off years" they can invite a few friends over on a Friday and stay up late watching a movie and eating movie junk, but nothing big. Lucky for Katelyn she turned 8 and we get to celebrate! She chose a Rock Star theme and we had a blast! The girls made rockin' chokers and bracelets, made rock-star ponytail holders, did their own makeup and then had a photo shoot. Oh, and did I mention, Katelyn got to invite 16 of her close personal friends? What was I thinking?!

After the glam-out session, they played RockBand on the Wii while I cleaned up the enormous activity mess and got ready for treats.

Then they enjoyed frosting their own rockstar sugar cookies.

We had a Rockin' great time!

Happy 8th Birthday to Katelyn!

My sweet, wonderful Katelyn is 8! I can't believe it. She was so excited to get to her birthday. She called it her "golden birthday" because her birthday is the same date as her age. Plus she got lucky that our ward's scheduled day for baptisms was the 8th. So we had quite the long, happy, exciting day!

It started off with our birthday tradition of breakfast in bed...often times with donuts.

Good morning!

We are so grateful for so much family support on this special day for Katelyn. She is so excited to get baptized and be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She has been looking forward to this day for a long time. As a parent, it is an amazing experience watching your child dressed in white and committing to try to make correct choices and be like Christ.

I love my family!

This is the entire group of family who were able to attend the baptism.

The service was wonderful, simple, and perfect. We are grateful to Aunt Kristin who played the piano, Aunt Amy who gave a great talk on baptism (including the messy peanut butter analogy we will never forget) and Grandma Chesnik for saying the closing prayer. And I feel so blessed to have a worthy husband who honors his Priesthood and was able to baptize and confirm Katelyn.

It was such a great day, but it didn't end there! Of course we still had to party! Katelyn chose a luau style party and it was amazing. Amy made her famous Kalua Pork that was the hit of the party. And a HUGE thank you to all who helped with the food and decorating! I was able to enjoy the day instead of stress over all of the things that needed to get done!

Here's what the decorated kitchen looked like. Luau anyone?!

Thanks to Amy and Cheryl for their cute decorations and the right eye to put it all together!

Birthday girl about to open presents!

Present time!

Putting a candle in a sugar cookie to sing Happy Birthday is a lot harder than it looks.  I think we cracked the cookie but it stayed up for the song!

For dessert we had white sugar cookies with white frosting to celebrate the day. My dad, who started out as a baker in his profession, piped "Happy Birthday Katelyn" on her special cookie in orange because that was her favorite color of the day. We also enjoyed chocolate macadamia nuts, our favorite Hawaiian treat. Happy Birthday Katelyn! We love you!

Play Ball!

Chris took the kids to Diamondback games this year.

Monday was Katelyn's turn:

That's a happy face! So fun to have a special daddy-daughter date .

Tuesday Megan and Adam had their turn. Chris' Dad's office was welcoming a new doc and invited family to come along for the celebration. Katelyn wasn't able to come this night because of dance, that's why she got her own special night. Not sure how much Megan and Adam watched or enjoyed the game, but they had a fun time being there!

Hello Megan! Welcome to the game!

Megan in the "All-you-can-eat Suite"

Megan and Adam enjoying the suite.

Megan and cousin Bryson

Happy boys!

Bike Rodeo Winner

This year for our annual Bike Safety Rodeo, the kids were asked to create an ad to display around the school. They were given specific instructions and words that needed to appear within the ad. Those ads were judged and Katelyn took an honorable mention! She was so excited! Our whole family went to the school to participate in the rodeo. Everyone's favorite was the obstacle course. It was a fun morning!

Katelyn's ad is the pink one in the background. We used magazines and cut out letters to make the words of the ad.

Megan loves her purple helmet!

Let the swim meets begin!

Welcome summertime. It means hot weather, lots of pool time, and swim team/swim lessons! Katelyn wasn't so sure about swim team this year. With our upcoming vacation, I told her she just needed to do 2 swim meets and then participate in swim team during the week for exercise. Because it wasn't an option, she said OK.

Swim meets are almost always super hot evenings, but a lot of fun to watch. Katelyn did a great job. She tried her hardest. In freestyle, she beat her own time from last year by 10 seconds. Way to go!

New swim team suits for 2011. 

