Anna's 1st dance recital!

It was a lot of fun to create this invitation, with Anna's help of course! Those are her tap dancing feet! Anna's first dance recital happened to fall on Father's day...so it made for a busy and exciting day! Anna has been really excited for the recital because she couldn't wait to wear the costumes.
All her practicing really showed! She did a great job and had a lot of fun with her friends.

Her dance class's first performance was a tap routine to a Shirley Temple song, "Animal Crackers in My Soup." They wore a zebra printed tutu with matching hair band and ribbons on the tap shoes. Anna likes this song a lot and still sings it.

The second performance was a ballet routine to songs about cats.
"Everybody wants to be a cat!"
Anna really enjoyed wearing the black tutu with kitty cat ears and a tail.
At the recital, Anna and her friend Ailey took center stage together when they stepped up out of the line of kitties and danced.
It was quite cute.
For the finale, all the dancers came on the stage with their trophies.
Anna is so proud of her trophy.
It was a great reward for all her hard work this year.

When I went to pick her up from the dressing room after the recital, she asked with a disappointed look on her face,
"is it really all over?!!"
It was so precious.
All she wanted to do was keep dancing, keep singing.
She definitely does not have a problem with stage fright.

Good job Anna!
You are growing to be a wonderfully delightful young lady.
And you will always be my little chunky monkey baby girl.

Many thanks to: Amy, Jennifer, Amanda, Ed, and Grandpap for helping to make her first recital so special!!!

To see images from the dance recital, click here.

To view more images of Anna's photo session, CLICK HERE.

For Father's Day...

This weekend was full of events!!! On Friday evening, we took the kids swimming. On Saturday, Anna had dance practice and then that evening Brian and I enjoyed a date night. Since it was Father's day weekend, we did Brian's favorite, pizza and a movie. We went out for dinner at Minsky's Pizza Cafe and went to see the new "Karate Kid" movie that just came out. I liked the movie because they did not try to imitate the original and it had a great story line to it. Sunday was Father's Day and Anna's first dance recital (more about that in the next post). For Father's day, Brian decided that he would just like to enjoy spending time together, so that is what we did. Here is a little collage and note in honor of Father's day for Brian.

Brian--Even before we were married, I knew you would be a great father. I knew this because of your honesty, integrity, and compassionate heart. You are succeeding as a father, and most importantly is the example of Christ that you bring to our family. Thank you for your leadership, your love, your care, your hard work, and your perseverance through life. You have helped me to become a better mother and person because of your faithfulness. As I watch Anna and Micaiah grow, I cannot but smile and give thanks to God for this beautiful family. You are an inspiring man of God and I am so blessed to share this life with you. You are my very best friend and I am grateful that you have chosen me to be yours. You have given to Anna and Micaiah much more than you may understand...including their blonde hair and green eyes that are priceless. Thank you for helping to keep me youthful and for leading our family in truth and in love.
Happy Father's day!
Hugs and love from all of us!

My Cookie Monsters!

Cookie Monster #1

Cookie Monster #2

This treat was especially wonderful to Anna.
It was her first treat in 3 days!!!

She made the mistake of indulging in a handful of 'rewards' when she was not supposed to and lost the privilege of treats for three days.

She has learned that "greedy, greedy makes a hungry puppy!"

Now, she has learned her lesson and even refers to this saying.

I love parenting our kids...and am so thankful for life lessons like this that make teaching AND learning quite a treat!

Power Play

This weekend, we went to Power Play!!!
We really enjoy this family entertainment place. Anna and Micaiah play in the "kid zone" most of the time. Micaiah liked all the button pushing, especially on the helicopter. Anna has discovered that she likes to sit on the motorcycle rides and that throwing the skee balls up the isle does NOT get you more points or balls!!! Brian and I are looking forward to doing a date night here so that we can play laser tag and glow-in-the-dark mini golf.

It was a great time...and sometimes its just fun to be a kid! :)

Memphis, Tennessee

Three weeks ago, we took a trip to Memphis, Tennessee.

