Recital ~ 2013

It has been a busy few days for us! Yesterday afternoon Reese had her dress rehearsal for her ballet recital which was tonight. At the rehearsal we can take pictures and videos right up at the stage. I love being able to get these pictures of her.

She always has the biggest grin when she is on stage. I really wanted to get her is some sort of drama camp this summer because of this love but it doesn’t look like it is going to happen with our schedule.

This morning when she realized it was her recital day she started jumping up and down and squealing.

This year’s theme was Alice in Wonderland and her class was Fireflies…I don’t really know the relation to the theme though.

They were cute none the less. My parents, my grandma, and Lance’s mom all made the trek for the show so she came home with three bouquets of flowers.

We had the boys with us too. They both did surprisingly well.

We were all so proud of Reese and loved getting to watch her shine.

Success!

Reese had her first swim meet last night. She was so excited!

They write all of their races on their arms. Some of the big kids even drew pictures and other words on their bodies. I am glad Reese stuck with her name and events on her arm. I imagine before the summer is over she will want to do what the big kids are doing.

She had so much fun swimming each event. I thought she may get a little nervous with the number of people lining the pool but she didn’t even mention it.

GO, Reesey-bug, GO!

She swam a 25 freestyle, 25 backstroke, and was the second leg in a free relay. They dive off the blocks in the deep end but have a seated start in the shallow end.

While the kids were swimming, Sam and Hallie played on the phone. Even though Hallie is Reese’s BFF, I am pretty sure Sam might like her even more. He asked her if she wanted to come over to our house. We were leaving half way through the meet because the little kids are done by then. Hallie’s big sisters still had to swim during the second half.

She said yes and they decided she would have a sleep over…her first.

And it was a success. The girls stayed up until 11:30ish watching a movie on the iPad in Reese’s room. When Reese woke up this morning, she woke Hallie up and said, “You made it through the night!”. They both got big grins on their faces. If Sam could have slept in Reese’s room too, I bet he would have in a second.

This morning they got their ribbons and a donut. Reese was super excited to get her ribbons!

We were super proud of how well Reese did. She had a blast and that is all we wanted.

American Cuties

We had a fun weekend. It was pretty low key. Saturday morning/afternoon we spent with Lance’s parents and that evening we spent with my parents.  After church on Sunday we went to the pool with some friends. Monday we stayed around the house most of the day but went out to lunch at Taco Mac. I couldn’t let the weekend pass with out some pictures though.

While I think this picture is fun, I really love the look on Sam’s face.

I think it the best picture of him we have gotten in a long time.

Kindergarten Comparison

Here is the comparison picture of Reese from her first day and last day of Kindergarten. I wish I had taken her picture in the same dress both days. You can really tell how much she has grown when you see her in the same dress. It is much shorter now. I am not sure that her look has changed too much. She looks slightly older but you really have to look for that in her face. Through out the year she never wanted to wear her hair down. She always wanted it in some kind of pony tail. She gets so hot with her hair down. Even though I love when her hair is down, it is much more work so I was fine with it being up.

I can’t believe she is officially a first grader now.

The Last Day of School

I can’t believe it! I blinked my eyes and Reese’s kindergarten year is over.

I had no idea how emotional it would be for her. Last night as we were getting ready for bed Reese cried and cried about how she was going to miss her teachers. I really thought she was crying because she had gotten in trouble with Lance a few minutes before that. When I asked what was wrong she broke down again to tell me.

This morning she was not excited at all that it was the last day of school. And I don’t think she really wanted to take these pictures. Lance had offered to take her to breakfast before school so we got up and going a little earlier than normal.

She loves this dress because it spins but she wasn’t in much of a spinning mood. I tried to get her happy and requested a spin.

Sam needed in on the action too. This is what he looks like when Lance is in charge of getting him ready…ha!

When I was taking these pictures Lance said, “We are out early enough for you to ride the bus.” Over the weekend Reese had asked if she could ride the bus to school on Monday. She has not once wanted to ride the bus to school. She actually pitched a huge fit when I suggested we start doing that back in January. I had said no to her request over the weekend. However, today when she said she would rather ride the bus to school than go to breakfast with Lance, we let her.

My friend, Anna, works at Reese’s school and her daughter is in the same class. When she went to take a picture of her daughter with the teachers, she got pictures of Reese with their teachers too.

This is Mrs. Wright. She is the teacher. On the first parent night she said she would hold our kids to the same standard she holds her own kids and she did!! She expected a lot from them and I truly think she was the perfect teacher to help Reese learn all that she did this year.

This is Ms. Christian. She is the parapro. Even though Reese loved both of her teachers, I think Ms. Christian was her favorite. She kept each of the kids in line and didn’t put up with anything! I loved hearing her and her marching orders. She is so fun and loving. When Anna sent me these pictures she said, “I think Reese is Ms. Christian’s favorite!”

