Parent Observation at Dance

In February, Alan and I were invited to Maggie's dance class to observe what they have learned so far this year.  Maggie has been taking a fun tap and ballet combination class with her friend Kirsi.  

Now for the ballet part.  Maggie inherited her mom's flexibility (well, when I was that age. Not anymore, ha ha.) I think she is the only one in her class who can do the splits all the way.

She has really improved this year with her technique.  I'm so proud of her!

Fall Happenings

This post has a bunch of random stuff from the past five weeks.  I'm just throwing them all together.  Ha ha.  

Four years ago Alan performed the Napoleon Dynamite dance at a ward talent show.  Well, last week he was asked to reprise it for our Stake Talent Show.  Alan spent a week and a half re-learning the dance and then did a beautiful job performing it. The crowd went wild!   Here is a link to the original performance four years ago. 

This video has terrible quality, plus I was holding Evelyn (who had fallen asleep) on my lap.  It is hard to hold a sleeping 3-year-old and try to film at the same time!

 I just had to take a picture of Abigail all bundled up when I went on a walk one chilly morning.  She is so cute!!!!

 At the end of September, Maggie learned how to ride her 2-wheeler with confidence!  It was really hard for her to learn and took many hours of practice.  Even when she had finally learned, she didn't feel confident for another month or so to ride anywhere but the empty church parking lot.  But then she has since seen the light.  She and Jared love to ride their bikes to school, and they have both gone with Alan on really lengthy (6-miles!) bike rides a couple of times.

Evelyn wanted a picture on her bike, too.  

This past week I gave Evelyn a proper haircut and Maggie a trim.  Here they are showing off their new 'dos!  

It is hard to tell, but Maggie is also missing her two front teeth right now!  Maggie and Jared have lost a combined total of 5 teeth in the past month and a half.  Plus they both have more loose ones!  I joked that the tooth fairy is going to go out of business.  

Random picture of Maggie and Abby in jammies

 Here is a picture of Jared with his Utah desert diorama he made for school. It took him many hours of work to make this!  Fourth grade seems to be the magic year when projects are more numerous.  (It is the first year I have been a little bit stressed trying to help him with all his homework!)  Jared's diorama has three desert plants and three desert animals he made, plus he colored the Delicate Arch background (I printed off a coloring page for him.)

Here is a video of Abigail giggling at about 3 months old.  

Maggie's Dance Recital

Maggie with her teacher, Miss Korrin

Maggie finished up another year of ballet.  She has improved so much since last year!  We had a good experience with her ballet studio this year (I especially loved that she had a morning dance class before PM Kindergarten), but I am excited to put her into an even better studio next year where hopefully she can improve her technique even more.  

Maggie in her recital costume

Maggie is 2nd from the left

Taking a bow

Maggie loved receiving a medal after her concert was over

Maggie's 6th Birthday

 Maggie sure got spoiled on her birthday!  We had her friend party on her real birthday, then she still got to open even more presents from her family later that day!

New clothes, barbies, and Frozen shoes, lunch box, and swim towel

We sure love our 6-year-old princess!

Maggie's Fancy Nancy Party

I honestly don't enjoy throwing birthday parties for my kids, but this year I reluctantly planned a Fancy Nancy Party for Maggie.  It turned out pretty well, I think, thanks to the Dollar Store.  

I set up several stations for the kids: a "Get Glamoured Up" station where they received a hat, purse, boa, necklace, and ring; an "Ooh La La, Beauty Spa" station where they got their nails painted, and eye shadow and lip gloss that they got to keep; and a "Create Your Own Posh Purse" station where they got to decorate their purse and hat with feathers and jewels.

 Alan's mom and two of Alan's sisters (Marilyn was in town from NYC!) came and helped me with the party, and I honestly could not have done it without them!  They helped each girl get fancied up.

Alan and his mom helped glue feathers on with the hot glue gun.  Evelyn had fun participating, too.

 After getting fancy, I read them Fancy Nancy's Tea for Two book, and then we had our own little tea party with mini muffins, fruit kabobs, and lemonade.

We sang Happy Birthday with a candle stuck in red velvet mini cookies

Then Maggie opened up her presents.  I maybe should have planned a game or two, but I was hoping all the crafts and and nail painting would pretty much take up the whole time.  I think the kids that came had a fun time, and they all took home lots of stuff to keep!

Maggie's Kindergarten Program

Random picture of Evy with her Cinco de Mayo balloon from Grandma Stout

For some reason, our elementary school only does end-of-year singing programs for Kindergarten and 5th grade.  I think when I was young we did a program every year.  It's kind of a bummer.

