A's Dance Recital

A's dance recital was last night. She and two of her cousins all dance at the same place. We started hair and make up at 1:00 pm. The dance teacher insists on hair in buns for the recital. However, the girls chose curly, pinned-up buns. It took 2 hours to do hair for three girls, which I thought was pretty good.
The recital was at a new venue this year because the usual venue is being remodeled. In this particular venue, the sound was bad, the lighting was bad, and it smelled weird. There was supposed to be no flash photography, so my pictures didn't turn out very well, either. This is pretty much the only halfway decent shot I got.

Here are A and her cousins with their flowers after the performance. Again, I couldn't get all of them to look in the same direction at the same time, so this was the best picture I could get.

Cara stayed home with B. She will be dancing next year and is VERY excited!

Cara the Negotiator

At 7:30 this evening, Cara said, "I want to run in my daisy sprinkler." I told her it was too cold outside. She replied, "YOU said if I take a nap, I can run in the sprinkler and I took a nap." Well, who can argue with that?

Here she is yelling at her kitten to get off her towel:

She was covered in grass and dirt when she was finished, but she was trying to get out of taking a bath. In her mind, she was wet, therefore she was clean.

On June 22nd, 2010...

I woke up, hopped in the shower, and was planning to head in to work; just like any other day. I knew a new shared list had been released the night before, but I didn't let myself dare to hope that we had been matched. J called while I was in the shower. A ran into the bathroom to tell me to get on the computer. I had A text my boss to say I would be late.

I finished the fastest shower known to man and A already had the computer on and email loading. She was waiting for me to hurry into the office. This is what we saw:
And we thought she had the most kissable little cheeks ever and the sweetest ears on the planet! :) We read through the file a dozen times while I had J on the phone. Needless to say I never did make it in to work that day. ;) We divided up the tasks of contacting IA doctors to review the file, writing up an LOI, researching Shanghai SWI, and probably a dozen other tasks I no longer remember. The bottom line was, we knew we had found our baby.

Fast forward one year and this is our sweet little girl now:

To me, the difference is UNBELIEVABLE! She has blossomed from a scared, timid little baby/toddler into a preschooler. She amazes me every day with her ready smile and affectionate nature. She loves so many things and is always ready for an adventure! I can't wait to see what her future holds.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my love, best friend, and partner. We've been married for almost 18 years and have 3 beautiful children. We spent today working in the yard a little bit and relaxing. J requested lasaugna for dinner and cheesecake with strawberry topping for dessert. It was a great, low-keyed day.

Doing the Splits

We were watching So You Think You Can Dance tonight. Cara likes to dance around in front of the television and show us her moves. Since she was blocking the show, we asked her to go over to the tile entryway and see if she could do the splits. It was quite the effort, so I had to grab my camera and snap this picture.

She will start dance this fall, but I'm wondering if maybe gymnastics might be a better option for her.

Wading Pool Fun

I know I still need to post about Cara's birthday party last weekend, but it was the last week of school so we were really busy. I will try to sort through the picture and post some time this week. One of Cara's presents was a wading pool. She hasn't been able to play in it this week because we were so busy, but today we filled it up this morning to let it warm up a little, then we let Cara go in it to play around 3:00 p.m.

At first she just walked around in it. Then she got a little braver and decided to sit down.
Sitting down wasn't all that scary, so she decided to lean back and get her hair wet.

Then she decided she was cold. So in order to warm up, she ran to the house and back to the pool several times. Several. times.

Crouching and shivering in the pool:

She started splashing the kittens, splashing me, and splashing herself.

Jumping in the pool was pretty fun, too.

After awhile she decided she was too cold. So she went in the house and put her clothes back on so she could go out and work in the garden with Daddy. I was on the back porch downloading pictures and here she comes, soaking wet in her clothes. ;)

She's back in her swimsuit now playing in the pool again. She ought to sleep well tonight.

Weekend Birthday Cakes

I used to make a lot more cakes, but since Cara came, I haven't really had the time. Here were the two I made this weekend:


Cara's birthday cake. She wanted a princess cake. This is a chocolate cake with coconut filling and coconut frosting.
Here is Lonna's cake. She wanted a ladybug cake. This is a white cake with cherry filling and vanilla/almond frosting.

Happy 4th Birthday, Cara!

Cara's 4th birthday was today, so she got to do whatever she wanted. She had sausage and a Starbucks strawberries 'n cream frappaccino for breakfast. Then she got to play with daddy all day.
For dinner she chose to eat at El Porton. Cousin L's 5th birthday was yesterday, B's 14th birthday is tomorrow, and B's friend K's 14th birthday will be on Sunday. They all celebrated at dinner tonight because they wanted to wear the sombrero and be sung to at El Porton.

Cara and L in their sombreros:

Here are B and K in their sombreros. They were trying to do cool, aftershave commercial poses. Too bad neither of them can shave. ;)

After dinner we went bowling. That was B's choice for his birthday since the "princess party" is tomorrow. B brought 3 friends and they had fun bowling a few games. Cara wanted to bowl, too, so Aunt P helped her.

When Cara bowls, the ball goes verrrrryyyyyy sloooowwwwly down the lane. Here she is watching it as it heads for the gutter.

Now we are home waiting for her birthday cake for tomorrow to finish baking before we go to bed. Cara had a blast today and can't wait for the princess party tomorrow.