Alyssa had a ball at her ballet themed birthday party. We dressed up her bear too which was a garage sale find that Emily worked hard to pay for as Alyssa's birthday gift.
The girls some real ballet moves and played ballet games while watching our Petite Feet Ballet video.
They designed tissue paper tutus for Angelina ballerina.
ate cupcakes...
and we ended with our Neal Birthday Tradition... a homemade pinata.
Alyssa went out to lunch with Jared this week to celebrate her birthday and is super excited for her ballet themed birthday party with friends.
One of my favorite parts of each day is reading bedtime stories with her and now seeing her start to be able to read some of them on her own as she works on the summer library reading challenge.
She's not too fond of looking at me while getting her picture taken though :).
The kids were pretty fascinated by the size of our hail the other day that I found a bowl full of "preserved" hail in the freezer that they wanted to keep, but the hail had to go to make room for icecream :)
Joshua is our little fish that loves the water so much he likes to stick his whole head in the tub. He couldn't resist this not so swell swale on our street after the last warm rainstorm
Joshua loves to come crawl into our bed almost every morning around 6:30. He usually wakes up with a delightful smile and loves affection, but he gets pretty upset if there is no one there. He obviously woke up on the wrong side this day.
One of Jared's assignments on the high council is to supervise seminary graduation. This year he Rebecca joined with us as she "graduated" from her first year. She worked hard to memorize all of the scripture mastery scriptures and involved some of the family too. I found some of them put to song online (http://lds.about.com/od/seminary/a/scripture_songs_3.htm)that helped her learn a few. She played them over and over and her little sisters learned some as well. I overheard Alyssa singing in the tub, "Learn of me and listen to my words, walk in the meekness of my spirit and you shall have peace in me, D&C 19:23" and she was pleased to recite it for the family for family night all by herself.
Some of the songs are a little too jazzed up for my taste, but we did enjoy D&C 1:37-38, D&C 8:2-3 D&C 10:5. I'm so grateful my children have the opportunity to be involved in seminary. I loved it as a teenager as it was such an inspiring uplift compared to the rest of the day.
Emily had her first gymnastics recital last week and it was amazing to watch her skills. She did 10 back handsprings in a row! Jared was filming so I just sat back and enjoyed, but his battery died about 2 seconds into her routine so I was sad we didn't get it recorded :( She is in the pre-competitive class and has learned a lot over the past 2 years, but she doesn't love it. She groans when she finds out it is the day for gymnastics and the next step of competitive traveling gymnastics training lifestyle doesn't suit our family so this was her last month. After seeing her skills I wondered if I should let her quit so soon, but I thought of the scripture in Mosiah 4:27 "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster
than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be
diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things
must be done in order." I'm fine with her turning her energy towards piano which she likes a little more and requires less of my taxi-time & $.
Emily loves her recital song so much that her siblings are asking her to stop playing it they hear it so often. I love the fun addition of the CD accompaniment.
Daniel is less enthusiastic about practicing piano, but he actually learned to enjoy playing this little duet with me. Part of it had to do with the fact that I made him practice if he wants to continue being involved in extra sport activities.
Alyssa learned to play her piece by actually reading "real" music on the staff and I was super proud of her having the courage to perform at the recital. The video is better heard then seen if you don't want to feel dizzy :)
Rebecca played an arrangement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. She begins her own piano teaching adventures this week with a couple of younger beginner students. Drivers Ed starts next week!
Our neighbor gave us his playset if we would dig it up and transport it out of his yard. I love how it's been drawing the kids into the backyard more. I love hearing Alyssa exclaim "let's play mom's and kids "as they engage in pretend play.
Jacob had fun swinging to new heights on our old swing.
During the summer I am doing informal ballet at home with Emily and Alyssa and whatever friends like to join with them.
After watching several youtube videos, I bought the Petite Feet DVD. I
love how it incorporates some classical music plus real ballet terms
like eleve, releve, chasse, pekay, adagio, allegro and plies all through
fun stories and "games" in less then 30 minutes.
I first tried a few other fun videos to expose them to a few basics.
Warmup
