The variety show experience

Symantha and two of her friends had been talking about being in the school variety show since last year. When the time for auditions finally arrived, they were so excited. They had some practices at our house, coached by Aunt Stephanie the “professional singer”. This was SO helpful in getting them prepared, and we were all singing Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” for weeks before the show. As if we hadn’t already heard that song more times than we could count.

They did great on the audition. I shouldn’t really call it an audition, since all the kids make it in:). But it is still great practice. The only bummer is that it was possibly the least organized thing I have ever been a part of. There were rehearsals set up for weeks before the show, but they were pretty much a waste of time. We had some of our own rehearsals instead. However, there were all sorts of microphone issues, and it wasn’t all figured out by the night of the show. More on that later.

We took the girls shopping for matching shirts, which was fun. They found the perfect glittery outfits and were so cute together.

There was a lot of disorganized chaos the night of the show, so the girls weren’t able to use the track we had practiced to. Since there was another girl doing the same song (awesome, right?), they ended up using her version. The problem was, our version had a very quiet track of the words in it, so if the girls lost their place, they would be able to find it quickly again. Since we had done it so many times, I figured they would be fine if we used the other version, and there wasn’t really another option anyways.

So, they began their performance well, smiling and doing exactly as they had practiced. Except that Symantha’s microphone wasn’t turned on until I began to notice and pointed it to her from the crowd. She turned it on just in time for her solo… and then half way through her part she completely lost the words. They all kind of looked at each other blankly, and after some awkward moments, caught on to the chorus and finished the song. Symantha was faking a smile at the end with tears in her eyes. I was SO proud of how she held it together! She went back to her seat with the performers and started crying, but her friends were so encouraging. I went over to check on her and they were totally building her up. She bounced back after a bit, and her aunts and I told her helpful stories about how things like this have happened to all of us at one time or another. It will give her a great story to tell her own kids one day:)

We celebrated the whole experience with ice cream at Dairy Queen after the show. It seemed to make everything much better.

She is already talking about what she might want to do for the talent show next year. Which, fortunately, will be run by a completely different person and not be the chaotic mess that it was this year. The good thing is that most of the chaos went right over the girls’ heads and they didn’t really notice it. It provided some good experience and life lessons for Symantha, so I am still glad she did it. And I am thankful she had some great friends to go through the process with. They even prayed together before the show, with one of their grandparents. Pretty cool:)

Cheers for Hailey

Addison is FOUR!

Oh, how we love this girl.

We managed to celebrate her birthday over a one week span, which is a miracle. Usually our birthdays are spread out over weeks and months, but this year was a birthday whirlwind.  It began with a bouncy party with her preschool friends. Being the preschool teacher, I just invited the whole class and almost all of them came! It sort of felt like a field trip, but because this is a dream preschool class, I loved it! And Addison loved it:)

The next day was her actual birthday. We had bsf, lunch with Aunt Megan at Rainforest Café, and special dessert and presents at home.

She loved her “slipper jammies” and pop up castle, as well as the coupons Hailey made her.

At preschool that week, she brought donuts to share at our teddy bear picnic.

And we celebrated with the Edwards’ side by having ice cream sundaes at our house. 

 On Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa D. came over and took us to lunch after Hailey's cheerleading. They got Addison the MOST adorable waitress costume ever, which Hailey is wearing in this picture, along with lots of cute clothes.

The celebrations wrapped up with Nana and Leon coming for dinner and birthday celebration, however I failed and didn’t get any pictures of that one. They gave her new gymnastics outfits and pitched in to pay for Little Gym, which is very exciting. She finally gets her turn, and she counted off the days until it was time to start.

It was like stepping back in time and watching Symantha. She even wore a hand-me-down outfit (Nana’s present was a little small:)), and had the same teacher Symantha had – Ms. Suzy! Addison loved every second of it, and I am so glad she gets her turn.
We now officially leave the carseat behind, and she gets to move on to a booster seat. All signs of baby are disappearing, which is so sad. But we love seeing the sweet, funny little girl she has become. I know this post is ridiculously long, but just for my own sake, here are a few things about Addison right now:
*Sleeps with purple pillow and pink blanky. Now that she is four, these are supposed to only stay in her bed
*Still takes a nap every afternoon
*Really wants me to have another baby, or just asks when she can have one herself. She is mesmerized by babies and wants to use pacifiers or bottles or sleep in a crib.
*She is super silly, outgoing, wants everyone to be her friend
*Favorite toys: Little people, babies, rice, puzzles
*Sings to herself all the time
*Begins prayers with, “Father one day…”
*Pretends to be asleep often when we pull into the garage
*Has a completely irrational fear of pulling a shirt on over her head. She MUST do it herself, or will be terrified
*Plays teacher at preschool and loves to try to tell everyone what to do. They will obey her, unless I step in and tell her to quit bossing kids around!
*She tells me I am pretty or fancy all the time.
*She is a great little companion for me while the kids are at school. So easy-going and fun.

