Daddy/Daughter Dance 2011

This year I decided to buy tickets for K. and her Daddy to go the Valentine's Daddy/Daughter dance. After talking it over with Hubs, we decided that for this first year we would let it be just K. Next year and the following years he will take both girls.

K. was very excited to go on a real "date" with her Daddy. Especially once she got the dress and shoes with heels. A lot of her friends from school were going to be there so the excitement on Friday morning was very high.

I got home from work and got her fed. Then we had to get her ready for the dance. She got her dress and tights and shoes on and asked me to come do her hair and makeup. Not that I really could do much with her hair but we did at least brush it out. Then we put a very little bit of makeup on to make her feel extra girlie and pretty. She did look pretty cute if I say so myself. And I do, and I can because I'm her mommy and it's my blog.

Hubs had to break out the tie and get all dressed up.


We got a few pictures of them together and then they headed off to the country club to dance the night away without brothers or sisters or mom in the way.

Hubs said they danced so much he was tired. Although he mentioned that K. didn't really do so much dancing as hopping around. But it doesn't really matter since they had fun. They snacked on the food they served, I know M&M's was something that was mentioned. And then they got to pick out a balloon when the dance was over. At this point, K. did remember her little sister and grabbed her a purple balloon. She then told A. all about it and how next year they would get to go together.

I know it's a silly thing, this Daddy/Daughter dance. But I couldn't help but want to give her a chance to enjoy her Dad a bit more. After all, if they are lucky someday they will have a real sweetheart who is as wonderful a man as their Daddy. And Hubs loved it also, getting to spend more time with his girls is always fun for all of them.

Plus it gets me a chance to get a great picture like this. This alone is worth it.

Under the Big Top Gymnastics "meet"

K. begged to be allowed to do gymnastics. So we finally started her in it about 3 months ago. She loves it and seems to be taking to it pretty well. She jumps around enough and is always dangling from monkey bars so I guess it's right up her alley. They had an exhibition show for the families to come watch what the girls have learned in gymnastics. They called it a gymnastics meet but there was no scoring and no pressure. It's main purpose was to get these girls used to performing in front of people. K. is not shy so I didn't think it would be much of a problem but normally if any of my kids are put in front of a crowd they just stand there. So it was any one's guess how this would turn out.

The theme was "Under the Big Top" and they had the girls come out with big red clown noses on. K. did not like this and to me she looked like she wanted to crawl under a rock. Can't say I really blame her much there. She took that silly nose off as fast as she could.


She went on to do some "stuff" on the floor. Don't know what that move is technically called, backbreaker maybe, so I'm just saying "stuff".

I told her I could do this also but that I just didn't feel like showing her right then. Don't know if she bought it or not but at one time in my life I could do this.

She went on to the trampoline, the vault and the bars.


Then she went on to the balance beam. She did pretty good on that, I was impressed. I did not tell her I could do that.


I wasn't as cool as some of the other parents in that I didn't bring her flowers at the end of the meet. (Isn't that only for ballerina's anyway). But I did get a few extra pictures of K. posing on the beam for me. So as far as I'm concerned it's all good.

Another tooth lost

K. lost another tooth on Wed. so she now has a huge gap with both her front tooth and bottom tooth missing. No whistling and eating corn for her for a while. Not that she eats corn anyways. But with her other front tooth very loose, there is no telling what her smile will look like at Christmas.

Somethings missing from this smile

It has finally happened. After what has seemed like forever to her, my K. has finally lost her first tooth. I'm not surprised it took her 6 1/2 years to lose this tooth she didn't get it when she was a baby until she was almost a year old. But after promising her that if she ate the apple her tooth would come out, she tried it. And it did. At school of course because that's where you get the cool little tooth treasure boxes to keep it in for the tooth fairy. So now we just have to wait for that other bottom tooth to fall out and then she will have a nice big "picture window" on her bottom row of teeth

A Snapshot into the Sillyness of Everyday Life

Such typical behaviour for these two.

Another year blows by

Time is moving to fast. I blink my eyes and it seems like months have passed by in a blur. So I am going to try and catch my breath a bit and recollect a bit of what has been going on.

We celebrated my baby turning 4. Hard to believe it but she is. Unfortunately her birthday also happens to fall in April which is smack dab in the middle of baseball season and soccer season. Makes for planning a birthday party for her a little difficult. We celebrated with a small family birthday dinner like we always do. I mentioned it in a previous post. Finally, a month later we finally found a free time where we could have her "friend" party.

She picked none other than Chuck E. Cheese. It's not my favorite place but she really loved it and having her friends there to play with. She met Chuckie himself and seemed a bit impressed.

Then she went into the ticket wind tunnel with Zach to help her. She liked that, but she loves anything that her big brother Zach does with her. It was a fun time for her and her friends and that's what really matters.


So after celebrating Anna's birthday a month late, it literally was a blink of an eye until we celebrated my big boy turning 12. I can't believe I have a 12 year old. Seems like yesterday he was still a small baby. He also had a small family party and got his desired and highly coveted PS3. Instead of our normal chocolate cake, he made his own dessert. He spent the day at Grandmama's and Pappy's house and decided that he wanted Peanut Butter Rice Crispy treats. So not only did he turn 12 on me, he made his own "cake" so to speak. See what I mean by growing up so fast. And they were good too. I think I'll let him keep on making those. But I was keeping with the lack of birthday planning and forgot to take my camera out. So I didn't get my picture of my birthday boy on his actual birthday.

