At the Beach

     Usually we love to spend a few days in the summer at our local lake. Unfortunately, this year our lake was closed down because of a potentially dangerous algae. But not to worry. Mom had the idea to turn our pond into a miniature lake complete with a private beach! Awesome. 

Ally actually smiled for this picture! Yay! 

We never have problems getting Kate to smile. 

Jonah enjoyed chilling out on Mom's lap and being carried into the pond by Emma. 

Haha! I think Isaac may have had a mouth full of food in this picture. 

I was trying to blow this up... but it had a hole. 

Happily, this one didn't! What a surprise. 

Jonah was so cute. All he did was play in the sand and suck on a plastic cup. Aw. Adorable. 

Emma turned Kate into a sand mermaid. I think the technical term is sandinas mermaidius. 

Dad and Landon had been mowing all day. They were miserably hot and covered in dirt, so they inflated our boat and joined us for a dip. This was quite an inventive way to get it down to the pond. I'm not sure how safe it was...

Doesn't our mom have some of the coolest ideas? I have a feeling our summer will include many days spent in this pond as long as it stays fairly cool. Oh, and pond parties too! Can't wait! 

I hope your summer is as awesome as ours is turning out to be. Have a great week!  

Dance Recital - Two Perspectives - Part 2

Glynne:
    The dance recital is something all of us girls look forward to every year. It's a chance for us to get to don cool costumes and have fun performing on stage with awesome friends. This year wasn't any different. We started preparing about an hour or so before we had to be at the high school. Once we got there, Kate and Emma got settled in their dressing rooms, then Ally and I headed out to stretch on stage with our classes. We mostly ended up talking instead of stretching... but, that's the fun part, right? After a while, we headed back to the little kids' dressing room where Mrs. Camp always prays with us before the show. When she finished we had a few minutes to prepare before the first dance was called to start.

The first number is almost always toe-tap - except one year when I think Ally's jazz class got to go first... Anyway, this dance was really cute because it was done to Friend Like Me from Aladdin. Our really good friend, Annelise Gardner, is the genie on the left. 

This is Kate's tap! She was so cute. None of them really knew the dance... but it's alright. They were cute enough that no one cared. Kate is the 3rd in from the right. 

One of the sad things about the recital is that every year we have seniors who graduate. They have a chance to dance alone and we all love to watch them. This is Manon Marcotte. She started dance only a few years ago but has progressed immensely. She's so much fun to be around and we're all going to miss her a ton! 

This year Emma's jazz class danced to Rolling in the Deep and everyone said it was one of their favorite dances!

We have two funk teams at DanceCamp which are dance teams that sometimes perform at college and high school basketball games. This is the junior team that Emma is on with Annelise. 

They performed a dance to Ridin' Solo with sunglasses on! I thought it was a cute surprise to add to the dance.

Emma was the only one of us in pointe this year. Ally and I had both tried it for a few years, but just didn't love it enough to continue on. A pair of pointe shoes costs around $80!!! Yikes. I adored this dance though. These pictures are some of my favorites from the whole recital. 

This is Phoebe Muldrow - another senior. She started dance two years ago and made it onto the advanced funk team her first try! She's such an energetic, fun person and brings so much life and passion to her dancing. 

This year, Ally made it onto the advanced funk team with me! We had so much fun during class. I love having her in dance classes with me. 

During our jazz class we decided to perform two dances. The first (top picture) was a traditional jazz dance, and for the second (bottom picture) we got to learn contemporary! It was so awesome. We LOVED that dance. 

Every year we have a tradition where the advanced and junior teams get to be in a dance together. One of our favorite things about these dances are our awesomely amazing kicklines! Those things are killer, but fun. 

     This dance really stole the show. Colby (Mrs. Camp's oldest son) graduated this year. So, to please his mom, he agreed to learn a dance to perform with her at the recital. They did a waltz to the song Twenty Years Late by David St. Romain. It was so sweet. There was hardly a dry eye in the house.

     After the recital was over, I realized that I only have one more time to do this before it's my turn to graduate! That's crazy! I'm going to miss it so much. And it made me realize that I need to find another form of exercise... otherwise there is no way I'm going to avoid the dreaded freshman 15! 

Oh, and on a side note, before I forget, Jonah turned 6 months on Tuesday. None of us can believe it's already been this long. Everyday we love him more - if that's even possible. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Dance Recital - Two Perspectives - Part 1

Julie:
     I love recital night. It's always great. The girls do each other's hair, put on make-up, and talk about how nervous (or not nervous) they are. I go out and buy their favorite super-sized candy bars, tie a bow on each one, and write a little note. I love it now that they are older because after doing that, I think I'm pretty much done. WRONG!

     What about the boys??? Oh yeah. This year I bypassed hiring a babysitter because I figured they're all older (almost 5, 7, and 11) and the baby, well, I have to take him with me anyway, so it'll all be good. I ironed them some clothes, shouted at them (from the laundry room) to find some shoes and grab a bowl of cereal! I guess they only heard half of that because 10 minutes into a 3 hour show, boy #2, who is wearing shoes, bellows out that he's starving.

     I look into the diaper bag (note the previous post) and am praying something food-wise has found its way in there. Ugh. No such luck. I still have my Certs, but that's not going to cut it. I tell him he's just going to have to wait.
 
     Now Act II has started. We're half-way through and Jackson, who is incapable of whispering, announces he's bored, hungry, and wants to go home. How can he be bored? There's loud music, colorful costumes, and cute girls. But he's five and couldn't care less. Meanwhile, my sister and mom are doing their best to help out. Yes. Bryan is there too, but he's checking the weather on his phone!