We love you Addison Kate!!

Ten on Ten: February

Missed last month, but back at it this month. A picture an hour, for ten hours on the tenth of the month. Here goes… I always love doing this in February, such cute valentiney things all around.

One waits for the bus, while I get ready to run the other to safety patrol. Very tricky timing!

All the girls were prettied up at preschool, for the valentine’s party

Preschool buddies

Special lunch created by Holly Boyd

Cringle, the puppy. He’s pretty cute, when he’s not eating the shirt off your back.

Eskimo kisses, and yes we may have asked them to do it. What’s a little nose-rubbing between friends? They are such cute little buddies:)

Valentine décor

Addi must be longing for warm weather. Later she put her bathing suit on to complete this game.

Early valentine surprise from my sweet husband

Fun surprise date night

See more ten on ten fun here

Skating

Two weekends in a row, our family went skating. It’s not that we really love skating that much, it just sort of worked out that way. On a Friday night, Addison was going to have a special night with Nana while we took the big girls ice skating. Unfortunately, Nana got sick, so Addison stayed with us and we decided to go roller skating instead. Addison can handle roller skating much more easily than ice skating. However, we were not real impressed at the Friday night crowd at Auburn skate…. should have thought that one through a little better. So, we convinced the girls to go to the mall (it took a lot of convincing), telling them we would go skating the next day. Instead of the mall, we surprised them and took them to the new Alvin and the Chipmunk movie, Chipwrecked. Everyone was happy, and the next day we did make it to the roller skating rink. Skating event #1.

       
                                              
Addison is the cutest little roller skater ever. She took one lesson a long time ago when I would take the girls on Saturday mornings. They told her to put her arms out and take little steps, and that is what she does. Unless she is holding one of our hands.
                                              
The following weekend, Nana was better and we went with our original plan – ice skating. It was family skate night with a light show, sounds cool but it was actually just kind of dark and cold. And it didn’t start until 8:30, a little late for us. Due to all these things, we skated for maybe 45 minutes. Hailey is the SLOWEST skater of all time, so she maybe got around the rink twice. She is so cautious. She didn’t start out that way at the roller skating rink, but after a couple of falls a year or two ago, she has been slow as a snail ever since. Symantha had no problem, and we had fun taking turns and skating around with her. It was tough to take pictures of this event, because I am NOT comfortable on ice skates either. This is the only one to represent our night –

Fun family time, but we have had our fill of skating for a little while

Girly Girls

Our girls have always loved to put on shows for us. It began as ballet shows from Symantha, then came gymnastics, American idol, etc. with all of them. We are very familiar with shows. However, now that their cousin Lacey lives just down the street, they have created a dancing group called the “Girly Girls”. The shows have become a much bigger deal. They asked Grandma to embroider their group name on t-shirts for them, they have created routines for each family get-together, and have spent a lot of time making invitations and walking around to each family’s house delivering them (have I said how cool it is that cousins and family live right down the street?). It is pretty cute. Here are some pictures from their various performances:
Peeking around the door waiting for us to announce them at Thanksgiving (At Steph and Kurt’s house)…




Then the Christmas performance….

And a New year’s eve show, as well. This included some free dance time, so you can really see their moves:)

Hailey tends to watch the other two most of the time, and she is a little shy but super cute.
Their next plan is to have a fundraiser show at the event center at church. They want to call it “Hip Hop for Haiti,” and charge everyone a dollar to get in. They wrote us a letter asking to have an important meeting with us about this, and they are taking it very seriously. We love their hearts, and are looking for a way to let them do something special where we would invite a few of our friends and family… but probably not at the church event center:) Be ready for that invitation, I’m sure it will be quite a show!