Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Competition Season is OVER!

Lasting from January through April, I am so glad to say we are DONE with this year's competitions! Our girls did awesome, for a list of awards we received, check out the Dance eMotions fan page.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last 2 weekends. Some of these are on the facebook page, but not all.






Monday, April 26, 2010

Uncle Adam is on the "Inside" Now!

After several months of training, Uncle Adam graduated from the Austin Police Department Police Academy!! He is now a badge wearing, gun carrying, policeman!

His graduation was last Friday, and here are some pictures of the evening.

A nice police lady talked with the kids

She even let Abigail wear her hat.

Abigail was so proud of her daddy's picture in the program!

The ceremony was so dark, I wasn't able to get any good photos, but here's their family after the ceremony. Love this picture :-)

Congratulations, Adam! We are so proud of you and love you!!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Wow!

I found out today that Dance eMotions was voted "Best Dance Studio in Cedar Park" by readers of The Hill Country News!!!

I had no idea this poll was even going on, never mind the fact that anybody was voting for us!

I am so thrilled and honored and excited and overjoyed! Wooooohoooooo!!!!!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Oh, Happy Day!

Today is the worst day ever. I'm going to tell you why, whether you like it or not. For some reason this makes me feel better... whining to whoever it is that actually reads this silly blog. So, here I go.

1. Our cat, Lucy, or as I like to call her (and will FOREVER call her after this morning), "bitch", peed on our bed this morning. WHILE I WAS IN IT. Her urine penetrated our duvet, duvet cover, sheets, WET MY LEG, and even penetrated the mattress pad, soaking our actual mattress. I'm so pissed.

2. I'm sick. Throwing up. Truth be told, I think I'm better now, but I was miserable this morning, so I'm counting this as a contributor to the worst day ever. Because vomiting + pregnancy = misery. Had to call in to work, leaving my staff high and dry. I hate having to do that.

3. Addison woke up with a dry diaper, so I put her on the potty so she'd pee before going to school. She sat for an hour. Nothing. This was the time that I was most sick, so I was running back and forth between bathrooms, sitting with her, reading her Nutcracker Noel (Lord help me, if I have to read Nutcracker Noel one more time...) and puking my brains out.

4. School starts at 9:00. We were out the door at 10:00. She still hadn't peed. And threw a fit when I suggested she wear a diaper. So she wore panties. Awesome.

5. I get to the car and see that my husband, who drove my car last, left the gas tank empty. Yellow light shining as bright as possible. I decide I'll press my luck and take Addison to school, and get gas on my way home. Great plan, until I realize, while at the gas station, that I don't have my wallet. I scrounge up enough quarters to put enough gas in to get me home.

6. When I get home, I find that our other cat, Gus, has vomited on our living room carpet. I go to clean it up, and find that we have NOTHING TO CLEAN IT WITH.

So, there you have it. Hope your day is better than mine! I really, truly mean this. I sincerely hope your day is better than mine.

Monday, April 12, 2010

A Bed Time Story For You

Tonight's bed time story goes like this:

Last night, before bed, Addison says to me:

"My tummy hurts. I want to sit on the potty and try to go poo poo".

Oh, I should have warned you, this story is about poo poo, pee pee and eventually, other bodily excrement's.

I should also mention... that Addison REFUSES to sit on the potty. In fact, her teacher asked me the other day "You know you have a VERY strong willed child on your hands, don't you?". I laughed, said "of course" and then, "why?". Apparently, she's the only one in her class who flat-out refuses to sit on the potty. Just won't even try. Not all of the kids are potty trained, but they all will give it a go on the potty while they're at school. Not our Addison. She's not having any of it.

Continuing our lovely poo poo story...

We rushed to the bathroom, took off her diaper, and it was too late, she had already pooped in her diaper. She said she still wanted to try to put more poo poo and pee pee in the potty, so we sat her on it and for about 30 minutes, traded off story reading duty. (duty, doodie, heehee).

Nothing happened.

So, it was time for bed. She was pretty good at bed time, I thought she felt a little warm, but she wasn't acting SUPER fussy. Let's just say, nothing happened that is out of the norm for our almost 3 year old as far as typical assertion of independence goes.

About five minutes after she went to bed...

"Mommy, my tummy hurts! I want to sit on the potty and try to go poo poo!"

Now, Mike and I had a very quick conversation. Like, really quick, as we walked to her room. Is this something that we allow? I mean, how often does she really say she needs to sit on the potty? Um, never. But it's after bed time. Which kind of made me wonder if this was a manipulation tactic on her part... a way to get out of bed. We agreed that if she wanted to go potty, we were going to let her.

So, we took her to the potty, and sat with her, reading her a couple of short stories while we waited. Nothing happened. Until she stood up, then she peed all over the floor. Great.

So, we went back to bed. Five minutes later...

"Mommy, my tummy hurts, I need to throw up!"

Upon hearing this, I RAN to her room, Mike followed with a big bowl, and we sat with her and told her that if she needed to throw up, to throw up in the bowl. She started acting really silly, telling us she wanted to play. Not acting sick AT ALL.

