Eva's Ballet Recital

This was Eva's 3rd year at Clytie Adams school of ballet. Her recital was held at the Browning Performing Arts building at Weber State University, and as expected, it was impeccable. Clytie's program has been around for 50 years and it is a professionally done show with a live orchestra that plays all of the classical music for the recital. Clytie has said that in 20 years they will tell people they danced to a live orchestra and nobody will believe them! She's right - it is probably one of the few programs that still uses live musicians to play for the dancers. Really a treat for the girls and the audience.

All of the dancers stay in a different auditorium while they wait for their chapperones to take them just before they go on to perform. Each year there is a magician who comes to keep all the girls (and the few boys) entertained for the entire length of the recital. They get to watch the other dancers during rehearsal, but that's it! There are no pictures/videos/children under 5/etc. allowed into the recital. This is serious business and believe me, you DO NOT want to break any of these rules. Clytie runs a very tight ship!



Eva did a beautiful job - we were so proud of her and it was so rewarding to see her dance. She has learned so much and has been able to get a good start on technique that I think will help her with a lot of things she may decide to do. She told me she gets a little nervous, but when she is on stage she seems so confident and I love to watch her. Her Grandma and Grandpa Darrohn came to see her and she loves having them there to see her perform. It was a great night for her and she seemed to really enjoy it. We love you Eva!

Nature Conservatory or Bust!

Today I took the kids to swim lessons and then headed out for our Tuesday neighborhood activity. We took the kiddos to the Nature Conservatory off of Gentile - not much to see initially, but it was fun walking the boardwalk trail and climbing up into the tall birdhouse tower to eat lunch. My kids were up late last night and were whiny and I sort of wanted to throw them off the boardwalk trail at times, but it ended up being fun once they got that out of their system. At one point, I was dealing with Eva who had a nosebleed and at the same time with Ethan who was trying to get himself to throw up so that I would believe him when he said that his stomach hurt . (He hadn't wanted to go when we were at home because he had made plans for his toy motorcycle races with a buddy, and he had told me the original "get out of anything excuse" that his stomach hurt. So I didn't believe him and he wanted to prove me wrong, which didn't work either.) I didn't even take any pictures, because frankly I wasn't up to making them appear like they were having fun and to look happy, dagnabit! They did end up enjoying it though, and we had a nice little walk with their friends and they were able to climb up the towers and had a great time. It was sunny and HOT. All the kids had red faces so we headed out to get our first of the summer Rainbow Snows and found some shade where the mom's could talk and the kids could run a-muck. (not sure how to spell that, but I know it's a real word)

We are taking a friend visiting from Honduras out to dinner tonight and then it's early to bed for my kiddos - Summer has made us get off schedule and it seems to keep getting later and later each night, and mom seems to be getting meaner and meaner each day! My kids have told me repeatedly this last week that I am the meanest mom and I have told them repeatedly that I don't care! Oh, the love! Summer is definitely here! I am optimistic however that we can turn this ship around. Let's see. Tomorrow we've got Eva's ballet rehearsals at the Mckay Dee Center with a not wanting to hold still 2 year old and a very strict no kids can make any noise teacher. This looks to be another keeper! Stay tuned...
I promise to lose the sarcasm and have a better attitude.

Jumpropin' disco singin' fool!

Alrighty! I'm back from an awesome trip to Honduras, but right now I am too tired to write about it...maybe tomorrow. BUT...I thought I would just post this cute video of Becks that I had on my digital camera while I was away. Everytime I would watch it I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Kerry and I wanted to post it to the blog so that anytime we needed a good mocking of our 2 year old, we could see it. These skills are going to take him far in this big world.

Here is Becks learning how to jumprope - with a little dancing at the beginning. He gets all of his coordination from Kerry.




The second clip is of him singing his favorite disco song from a CD his Auntie had made up for him, UPSIDE DOWN...I don't even know who sings it, but he requests it to be played everyday in the car and tries to sing the words. He climbed up on the counter and put it in the cd player, pressed play and sang to his hearts content:)


I
A few years down the road and these are going to come in handy when he's lookin' for the ladies.