Here are a few family shots of us enjoying the trip.


We all enjoyed the trip, even the 8 hour drive!!!
Anna had many memorable funny quotes from the trip.
This one is the most memorable:
"Why did God have to make Tennessee so far away from Kansas?"

Hope you have an enjoyable weekend! :)

Splash Cove

On Sunday, the kids actually slept in!!! This rarely ever happens. We all enjoyed the extra rest especially from all the activity the day before. We relaxed at home and then after their afternoon nap, we took the kids to the other local pool. It is so nice to have a family season pass to these kid-friendly pools. Both pools are very kid-friendly with zero entry level water, kid-sized water playgrounds, deeper pool areas, a lazy river, slides, and a wave pool. They are well maintained and very clean, not to mention the most kid-friendly pools in the KC metro area.

The pool that we took them to is called Splash Cove. It is in the heart of downtown Shawnee, about 7 minutes away.

As you can tell, Micaiah needed a little coaxing to test out the water!

He finally took the plunge and went down one of the waterslides!

Here is Anna and Papa taking the plunge under the big splash bucket!
(look how small they look compared to the splash!)

And Anna enjoying the waterslides too!

There are a few more pics that I'll share in the following post...

Splash Cove (continued)

Here are a few more pics at Splash Cove:

Micaiah taking a break

Anna enjoying the water playground!

Micaiah found a hole!

Our pool adventures have just started! :)

Swimming and a Carnival

This weekend we enjoyed spending our family time at the pool and a carnival. Saturday morning while I went to an art show, Brian took Anna and Micaiah to a parade that was the start of the "Old Shawnee Days" carnival. Anna really enjoys parades and would like to be in one some day. The parade lasted 2 hours. They enjoyed it and had a great adventure...

After nap time, we took the kids to a local pool. It was Micaiah's first experience in a kid pool. It was crowded though so I think he was intimidated. And eventually he just got so cold he was shivering. The pool has some really great slides! One slide is a tube slide and the other is a person slide. Anna can go down the tube slide with an adult, so she had a lot of fun! The first time she went down, I got that picture of her falling out of the tube at the end.
We all got a lot of sun!
After swimming, we went home to change and eat so that we could head over to the carnival.
"Old Shawnee Days" is the town carnival held in the downtown area. Its a popular carnival with rides, games, food, and musical entertainment. Anna got to ride some rides and her favorite was riding the ferris wheel with Papa (pictured below). Micaiah rode a spinny ride with Anna and Papa and got really dizzy. He played on the playground most of the time.
We had a great Saturday!

Little fingers, Bloody nose!

Two weeks ago, Micaiah started running a fever of 101. The next morning when he woke up, he was covered in blood. There was blood all over his pajamas, sheets, and blankets. The first thing I did was gave him a bath and found he had a bloody nose. It was rather scary and yucky! This was my first experience with blood where I actually got really nauseous. He was fine the rest of the day and I didn't think much of it.

Then, the next morning he woke up with another bloody nose! Now I was beginning to worry. As I gave him another bath, Brian called a nurse hotline to ask if this could be related with the fever. We were told to see if it happens again in the next 24 hours and then call the doctor.

Thankfully, it didn't happen again. We figure that he was probably just sticking his fingers up his nose! And he was fighting off a stomach bug at the same time.
The bloody noses stopped. The fever went away. Phew! I am just glad thats all it was.

So if your kids ever get a bloody nose, check their fingers first!!! :)

Caiah's First Haircut!

My handsome boy

Caiah got his first haircut about two weeks ago. I cut his hair the day before our trip to Tennessee because I knew that it would be hot there. It was a good thing that I did, it was very, very hot! The haircut itself wasn't hard to do...distracting him on the other hand was a little more work. Toys and food worked the best and he sat still just long enough to get the job done. As I was cutting his hair, Anna kept asking me to cut her hair. She has yet to experience getting her haircut. Now that she has watched Caiah get his haircut, she is more willing and excited to have hers done. I am really glad about that because she seemed nervous about it before.