We've been celebrating Thomas' Half-Birthday since his Birthday is December 15th. His real Birthday is so close to Christmas, it was tricky. This way, his presents and the attention are more spread out through the year. So this year he had his first Half-Birthday-Party with friends. It was an outdoor Water party. They had a candy scavenger hunt and played on the water slide and slip-n-slide. When it came time to open presents, he'd gotten a watch from his best buddy, Preston. So of course, when asked what was his favorite part of the party? The watch. Of course! Good job, Preston's Mom.
Kayleigh has now graduated from Bristow Run Elementary School. She didn't really want to go to her graduation – she was missing a pool party. But she went. And the last day of school, all the 5th graders had a catered fiesta. REALLY good food, too.
Here's Kayleigh with her amazing 5th grade teacher. She had such a fabulous year.
My Mom and Grandma J came for a visit. Grandma hasn't been here since about 7 years ago. 9 years ago she flew out with me when we first moved here and helped us out. Now she's 95 years young. And flew to Florida with my Mom to be at her Great-Granddaughter's baptism (Tawnya's girl, Emma). She decided to spend a week here with us while she was out and about. Yippee for us!
The week just flew by – it felt like one day, not one week. Oh, we had fun. Krista and her 3 kids drove out from Chicago and we had ourselves a real party.
Funny thing was I had somehow gotten the information wrong and thought they were coming the following week. Instead, Dad called me to make sure I was ready to pick them up THAT NIGHT. Whoops – hurried to the store and bought a chair and a bed the next day. Didn't get all the cleaning projects and etc finished. And the week was packed with end of school activities. But everyone was great sports.
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May 16th was the Piano Recital. I had 9 students, 7 playing in the recital. We had it at the Eliasons' house. (Brittany Eliason teaches Kayleigh and Thomas, and I teach Preston and Blake Eliason.) The kids all did great. I had 2 chocolate pianos to give out and about 5 statues. Was nice and now I'm happy to have a summer break from teaching piano lessons.
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After a very long break, I am back to blogging. No great excuse for my lapse. Had
computer woes and lots of busy-ness, but mostly, just laziness.
So today was Sunday. And the Komuras came over for dinner. That was a wonderful
idea, because they brought some yummy food. We made s'mores over the firepit
outside after dinner. Very sticky and very yummy.
Yesterday was the first swim meet for K, T and EV. EV wouldn't swim. She cried her
way out of it. Too bad b/c I had gone to some trouble to get her in the event. And I
left her with the young coaches who would have a much better chance of
encouraging her than me. But no dice.
Kayleigh swam her first IM. That's Individual Medley. And it's a very tough event.
Kayleigh had to swim all 4 strokes. Butterfly, then backstroke, then breaststroke,
then free style. She didn't qualify (didn't get the butterfly) but still did great and
really had to swim her heart out. Good girl! Her other races were freestyle and
breaststroke, her favorite.
Thomas had 2 relays and 3 individual races. His favorite is also the breaststroke.
One relay was at the very beginning of the meet, the other was nearly at the very
end. And it was the LONGEST meet. Started at 7, lasted till 1:45. So they had a very
long morning. But he earned one heat ribbon. That means in one of the races, he
won his heat. I think it was break stroke, but I'm not sure.
As for me, I was training to be a stroke and turn judge. And I have to tell you, it was
one grueling job. Those poor judges have to stand there till the end of the meet. They
rotate around, and include breaks in the rotation, but it's a LONG day. My aching
back.
And the piano recital was that night. Fortunately it wasn't at my house this time. I'll
put some photos I took on later.
Dance Recital, May 16, 2009
Kayleigh and EV had their dance recital and were adorable. EV was happy to
get her photo taken, but Kayleigh wouldn't even smile for the camera. In fact, I had
to try to sneak a picture of Kayleigh. She wouldn't smile.
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(As always, click on images to enlarge)
Oh, it was great fun this year. All the girls wore last years' costumes. Kayleigh had some good
ideas for spicing up her indian costume with feathers and more ribbon. EV wore 2 different
costumes, one for Trunk or Treat, the other for Trick or Treat. Thomas got a new one - he wanted
to be the grim reaper. Luckily, we found the perfect costume on sale and I didn't have to break
out a pattern. Jeffrey, his very first Halloween, wore the Little Devil costume worn by at least 2
other siblings, starting with Thomas.