Amigos of Honduras.org

I am off to Honduras in about 3 hours... I really should be getting some sleep, but thought I would update one more time. I will be gone for a full week visiting the projects and hanging out with cool, cool kids in Honduras, and Kerry will be staying home with our kids! He is an awesome, supportive,and encouraging husband and I am lucky to have him. The kids adore their dad and are looking forward to having time with him. I'm going to miss Kerry's 38th birthday (JUNE 6TH) and I wish I could be there to celebrate it with him!! Call and give him a hard time for me :)
Kerry and I have been able to be involved with a humanitarian group called Amigos of Honduras . This foundation was started by Dave Riley, who is one of the business partners with Kerry at YES, and he has done some pretty amazing things in a really short time. It started almost 3 years ago and already with this foundation and all the generous supporters we have built 3 schools, provided water projects for 3 mountain communities, helped with orphanages, provided funds for a community to rebuild after being misplaced from hurricane Mitch, donated money and supplies to help mothers and babies with aids on the Island of Roatan, and so many other awesome projects that help individual families and communities. It is such a great thing to be a part of. The thing I am looking forward to the most is being able to practice my Spanish with the little kids and being able to hand out all of the goodies and toys that people here at home have donated and put together for them. That is the best part - if you've ever helped with donations or putting humanitarian kits together for service projects, Thank YOU for doing the hard work and just know that they really are making a difference and ending up in a little childs hands or delivered to schools, and there really is a very grateful and receiving hand on the other end. We get to do the fun part! We take duffle bags full of these kits and clothing to different families and groups and then we fill our backpacks with toys and candy and get to hand it out to the kids. They love it - they come from very humble living conditions - many are the poor of the poor. But they are happy, energetic, smiley, and loving kids. They are awesome. I have been so grateful to be able to experience this part of it.

If you'd like to see some of the projects and kids, go to amigosofhonduras.org

Hasta Manana!

Congrats Eva!

Eva Diva made the Layton Strikers soccer comp team this last week and we are so excited for her! Last year was her first year of soccer, so I think she felt a little outleagued at tryouts and was telling us she didn't want to do it because the girls were better than her. We told her that if she didn't make it, no big deal. She can do her AYSO team next year and try out again if she wants. If she did make it, it would be an awesome opportunity for her because she would get really good if she was training with others that had a higher skill level than her and give her tons of experience. When the coach called after the practice to tell her she had made the team, we could tell she was really excited because she started smiling and then tried to hide her excitement by burying her smile in the pillows on the bed. We went out to dinner to celebrate with her on Saturday night. We're so proud of you, Eva!

Eva is such a headstrong kid that even though all of her friends were playing soccer the last 3 years, she refused to play because she couldn't use her hands!?? What?? That was her reasoning and she wasn't going to budge. I'm still not quite sure what made her change her mind...It certainly wasn't her mom or dad.

We have had so much fun watching her games and seeing her improve between seasons and her coach Bill Harvey was fantastic!. She is really fast, scores a lot of goals kicking with her left foot, but she still need the strategies and skills that many of the other girls on the team have. This should be a great opportunity for her to learn from her peers and improve quite a bit. She is a quick study and I think she will do really well.

Her coach has a great philosophy about making this a positive experience and helping them to improve skills, but not having soccer be their life. They have other things they want to do,too. He will only do a couple of tournaments each year and keep practices to once a week. I don't want soccer every other night(either does she) and then there are all the issues with kids being overscheduled and missing out on downtime to play and to just be imaginative. I also don't want to be a crazy (crazier) mom driving my kids around all hours of the day to lessons. I think we miss the point of it all... To much time away from family. That being said, I think this is a great opportunity for her to get the flavor of comp soccer without having her completely absorbed into it. I'm so glad that there are coaches out there with the same values. It's refreshing. The tricky part is balancing it all out when they want to do so many things......I don't think it is easy. Hopefully it is fun along the way as we figure it all out!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Happy Birthday Ethan!
Yesterday was Ethan's 6th birthday - he has been waiting, planning, and talking about his birthday since last June, so he was pretty excited! He wanted a bubblegum cake - super easy as long as you can find the bubblegum - and we took 7 energetic friends over to Hungry Bear for pizza and arcade games. Better there, than at my house. He had a great time and he was really glad that everyone could come. Grandpa and Grandma Darrohn came and also Uncle Mike - (hey Mike - he has been playing w/that nerf gun all morning. It's got some power!) He has some great buddies to share his day with. Kerry and I gave him a big Indiana Jones lego city set that I'm sure Kerry and I will be painstakingly building for the next 2 weeks. It's so funny how excited they get for their birthdays - he LIVES for them. Happy little 6 year old~!

Dooders: Air guitar and Vibrato

Ethan - both of these little videos make me laugh because you are such a nut~! The first is when we were filming Beckham doing flashcards and you wanted to make sure that your air guitar talents weren't forgotten. The 2nd clip is of your Cowboy song from kindergarten- you sure love to sing! You are so much fun to have as a son -you are passionate about the things you enjoy: Legos, Star Wars, Soccer - you get so excited to tell me about how Darth Vader was really Anikan and his arms and legs got cut off and.......all day long there are fascinating tidbits I learn from you. The best part is that you have such an animated face when you express yourself that it is a delight to watch you talk about the things you love. I sure love you Doody!