Cute Megan waiting for the races to begin. 

Adam is the smart one. He's taking a nap before the event starts. Hopefully this will last!

Yeah Katelyn! Good work!

Rockin' My Country

The theme for the girl's spring dance recital this year is Rockin' My Country and these kids ROCKED it! And a BIG thank you for all the hard work Amy and Kaley do to put on a great show. The girls have grown a lot this year in dance and it was fun to see their hard work. Since I've been through a couple of these recitals now, I know I have to gear up for a long day and unexpected twists and turns to my schedule. This year was no different, but overall I think (as I want to remember it) all things weren't too bad. Great job girls!

On stage after the show.

These are looks of "thanks for the flowers, I'm tired and hungry, can we go now?"

Happy Mother's Day

Katelyn's 1st grade class did a wonderful Mother's day program. Katelyn was so excited to share it with me. I just love being a mom! First, they invited us to our chairs (aka their chairs) and showed us presents they had made for us.

The book was a story they made about us based off the book series If you Give a Mouse a Cookie. The bag was full of little things they made for us, like bookmarks and cards. It is sitting on a place mat that also was for us to keep.

Second, they lined up and sang us songs and recited poems. So sweet! Then they served us muffins and fruit and then showed us around the room of things they had made about us.

I love my kids! I'm so grateful for my sweet Katelyn who is a joy in our home. I am so grateful for all the wonderful women in my life who support me and teach me how to be better. I'm especially grateful for my mom who doesn't get annoyed with me when I call her 3 or 4 times a week to talk or ask silly questions. And I couldn't ask for a better mother-in-law who is always willing to help and treats me like one of her own. Happy Mother's Day!!

Katelyn's 1st Grade Zoo Field Trip

The 1st Grade got to go to the Zoo and I volunteered to be a parent chaperone. This was so much fun! AZ has a really great zoo. Somehow we haven't been that many times in the almost 3 years we've been here. The trick is to find the right temperature to enjoy the zoo and have animals out. This zoo day was just about perfect.

Katelyn in front of these amazingly red-orange birds. I don't remember their name, but I was so impressed by their color.

Since my job was watching a group of 1st graders, I didn't take that many pictures. I did love this flock of flamingos by the water. Not sure how they can stand on one little skinny leg with that big body to support. Guess I'll need the kids to do a report on flamingos one day so I can learn how that works.

This was the group of kids I was with for the day. Hope they had a fun time!

Slip-N-Slide time

It's that time of year again when it's just warm enough to pull out the slip-n-slide. Feels like summer is on the way!

Dance, dance, dance - Christmas show

It wouldn't be Christmas time without the Jeanne's School of Dance Christmas show! The girls did a great job. This is probably my favorite dance show of the year. I loving hearing all the Christmas music. Thanks Katelyn and Megan!

These are the girls cute costumes. Cute girls!

Adam was happy to be on the grass playing after the show.

Dance, dance, dance

Along with the new school year, Katelyn and Megan have started a new dance year. They both grew so much as dancers last year, I'm excited to see what this next year will bring. The first two performances in the fall are the Zoowalk for Autism and the AZ State Fair. Chris had to brave the Zoowalk by himself with the kids this year playing the part of "dance mom." I had to be at the Primary program practice since I'm in the presidency and funny thing is I haven't figured out how to be in two places at one time! The girls performed dances from last year, so I tried not to feel too bad that I missed a show. Chris did a great job being a dance mom and the girls did a great job.

This year at the AZ State Fair, we got the royal treatment. Amy (Chris's sister and director of the dance company) road in our car with us and so we got the special fancy parking pass that let us park pretty much right next to the stage. We were there early and got to watch the other studios dance before it was our turn. I may be a little biased, but I think our company is the best! The girls had a great show. Then after the show we let the girls pick a couple rides to go on and they all got snow cones while the adults got pineapple ice cream....yum....can't wait for more of that next year!

Cute Megan getting ready to dance her favorite "Tiana" dance.

So, not the best picture of Katelyn, but it was a sunny day! I realized I didn't have any other good pictures of Katelyn that day in costume.

Adam enjoying a snow cone after the show. I love the look on his face. It says, "really Mom and Dad...yellow snow?"

A much happier Katelyn. And who doesn't love having blue teeth!