Our Little Dancer!

We have been rotating through a few different activities with Hailey and have just now circled back around to dance.  This is probably one of my favorite activities and I just love watching her learn all of the moves and have so much fun.  We were lucky enough to get the same dance teacher as last time and we really love her!

I am constantly proud of Hailey as she follows and does exactly what the teacher tells her to.

She is so cute to watch interact with the other girls in her class - she is definitely our little social butterfly.

They have been working really hard on their end of the session dance for the recital and it's really going to be darling!  She is of course in the back row again - it's the curse of being tall - you're always in the back!

They have really been working hard on their dance number - there is some tricky positioning and they are getting better and better at it.

She tries so hard - bless her little heart!

Although the dance class is really close to the end of school and it's a whirlwind to get her there, I love that she has such a great time and is learning so much!  Tate and I love to go and watch her.  We can't wait for the big dance recital next month!  Way to go Sis, you are wonderful dancer - we love you!

Zach's Birthday - 9 Years Old!

I swear the time is just flying by, before we knew it - it was March and that means birthday month for Zach!  He decided that this year he wanted a small family party and to take some friends to the Kangaroo Zoo.  Unfortunately, I forgot to grab the camera on our way out to pick up the friends, so I don't have any pictures of the fun they had there, but needless to say they all had a GREAT time - especially Tate who had his first Kangaroo Zoo experience!

On Zach's actual birth day, Nana, Papa, and Taylor came down for dinner and ice cream.  We had a nice dinner of roast,  potatoes, and gravy (Zach's favorite meal) and then sat down to open presents.  He was so excited, I could hardly get him to hold still long enough for a quick picture.

Here he is opening a Battleship game and soccer ball from Nana and Papa ...

as well as a box of corndogs all for himself!  In case you might not already know, this kid LOVES corndogs and I think this was one of his favorite presents!  Way to go Papa, you are very good at choosing presents!

 

And he got an Oklahoma University sweatshirt from Uncle Taylor along with a big bag of licorice.

He got a remote control helicoptor,

Some new scout stuff for moving up to the Bears group,

And his own set of binoculars!

He also got a nerf gun, Wii game, and a new football.  He sure loved all of his presents!  So did Tate, he thought the soccer ball was the neatest and played with it over and over and over.

Tate and Hailey loved sitting with Nana and Papa.

But Hailey spent most of her time on Uncle Taylor's lap - her favorite place ever!

For a dessert, Zach decided he didn't want cake, he chose these little chocolate ice cream bowls to have ice cream in instead.  They turned out pretty cute, but were such a PAIN to make!  Glad he enjoyed them because I'm not sure I'll be making these again any time soon. 

We also found some fun sports ball candles for him to blow out - perfect for our sports fanactic birthday boy!

I think everyone enjoyed the ice cream - Hailey of course had more whipped cream that ice cream - man that girl loves sugar!

And Tate decided that Nana's ice cream looked pretty good, so he got up on her lap, but ended up eating mostly whipped cream instead.  Taylor was being crazy and we happened to get this shot of him being silly!

Zach was all smiles, he loved everything about his birthday. 

Happy Birthday Bud - we sure love you!

Silly Bubba!

Our little Bubba definitely had his own personality.  It didn't take long for it to show and now that he's almost 2, it's really coming out (yes, the terrible two's have arrived early!).  But even though it's a little trying at times, he really is the sweetest and does some things that just make me chuckle. 

Lately, he's been really into getting up on the big rocking chair and watching some cartoons with the kids.  He's a bit into Mickey Mouse as you can tell - he has his Mickey Mouse stuffed animal, using his Mickey Mouse blanket, usually he has on his Mickey Mouse jammies - he just didn't happen to have them on this morning, and he watches - you guessed it! - Mickey Mouse cartoons.

All snug and happy with a sippy cup of milk to drink - what a tough life!

Good thing he's so cute!  Tate - you crack me up!