After school was out I got this picture from Anna. Hallie came home with Reese to play today. When the picture came through I was at the bus stop so I didn’t see it until we got home. Along with the picture it said, “Poor Reese has been crying for the last 30 minutes.”

These pictures are so blurry because Reese came running off the bus with the biggest tears streaming down her face.

Look at Hallie. Perfectly poised and looking at Reese like she is crazy. Lance and Sam had brought water guns to the bus stop with them to spray the girls with and welcome them to summer. But when he saw Reese crying he put a stop to the fun. I had to just let her cry when we got home and then told her she needed to lock it up.

I had a cookie cake made at Kroger that says, “Welcome to Summer”. She was excited to see it.

Since it was early release today the kids had lunch at 9:30 this morning. We decided that we would take them to Chick-fil-A for a real lunch. Reese was finally in a good mood and the girls had a lot of fun at lunch.

Here comes summer!

Swim and Tennis

Reese is loving swim team! I told some one the other day that I am surprised at how much she loves it. Tuesday they had a mock meet and had the blocks out. When we walked in and saw them she said she didn’t want to jump off of them. I told her she would be fine and we moved on. Once practice started and everyone else was jumping off of them she didn’t even flinch.

She went right for it and I was so proud of her. As she swam down the lane during her race she had a huge grin on her face every time she came up for air. It was so cute. She also did so well doing back stroke during the mock meet. For some reason she doesn’t do very well with that during practice but she acted like she was a pro on Tuesday.

While Reese is at practice, Sam plays in the baby pool. The first few days the water was so cold. If you look closely at Sam’s lips you can see that they are purple. He was so cold but was loving every minute of it.

Last weekend there was a free two hour tennis clinic in the same neighborhood that she swims in. She was so excited to try tennis out. There were two other little girls from her school in her age group. Reese is the one in pink on the left. The last thing they did was hit volleys at the net. They had to aim at targets on the other side. If they hit a target, they won a prize. The prize was a new grip for their racket. Reese came home with two new grips!

After the clinic they had this banner that the kids could stand in front of for a picture. He told her to make her meanest tennis face and this was it…

This summer I hope to find a tennis camp for her so that she can play some more. She really enjoyed it and I think she thought it was fun to do something that mommy does. It has been fun for me to see the new things that Reese is trying.

Swim Team

Reese is doing swim team in a neighborhood near us this summer. Last week they started practice. The first day it was so cold so they just did some land exercises. She was soooo disappointed. She wanted to get in the pool so bad. I kept telling her she would have been miserable but she didn’t believe me.

Finally the next day they got to get in the pool. It seems like mass chaos but I am sure the coaches have some method to the madness. I was a nervous wreck the first couple of days. Reese was doing great swimming in the pool at the end of last summer. She even swam the full length a couple of times. But, she hasn’t been in the pool again since then so this was her first time back at it.

The first couple of days I stood near the edge of the pool and paced back and forth. I have tried to be less crazy this week and just relax. I know she can get herself to the lane ropes or the side of the pool if she needs to.

She has loved every minute of it…even when it was freezing yesterday. I can’t wait to see how the meets go. I think she will love those as well!

Weekend Round-up

Thursday started Sam’s summer vacation so we went to the train park with one of Sam’s best little buddies from preschool. They played hard on the playground and then we walked through the train tunnel. It was fun to see how they interacted and played together.

Friday we headed out to Gwinnett County’s Relay for Life.

It was a BIG night for Reese. As you may or may not know, Reese has been scared of “dressed-up people” for ever. I asked Becca if she would go and take my and Hayes’ picture with Maximus. When Reese heard that she said she wanted to go too. After this picture you would have thought she won the lottery. She was so giddy and told everyone how brave she was. Later that evening she even high-fived a dressed up chicken. We had seen this chicken’s costume laying in a chair earlier in the evening so that might have been a big help in getting her over the fear.

My mom’s school was selling these helium balloons that walked. Papa was so sweet to buy the kids one. They have really been a hit.

This is a group shot of all of our family that was there.

We were there for the survivors walk. Shortly after it got dark, Hayes had had enough so we headed home.

In the words of Reese, “We didn’t have as much fun this year!”. We were a little disappointed in it this year. We always have so much fun but this year seemed to be lacking in the entertainment.

Saturday was Reese’s school carnival. I decided to take her by myself. They had bounce houses, face painting, raffles, cakes walks, music and food. It was a fun little event.

Sunday Reese decided that we needed more Mommy/daughter time at the nail salon. It was super busy there so they made me and Reese share a chair. I was very disappointed in this. If I had come in with a friend, we wouldn’t have had to share a chair.

Reese didn’t like it either but we enjoyed our time together.

We cooked out Sunday night as a family and just enjoyed our time together.