     Through all this, I'm nursing Jonah, getting thrown up on, and trying to keep him quiet.

     Out in the lobby, during the second intermission, I get the opportunity to visit with another large family mom. I tell her my dance recital woes - how I thought the boys had eaten, how stupid I felt that I thought the boys could sit through this, etc. She was so great.  "You know," she said, "I think I got worse about being prepared with more kids. My diaper bag sometimes had no diapers, and if they missed a meal I figured, oh well, they'll survive." That made me feel a bit better.

     Time to go back in for the last act. The only way I survived is because my mom had gone and gotten some Oreos and Kit Kats, and Bryan bounced Jonah in the back. Thank you, Mom and Bryan! Next year, I'm hiring a babysitter for the boys.
   

Savannah Dennett, if you are reading this, may I book you a year in advance??? 

Teeth

     Today was an exciting, but worrisome day for Isaac. Because of a condition called ectodermal dysplasia, Isaac and Landon were born without the ability to sweat, and instead of having two big front teeth, their canine teeth grow in their place. So, when they reach a certain age they have to go in to the dentist to have them built up and filed to look more like a normal tooth shape.
     Isaac woke up this morning and seemed worried. My mom asked him what was wrong and he replied, "Today I have to get my tooth thing done, remember?"
     She was impressed that he remembered since she herself had almost forgotten. He must have been pretty nervous about the whole thing. Here are some pictures of before and after!

Before

Before

After

After

After

                       He told the dentist he really likes the way he looks now! We all like it too.

The Diaper Bag

     The other day, we were waiting in the church lobby while my mom tried to find her wallet in the diaper bag/purse. Instead of pulling out her wallet, she pulled out an... empty cardboard toilet paper roll. Yeah. Random. So, while we ate donuts and drank coffee, we made a list of all the weird/random things she had in there and had a pretty good laugh about it.

• Empty toilet paper roll 
• Wire nails
• Industrial sized tape measure 
• Dented ping pong ball 
• Certs (mints)
• A ball of tangled jewelry 
• An empty contact case 
• Baby spoon
• Flash drive
• And the bottom of her bag was covered in baby food puffs

    Haha! Yeah... How strange. Her diaper bag has turned into a mobile junk drawer. 

    Oh, and quickly, before I finish, I wanted to share with you a quote our pastor said during his sermon that really caught my attention. I found it interesting and I hope you do too. 

If you aren't a Christian, this world is all the heaven you will ever know. 

If you are a Christian, this world is all the hell you will ever know. 

It really gives you something to think about. 

Well, that's all for this blog. Have a great day! 

Mother's Day

     This Sunday is Mother's Day. Unfortunately, our town's high school graduation is tomorrow as well. We are going to be kept busy going to multiple graduation parties, so my Dad and I decided to surprise Mom and throw her a family Mother's Day celebration today. We planned a really nice dinner (steak, sauteed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, rolls, and salad); Ally and I went shopping for ingredients, and I planned her favorite part of any meal - dessert. Yum. Some friends of ours, the Gardners, make the most delectable chocolate cake called Chocolate Formidable Cake. We all LOVE it. And to go with that I made a cream cheese dip for strawberries. Luckily, Mom and Dad had to go up to Wichita today to pick up some stuff, so I had plenty of time to get the house clean, make the cake, go to a graduation party for a friend, and then get all the kids into nice clothes before they got home. Here are some pictures of how everything turned out! 

Chocolate Formidable Cake before baking. This cake has coffee in it. It has no choice but to be good. 

I made a really fast strawberry dip. All it is is cream cheese and sugar. Haha! But it's so yummy. 

The finished product! I don't think I made the glaze quite right... but it tasted delicious! 

Emma wasn't exactly thrilled about having to do her chores. Oh, well. 

Landon had hurt himself by accidentally crashing his little dirt bike, so he cleaned somewhat slowly. Don't worry! He's ok. He just said that his thighs hit the handle bars pretty hard and feel bruised now. 

This isn't the best picture of Kate cleaning. But no one seemed in the mood for me to be taking pictures of them, so I didn't want to ask her to try again. 

Yeah... Ally didn't want her picture taken either. 

Ally and I put together a giant card for our mom and had everyone write her a little note. Oh, and bought her candy. Of course. 

I found this quote on the internet and thought it was pretty funny. 

Dad said we should all dress up and look nice for dinner, so here they are getting ready! 

Landon's chores were really bad today. He hasn't done them in a while. 

Jack was excited for mom to see what he wrote on the card! 

Jack got really grouchy once I told him I needed him to empty the clean silverware. 

Dad made some wonderful steaks! 

Isaac was too distracted by his new lego remote control thingy to be of much help. That's ok though because I already had almost everything done. 

Jonah helped by sitting in his swing and looking adorable. 

"Hehe! All the big kids have to clean and I get to sit here and swing! Mwahahaha!"

 

It was all SO great! 

Emma kept trying to take my picture while my mouth was full of food. Thanks, sis. 

Mom's favorite gift was from Dad. He bought her a drill! Now she can do all the projects she wants with her own power tool. 

Something neat my dad had the four littler kids do was to write down 3 things Mom does that they love. 

Landon

1. You're loving

2. You help me with school

3. You're a christian* 

Kate

1. You don't freak out a ton when we do school

2. You mack me smarter

3. You let me play with my friends

Isaac 

1. You help us with school 

2. You're kind

3. You tak us to the pool 

Jackson

1. Let's me sleep in her chair 

2. That you take me to the sand dunes 

3. Let's us find snakes 

*I didn't correct/change any of their spelling or grammar. I think it's cute. 

Jonah says, "Bye! And don't forget to appreciate your moms. They're awesome!"