Our ward had Trunk or Treat a few days before Halloween.
For Halloween, EV put on a different costume. She called herself a white witch. It was a
wonderful costume to trick or treat in - I could see her shiny, white dress so easily in the dark. I
love that costume now. Other changes were Kayleigh gave up on the wig and Thomas gave up on
his reaper blade. They also wore glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets. Jeffrey went to one
door, just to say he went. No candy, though.
That last photo is our neighbor's yard. Every year they go all out. This year they built a castle
with great decorations. Then they dress up in costumes that go with their theme. And you can see
that wonderful white dress of EV's, glowing in the dark. Great weather. Twas a very Happy
Halloween.
It was great fun, that soccer season we just had. All other life seems to come to a screeching halt
to accommodate the soccer season. We had 3 soccer players. That made 5 practices and 3 games
each week. I team managed 2 teams. (yes, a very dumb idea). But the real fun comes on picture
day. 3 games plus 3 photo sessions at a different location. To top it off, we only own 2 pairs of
the uniform socks, so they have to share for their pictures. (we don't worry about the games) But
I shouldn't sound like such a wimp. We all actually enjoy getting out and watching the games.
But I'm learning the beauty of simplifying EVERYTHING. I'd park in about the middle of the
soccer area, and the kids would run off to their practices, then meet back at the car when they
were done. Actually, most of the time I had it way too easy - Chad took the kids to practice as
much as he could. And on Saturdays, we often split up the games.
Here's some photos of EV in her soccer games this Fall. She scored 2 goals one game - very
exciting. I took this first photo after the first of her 2 goals - it's the score of the game, 3 - 0.
I would never exaggerate a story about my kids, as you know. So here's the honest truth. It starts
out:
"Mom, the bathroom is flooded." A friend over playing had flooded the toilet, but was too
embarrassed to tell me. So instead she went and found Kayleigh and told her. By this time the
floor was covered. And by the time I saw it, the water had already dripped through the floor
making 2 big puddles in the basement. My calling "Get some towels" produced one small floor
towel. "5 big towels, please" was a bit better. I never got the 5 towels, but might as well shoot for
the moon and hit a satellite.
After sopping up water from both floors, I started handing the kids all the wet stuff from the
basement to be carried upstairs to dry in the garage. That's about when I heard Kayleigh telling
her friend "Parents can be so unpredictable."
(August 2008 - As always, click on photos to enlarge)
The Hansen group all met up at some condos in Solitude. We ended up with a lot of space for
just the 6 of us. We did some hiking...
Now, all I was trying to do here was show how much smaller cousin Maddie is than Jeffrey -
Maddie is one month younger. So I laid them side by side, but Jeffrey just then decided he was
extremely hungry. So my mild, mostly quiet baby started screaming his head off...
...And then look what happened.
Seems he told Maddie about being hungry and she either felt sorry for him or remembered that
she, too, was hungry.
We spent a day at Snowbird, and there's a whole lot to do there. We were there last year as well
and the kids (K & T) had a blast then too. There was the alpine slide, a zip line, climbing wall,
electric bull, bungee trampolines, and some moonbounces for younger kids.
One thing I thought was fabulous was that when EV and Kayleigh got in line for the trampolines
(and unfortunately it was long just then and they waited over an hour), EV was just going to
jump, but the nice lady working there helped her and taught her how to do a back flip. And she
got where she could do it all by herself. Yahoo. Kayleigh already knew how to do the back flips
from last year, and was flipping all over by herself.
2 things about this next photo. First, Grandpa Hansen had fallen out of bed the night before and
really whacked his face on the table there. Seems he was dreaming and sorta lunged out of bed,
something about saving the US Olympic swim team, as I remember. So in some of these pictures
he's sporting a pretty nasty black cheek. But also in this one, Melanie has fallen asleep on his lap
while riding the chair lift down the mountain.
We definitely had a great time hiking around and just getting completely worn out.