Two weeks later we celebrated Kate turning 6 years old. She turned 6 the day before we headed out to Omaha for the College World Series tournament Zach's team was playing in. So naturally we had another small family birthday dinner to celebrate.


And yes, the chocolate cake was there. Although Kate had been at grandmama's house and helped to frost it. I've never seen such a brightly colored cake before. She went to town with it. She enjoyed her pink DS she got and got to use it plenty over the summer. But in keeping with this awful habit I started with Anna this year, her friend party was about 5 weeks late.

She decided she wanted her first ever slumber party. So she picked a few friends from her summer camp and invited them over. It was a small group to begin with but it ended up being just three girls at the party. All the other kids were sleeping over at friends houses or grandmama's. So we went to the movies Friday night and swimming Sat. morning before all the fun finally ended. She loved it and wants to have another slumber party soon. Anna is begging to be included in the next one though. And again, I never took out my camera. Truly, I'm lacking in my pictures here aren't I?

So there we have another year flying past in a blink of an eye. For the time being, I am allowed to say I have a 12 year old, 7 year old, 6 year old and a 4 year old. It will change in a month's time when Michael finally turns 8 but until then I'm allowed. Hopefully his party won't be so late in arriving as the girls.

Penny for your thoughts

I often wonder what my kids are thinking at random moments when I stop to watch what they are doing. Are they happy, sad or just content to be where they are and with what they are doing. In the photo below, she was sitting there in the goal, surrounded by soccer balls and she was happily picking flowers.


I love this one of my girls. I don't know what they were looking at but whatever it is, it's got both their attentions. Since they were so far away I couldn't ask them what they were looking at. So now I'm left to just wonder.

My Muffin Message

It was Muffins for Mom this morning at my daughter's preschool. And while the muffins were good, I love the things I get from my daughter even more. I have all sorts of cute things all around my counter tops right now.

But as well as that, I get a letter with fill in the blank spaces that my daughter answers all about me. In my letter, I am told my name and my age (I'm 20 by the way, boy do I love that girl). According to K. my favorite place to shop is at a "store". She knows how much I hate to shop so she can't even name a store apparently. My favorite thing to do while she is at school is "read a book". Yes, she's right that is my favorite thing to do. Sadly, though it doesn't seem to happen often enough. My favorite food is "vegetables". Have to laugh at that one because I really thought my favorite food was chocolate but we won't disillusion her just yet. And my favorite is, she loves her mom because I do so many nice things for her. Have to love how simple it all is my sweet daughter. And I definitely have to love my sweet daughter as well.

Is it Chicken Pox?

UPDATED TO ADD THAT OUR DR. SAID IT WAS NOT CHICKEN BITES BUT INDEED LOTS OF SPIDER BITES. I don't know whether to feel better or worse about that one. But she was out rolling around in the yard and in the shed the other day so there is really no telling how they got her. I'm just glad it's not chicken pox.


I am trying to find out if K. has been bitten by insects or may possibly have Chicken Pox. She's not run a fever but had 3 insect looking bites on her face yesterday. This morning it is now 5 but the old ones don't have the crusted over look to them. I just don't know of anybody that has actually had it these days since we now have the vacinne. So if you have any hints for how I can tell in the very early stages then let me know. If she has more spots tommorow then I am sure she has them. Until then, I guess I'm hannging out at home today.

The Mother of All Days

Wow today was hard. Hubs had to be on a plane to Finland for a business trip by noon. Hoss had his last football game in one town at 11:45 where the girls would be with me. And Z. had a baseball tournament in a town about 45 minutes away that started at 11 and didn't end until 8:30. I was lucky enough that one of his team mates was able to get him to that tournament so that I only missed 1 and 1/2 of his 3 games he played.

But I made it through and so did the kids. Hoss kept his football record as a perfect score of 0 wins but had fun anyways. K. had one scrapped knee to show for this game and was quite upset about it. A. survived football okay.

Now for baseball, well that's another story. At some point before I got there Z. lost a tooth of his while he was at bat. And he was pretty upset that it never was found. He was so upset he hit a heck of a triple and brought in quite a few runs. By the time we got there to watch him he was on a roll. He had some great hits, some amazing slides where he was safe (and a scraped up arm also). But he was definitely on fire when he was the last pitcher of the game. He finished out the inning getting us 3 quick outs with his speed that they just couldn't hit. He plays on a 10U select team and they have been playing all fall in a league against 12U boys. They've lost a bunch but won a few here and there. But it was obvious today when they were playing against kids their own age that they have improved a lot.

So K, Hoss and A. got completely filthy at the baseball fields playing in the woods, dirt and with all those nasty horse apple thingies. (I wish I knew what they were really called) And Z. left alot of sweat, blood and body parts (teeth) on the field for all eternity. But he still made out pretty good. His coach gave him 3 bucks for his tooth which is more than the tooth fairy ever left him before. And on top of that they came in 1st place in their first ever tournament.

Now I am exhausted and ready to go to bed. And tomorrow for the first time in weeks we don't have a game on a Sunday afternoon. Can I tell you how excited I am for that?

What Duck?

The other night at bedtime was a hard thing for K. to handle. She just couldn't get to sleep. She has discovered that a certain spot on her floor creaks a bit when she walks on it (but only when she walks on it). She kept coming out to tell her daddy that she couldn't sleep because her floor kept going Quack Quack. No matter how he tried, she didn't believe it was just her floor and it wouldn't quack if she stayed in bed. She kept looking for that duck until she was just to tired to look anymore.