So, I'm really wondering at this point... what's going on?! Tummy hurts, asking to sit on the pot, fighting bed time, wanting to throw up, then acting crazy and trying to play Barbie? This is all so weird.

She never throws up, and by some miracle, I manage to get her to go to sleep.

Cut to 2:30 this morning. I hear Addison on the monitor coughing. Bad coughing. I send Mike in to check on her (of course I did, I always do nowadays, since it takes me about 20 minutes to get my pregnant butt out of bed.) He called me into her room, she had thrown up.

Poor baby. She was miserable. I immediately feel awful for ever questioning her in the first place, but remember that I wouldn't have done anything differently, even if I was sure all along that she didn't feel well.

The rest of the story is about vomiting and cuddling and whining. I'll spare you the details. I will say that eventually, all of that disappeared and Addison returned to her normal self by this afternoon. Well, except for the whining part, but I'm afraid that is something that isn't going to go away for a while. She sat on the potty lots of times today, all at her request. Nothing ever happened, but I think she might be really ready to potty train!

The end.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Fredericksburg

Last Christmas, I blogged about some of our family being in town, and referred to my Uncle Frank as "our favorite Uncle". I said I was 99.99% certain that none of the other Uncles read the blog, so I felt safe in admitting this. Well guess what? My dear Uncle John is a lurker, and commented on that certain post.

SO...

My favorite Uncle John and his wife are in town! :) We spent the afternoon in Fredericksburg yesterday and had a wonderful time. While my favorite Uncle John, Oro and Grandma went to the Nimitz museum, my mom, Melissa, all of the kids and I went to some sort of historical fort-replication-type-place. We used this time outdoors with the kids as an opportunity for a photo-shoot.

I was so excited to get home and look at the pictures on the computer. After doing so, I was a little bit disappointed because I feel like in some of these pictures there are too many shadows on the kids faces. I was called a "picture snob" today for feeling this way. Oh, well... the kids are still WAY TOO stinkin cute, and Melissa has a real knack for photography. So, I'm sure you'll still enjoy. I doubt you're all "picture snobs" like me.

The pictures (out of 200 I narrowed it down to these. ha!)



I know, I know... the pictures aren't bad at all. Maybe I AM a picture snob?? Hmm, I wonder what my photographer friends think?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bubbles!

On Saturday we went to a birthday party in the park and Addison had so much fun! We hadn't seen the birthday girl, Embyr, since her LAST birthday. So crazy! Apparently, her favorite thing at the moment is BUBBLES, so there were lots of bubbles to enjoy- on a beautiful day, in a beautiful park.


Happy 2nd Birthday, Embyr!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Easter Afternoon

((This is part two... see below for Easter part one))

Well... after a 45 minute nap (She takes 2 hours, on average. I wanted someone to shoot me!), we were UP and ready for more FUN!

I would like to apologize in advance... this is a photo-heavy post. And the pictures all seemingly look the same, except not... each one is beautiful in it's own way :) (I'm a proud mommy and couldn't pick my favorite!!)




So, after our mini-photo session in the backyard, we headed over to Auntie's house for more Easter fun!


Egg Hunt Time! Their backyard is awesome, and I estimate there were 500 eggs to find. Slight exaggeration, but not as big as you'd think.

Annalie didn't miss out on the action. She grabbed and loved her new blanket.

Family shots!


Told ya it was a photo heavy post!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday :-) And can't wait to see my blogger friend's pics soon!

Easter Morning

What an awesome day! I think the only way to do this is to split the day into two posts. Starting with morning here...

Addison slept in! She woke up about 9:30 (!!) and headed downstairs to see what the Easter Bunny had brought.

He brought a Princess bubble set, a Tinkerbell Doll, a new book and lots of candy (of course)!

We didn't mention that there were eggs to be found out back just yet. We wanted to have a nice, leisurely breakfast first. I made blueberry pancakes, and Addy helped me shape them into Easter shapes: Bunnies and Eggs. :)

After breakfast, we headed out back for her Easter egg hunt!


I didn't get any pictures of the final basket, but the girl got plenty of candy! :-) She watched the Tinkerbell movie with her new tinkerbell doll, ate some lunch and went down for a nap to rest for an afternoon with the cousins... more to come soon!

Friday, April 2, 2010

Easter Egg Dying

After our afternoon at the park, we headed over to Auntie's house to decorate Easter Eggs. It was a lot of fun!

The kids waiting patiently with their first eggs.

Sweet Jude

Addison hard at work

"Helping" Micah not make a big mess :)

Abigail hard at work on her hand-painted egg

Showing off the finished products!

Sweet Addy

We can't wait to hide and seek the eggs on Sunday! So much fun!!

An Afternoon at the Park

Mike and I took Addison to the park today and had a great time. The weather was nice and cool, maybe a little too much wind, and overcast with the promise of rain coming soon.

My two children playing at the park ;)