Our Kindergartener "Star Of The Week!"

One of the most exciting things for a kindergartener is to be the "Star of the Week" for the class.  Hailey has been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting ... for this week ever since school started.  Finally, this last week it was her turn and she was so excited! 

As the Star of the Week, she gets to do a bunch of fun things like being the line leader, the paper passer, and even going out to recess first.  She was even able to bring her favorite snack to share one day and a bag of things that represent her another.  But one of the most exciting things is they get to decorate a poster all about themselves to share with the class and have hung up all week long. 

Hailey came home with instruction about it on Thursday and didn't rest until we had it all put together the next morning (yes, I held out for a whopping 18 hours before I gave in and just did it).  I admit it was mostly so she would just be satisfied - she was relentless in asking me every 5 minutes when we would do it!  And I was glad to have it done because I don't think I could have went the whole weekend with her bothering me about it every few minutes (she wasn't supposed to bring it until Tuesday).  But it was fun to put together and have her tell me all about her favorite things.  We had nearly everything in the house to use so it went together fairly quickly.

Tate and I went to school with her on her special day and helped her present her poster to the class.  She was so cute explaining all of her favorite things and loved having the chance to call on each member of the class to have them ask her a question or tell her something that they liked that was the same as hers.

She was all smiles and even paused for a quick second for me to snap a picture of her actually looking at me.

Here's a close up of the finished product so that you can see all of her fun favorite things.

Her time as the "Star of the Week" went by very fast, but she enjoyed every minute of it.  She still wears her Star of the Week crown and necklace that she got and contiunally talks about all the fun things she was able to do.  Way to go Hailey - you are always a star to us!

Zach Basketball 2012

January and February tend to be a little long and boring, unless you have someone who plays basketball.  Then those months are full of practices and very exciting games!  We absolutely LOVE watching Zach play basketball - it's so fun to watch him enjoy it so much and do so well at it.  It seems like from year to year he just picks back up where the previous season left off and he just gets better and learns more.

Here's his team finishing up practice before one of the games.

He looks so great with a ball in his hands - he gets that from his Dad.  

An action shot - see him heading in right there for the rebound?

Ready for another rebound.  I swear he had more rebounds that anyone on his team and more than any of his baskets - he really is good at anticipating where the ball is going to come down and he's there 90% of the time to get it.

I know he's 9 and I shouldn't say it, but I just can't help myself - isn't he so CUTE?

Of course we can't forget about the cheerleaders on the sidelines - Tate was so cute.  He would always be yelling - go Zach or go Brother!  It was darling and he loved watching his brother play.

Hailey was a good little cheerleader too!  She was funny this year, her big thing was sitting two or three rows in front of us - funny girl!

I got some pretty good video this season, so thought I'd include a couple of those as well - just to show off what a great player he is (I'm his mom so I can brag a little bit right?).

He's really doing well with defense - there were several times when the player he was guarding just couldn't get the ball because Zach was doing such a terrific job at it.

He's gotten phenomenally better at dribbling as well.  This isn't the best video but the best one I had of him dribbling down the court.  He's been doing great at switching hands and even going around people while dribbling.

And of course I had to include one of him making a basket!  He's gotten better at this as well - he still takes a few from a bit back on the court, but he improved on that during the season and got a lot closer before putting up a shot.

We had a blast watching him play this year and although we're sad the season is over, we're excited for the next time it rolls around.  And we have spring soccer to look forward to in just another little bit, so that will be fun!

Trip to California - Part 2 (Disneyland!)

After years and years of Zach begging and pleading, we finally made it to Disneyland.  We decided that since we were going to Southern California to visit family, we might as well stay a few extra days and do Disneyland as well.  The kids were so excited, they could hardly believe we were finally going!

As you can imagine, I have tons and tons and tons of pictures, so I'm just choosing some random fun ones to post, it will give a good idea of what we saw and did and how much fun we had!  (FYI, these are in no particular order!)

