Dancing in the Classroom

Today I had the opportunity to do a mini ballet presentation at Nathan's preschool. First in his class, and then for the kindergarten class. The kids loved it! It hadn't really been a secret to the moms that I spend time with, so a few of the girls came to class with little tutus or ballet themed shirts, all ready for our fun day.

I kept it pretty simple with the preschoolers: basic positions and movements, how ballet is like acting because we're telling a story, and then letting them feel the difference between slippers and pointe shoes. We danced a little together, then I finished off our short time by reading them a story: Dogs Don't Do Ballet by Anna Kemp. It's super cute and funny, and quickly has become a favorite of mine (and Nathan's!).

Next I headed to the kindergarten class to do basically the same thing, except the kinders had some excellent serious questions about ballet and the arts. Then they each wanted to perform for me and have me give direction and critique their movements. It was a really fun experience and they kept me for an hour! They also wanted more involved ballet movements to be shown, so I obliged and am now paying for it in my knees and feet (ow....).

It was a great experience and I am so happy that I was able to introduce ballet to these kids. A few parents asked me for recommendations on classes for 3-5 year olds, and the school director asked if I would consider teaching a Creative Movement class next school year. I need to give that one some thought, but it would certainly be fun!

Kipper

While shopping in Costco today, Nathan and I noticed a stack of rather large...ok, humongous stuffed dogs. Nathan adores stuffed animals so we went over to look at them and marvel at their size. I had no intention of buying one because stuffed animals of that size are usually $75 at minimum. John and I had been saying for quite a while that Nathan would love a ridiculously huge stuffed animal, but they are always too expensive. Well, not today! Costco's price was $29.99 for a stuffed dog bigger than Nathan. I could not resist, so in the cart it went. 

Nathan named him immediately: Kipper. He talked to the dog the entire time we were shopping and looked as though he were in heaven. Other customers stared, laughed, and commented ("You picked the small one, eh?") at the large thing taking up my cart.

The entire cart.

After getting Nathan and the groceries in the car, I realized that I had no idea how I was going to fit this dog in my vehicle. It was quickly obvious that he was going to have to sit in the front seat.

 On our way home, I stopped at a light right next to a fire truck. The firefighters looked over at my car and then they all erupted in hysterical laughter.

Once we got Kipper home and upstairs, Nathan happily curled up with him for a good snuggle.

 And that is the story of a giant dog, a happy five year old, and a very unusual trip to Costco.

Honey-Do

We didn't have anything planned over Memorial Day weekend, and Aiden didn't have school on Friday so John decided to take Friday off of work. Four day weekend! While our goal was mainly to relax as a family and gets LOTS of sleep, we wanted to take care of some of the big things on the Honey-Do list.

First up: Our veggie and herb garden. We ended up with $150 worth of organic veggie and herb starts from Nathan's school fundraiser and needed a place to put them. Our backyard is all rock out of necessity (too much drainage and erosion), so the only place to plant is the front yard. The very tiny front yard. We've spent quite a bit of time clearing away the overgrown plants and finally ended up with a cleared space to make a raised bed. Along with an additional planter box John made and some extra black pots, we have a sizable garden growing for the summer. If all goes/grows well, we will not be lacking in any type of veggie or herb. We've already put our chives to good use! If you've never tried mixing chives, crumbled up bacon, and sour cream into your mashed potatoes, you should try it. It's so good and much faster than baked potatoes!

Next on our list was hiring a contractor to repaint the trim on the house. It looks awful (you can see a little of the peeling at the bottom of the column in the picture above) and we were worried that the HOA was going to start fining us for having such dilapidated paint.  After getting a bid of $1800 from one company (NO thank you!), we finally ended up with a reasonable bid from another company that was well under $1000. Whew! I thought we were going to have to climb up on the roof and do the dangerous work by ourselves. It won't happen until mid-summer, but at least the contract is signed and the plans are in place. And no, I didn't take a picture of the contractor for blog continuity. 