I loved hearing Maggie sing her cute songs.  She was lucky to be standing right next to her cousin and BFF Summer.

Here are a few of the songs for your enjoyment:

This next video is my favorite:

Maggie and her teacher, Mrs. R.  She was the best (also Jared's Kindergarten teacher).  I hope she is not retiring any time soon.

Another picture of Maggie and Summer

Maggie's surgery

After having a terrible stomach ache for two days (and a fever, and throwing up 20+ times, and fatigue, and no appetite...), I finally took Maggie to the ER this week where she was diagnosed with appendicitis!  My poor, poor girl had to have surgery!  She was so brave with her overnight hospital stay and is finally starting to feel a little better today.  I didn't realize that the recovery would be so awful for her (I thought it would be like 2 days--duh): she can't lift heavy things or exert herself for the next 3-4 weeks!  No recess when she returns to school, no P.E., no ballet class...  She has been a trooper.  And, I am so grateful for the sweet people in the world who donate items to hospitals to give to sick kids.  Maggie came home with all kinds of fun stuff: two fleece blankets, flannel jammy pants, a new pillowcase, a couple of new dolls, plus coloring supplies and play dough and other do-dads.  Early birthday presents!

It was tricky to get her diagnosed.  I was reading stuff online before I took her in, and it said appendicitis symptoms in kids can vary greatly, that there are lots of other things that can cause bad tummy aches, and that appendicitis is much more common in children over 10 than under 10.  She did seem to be able to localize the pain to her lower right abdomen, and I asked her several different times to make sure she was consistent in telling me where it hurt.  I didn't know if I was being overly cautious by taking her in to the ER; however, I had to be quite pushy as a parent to have the urgent care doctor (I took her to the Urgent Care next door to the hospital before taking her to the ER) and the ER nurse that checked her in to take me seriously!  The urgent care doctor was just certain it was just a stomach bug ("most stomach viruses last 7-10 days"--whatever) and I had to actually ask her to push on Maggie's stomach to have Maggie tell her where it hurt.  Then she was like, "Oh, the pain seems to be localized in the lower right abdomen!" and sent us over to the ER next door.

The ER nurse that first talked to us said, "Maggie, why are you here today?"  "My tummy hurts."  "Have you gone poop today?" "No."  "Did you go poop yesterday?"  "No."  Then she turns to me and says, "Maggie is probably just constipated."  WITHOUT ASKING ME ANY MORE QUESTIONS LIKE IF SHE HAD ANY OTHER SYMPTOMS!  Then I had to say, "No, Maggie has had a fever, been vomiting, and has had no appetite...oh, yeah, and if you push on her stomach she will tell you exactly where it hurts!!!!"  Well, I wasn't that rude and forceful.  Ha ha.  Then after several hours of other tests, including an ultrasound where her appendix was HUGE, she finally had her surgery.  I must admit that I felt vindicated, like my mother's instinct was correct!!!!

Here's to my sweet, brave girl.  I love you.

My Pretty Girls

I love dressing my girls up in clothes that I wore when I was little.  The dress that Evelyn is wearing is one of those dresses. (My sister had a matching dress.)  My mom called them our "Anne of Green Gables" dresses because of the cute pinafore-thing on top.  I love the comments that I get from older ladies in my ward who remember the old styles.

Pretty Evelyn

Maggie 3 years ago in the same dress

Cute Maggie

Evelyn and her favorite kitty, Snowy

Ice Skating

A couple of weeks ago I took Maggie and Evelyn ice skating.  They had a "Talls and Smalls" morning at a local rink, so it was a really great deal.  Jared was sad that he had to go to school and miss it, but I'm sure we'll go back sometime when he can go.  It worked out perfectly with Maggie's PM Kindergarten schedule to take her.  

This was Maggie and Evelyn's first time ice skating, so it was a bit of an adventure.  Luckily the rink had these plastic "walkers" that the girls could use to help with balance.  Maggie got the hang of it quickly, but Evy still needed a lot of help.  

 The walker in action:

As you can see, the place was pretty empty for most of the time!

Maggie wanted to try skating without the walker, so I told her she had to hold on to the wall.  It was super cute to watch her.  

Maggie's Christmas Ballet Recital

Maggie had her in-class Christmas recital for her little ballet class this week.  She was so cute and has greatly improved over the past year.  

Plies in 2nd position

Battements across the floor