Here are Zach and Hailey on our first day there trying to pull the sword from the stone.  No luck on either count, guess we aren't destined to be royalty!

Tate just loved the park maps.  He would always want to keep a hold of one, of course that meant that he dropped it many times.  The poor park clean-up crew - I swear that we didn't make their job any easier the days we were there, I think we went through at least a dozen maps!

Nana and Papa from California came with us the first day we were there. It was so much fun to spend some time with them inside Disneyland!

This was the first character we saw.  Tate loves Goofy and I was excited to have him see him so quickly.  As expected, he loved him better from afar than close up (notice Tate's slightly panicked face), but we got the picture to prove we did see him.

Nana, Papa, Taylor, Jon, Holli, and their kids joined us our second day at Disneyland.  It was so fun to have cousins the same age to pal around with!  Here's Nana and the girls...

and Papa and the boys (minus Jacob - I think he was off somewhere when we took this picture).

Aladdin and Jasmine were the second characters we saw and the girls stood in line to get their pictures with them.  They were so excited to finally see a princess!

Hailey and I went up to get a drink at one point and ran in to Woody and Jessie, so we had to stop and get a quick picture with them too!

We didn't actually get a family picture until the 3rd day since we were so busy going different directions and having so much fun the first 2 days.  But we trading taking family pictures with another nice family outside the gates that morning so that we could have a picture of all of us together.

Zach and I came out of another ride at one point and ran into Pluto!  Yep, you guessed it, we had to have a picture with him too!

Disneyland was so much fun, but definitely a lot of long, tiring days.  We would wake up early and not get back to the hotel until almost 10, so little Tate was so worn out during the days that despite all the noise and commotion, he actually fell asleep 3 out of the 4 days in his stroller.  This might not seem strange, but he has NEVER done this before, so you can imagine our surprise and how happy we were that he was getting a little rest.

We decided to use our early morning entry on Saturday when Kylie, Jedd, and Libby could go with us.  And as we walked through the gates, who should we bump into?  Yep, the star of the park Mickey Mouse!  All of us were so excited and we got another rare family picture with him (Tate was still not sure of these close up, large sized characters!).

We spent some time waiting in line to see the princesses that day too.  It was a long wait, but definitely worth it.  We saw Tiana, Jasmine (again), and Ariel.  Ariel is Hailey's favorite princess and she loved being able to get a picture with just the two of them.

A little later we bumped into Goofy again.  Tate was napping, so Jeremiah stayed with him while I took the kids to get a picture. 

We also waited a really long time to see Minnie at her house in Toontown, but they kids were really good sports and were so excited to get a picture with her.

Next we headed to see the fairies.  Zach wasn't too excited, but he was a good sport waiting with all the girls anyway.  Kylie, Jedd, and Libby joined us for the 3rd and 4th days of our time and Hailey had so much fun with Libby.  They had a blast playing together with Jocelyn and Mylee while we waited to see the fairies.

Here are all the girls with Iridessa.

Here are all the older girls with Tinkerbell and Vidia.

These cousins just love doing things together.  At one point, we got them all to sit on a bench in California Adventure and take a picture.  Of course they all begged to do a silly one - they are a bunch of nuts!

I have a ton more pictures, but I'll stop there.

Yes, we had a wonderful time at Disneyland.  It was long, tiring, and a lot of waiting in lines, but it was worth every penny and minute we did waiting.  The kids had a blast.  Zach rode every single ride and Hailey rode almost all of them.  Tate as young as he was, loved the rides we took him on and still talks about seeing Mickey Mouse and riding on the Tigger ride.  In all, it was a very fun (and exhausting, but the good kind of exhausting) vacation.  In fact, the kids are already talking about when we go back again!  It may be a few years before we make it back, but we all had so much fun, we are definitely going to be going back again as soon as we can!