Next up: A drying rack for the laundry room. I had asked John to build me a pull-out drying rack back in January and he had gotten started on it then. And then it sat half-finished in our garage until this weekend. But it's finally done and I love it! It simply leans out from the base attached to the wall whenever I need to dry something and then when I'm done, it hooks back up flat against the wall and out of the way. Yay! No more hanging things in my shower to dry!

I've also done a little repainting in the kitchen and we've continued our backyard makeover over the past few weeks, but I'll save those for another time. It feels good to get things done!

Kindergarten!

Today was kindergarten orientation at the school. Aiden went along with us and got lots of "Hi Aiden!"s from the staff. We heard a short intro from the principal and took a tour of the whole school. They hadn't done a full orientation when Aiden was entering kindergarten, so there were some things I didn't know about and it ended up being a little more informative than I had expected. Nathan was extremely excited for orientation and had a great time looking around. But I had to fight back tears as the principal talked about first week of school transitions. I can't believe my baby is getting ready for kindergarten!

Once we took the tour and ended up in the kindergarten classroom, the teacher read the group a story. Nathan is already a pro at sitting quietly at story time!

 The little boy in the orange and brown striped sweatshirt is the younger brother of one of Aiden's classmates, so their mommy and I might have two kids in the same classes! It was actually kind of nice to already know someone - making the whole thing seem much less lonely and scary.

Nathan thought that the foam letters were awfully cool. And we got to see the butterflies that the class is currently raising.

All in all, I think we're pretty excited for kindergarten. While moving onto the next stage of life is bittersweet, it will be much easier to have both kids in the same school and also allow me to set my own volunteer time adjusted to my own school schedule instead of doing a required amount and struggling to juggle everything. See you in the fall, kindergarten!

I Don't Think I Can Help You

As I was cleaning up from dinner yesterday, Aiden asks me, "What are portals made of?". Um....this isn't quite our usual after-dinner conversation.
I said, "Portals? As in 'portal to another dimension'?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Well, they're not real."
He was quiet for a moment. "If they were to be real, what could I do to make one happen?"
Oh my goodness.
"I don't think I'm the right person to talk to about that, Aiden."
He shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's fine. I don't need to know until I'm grown up anyway. That's when I'm going to create portals."

So, you've all been warned. If, at some point in the near future, portals to different dimensions come into existence.....Aiden probably had something to do with it.

Just Beachy

We've been attending our church's new Saturday evening service instead of Sunday morning, simply because it works better for our schedule. But for the last Saturday in April, they had canceled the service due to a previously scheduled school event (our church also has a Christian school). So we figured it would be a good time to go visit Laura and Kevin in Rockaway. They hadn't seen the boys in quite a while and we needed a brief change of scenery. Even though we spent just 24 hours there, we had quite a bit of fun! 

We had a low-key first evening. Laura made a delicious dinner and we all watched Despicable Me. After the boys went to bed, us adults watched a silent horror movie from 1922 (Nosferatu), and finally managed to stop talking and head to bed around 2am.

We had a quiet first part of the morning, but then headed out to the tide pools before heading to the cheese factory.

 They're a train.

 While in this little cave, three out of the six of us ended up with a very wet foot.

 Laura found this little crab peeking out from under a rock (you may need to click on the picture to enlarge it to see him). I don't think he was thrilled with me getting in there with the camera.

 Nathan doesn't like creatures. But this crab was a bit angry, so I don't blame him for being wary!

We had lunch at Fisherman's Korner (LOVE their burgers!) and the boys had to ham it up with the pirate statues.

 Nathan's face is priceless.

 Aiden Hook!

 "Gimme that sword!"

 Aiden was run through.

 Nathan said he had just gotten his hand cut off. I think I'd have a much more pained, urgent look on my face.

After a hefty lunch, we walked it off on the docks (which I don't think we technically were supposed to be on, but oh well).

 Once we got back and packed everything into the car, we headed down to the beach to take advantage of the gorgeous afternoon.

It was hard to go home after such a short visit, but we all slept very soundly that night.