FFF - Summer lovin'

This week's theme is summer lovin'. I'm late posting it, but better late then never. One thing my girls (especialy Caitlyn) are loving this summer, of course, is dancing! But I figure that subject is pretty well documented already. All three girls are also very excited that we joined a community pool. So, here are a few swimming pictures.

Wacky Walker Week

A crazy woman (me) planned our schedule for this past week. I knew it would be busy, but it was just all so fun! It was a bit busier than even I figured as we ended up not having time to come home between activities, so we had some loooong days. And some tired girls :-), since they aren't used to late nights and early mornings. Kelsey was an especially good sport hanging around at a bunch of activities that weren't hers. Here's a run down of our week...

Soccer camp (Keegan) X 5

Keegan at soccer camp. At the end of the week, she won an award as "Most Improved" in her group.

Kelsey at soccer camp #1 (she is holding her drink on her head.)

Caitlyn at soccer camp (maybe she thought she was still at ballet camp :-).

Kelsey at soccer camp #2

Pizza Party (Caitlyn) X 1

Ballet camp (Caitlyn) X 5

Kelsey, Keegan, and their friends at ballet camp

Caitlyn at ballet camp with the visiting professional. This guy was SUCH a great teacher - very technical and demanding, but encouraging, too. Caitlyn learned so much this week.

Gymnastics (Kelsey ) X1



Birthday parties (Keegan and Kelsey) X 2

Kelsey made these adorable flip flops at a friend's birthday party

Partnering class (Caitlyn) X 2

Caitlyn said this is her, "Am I doing this right?" face.

ShowTime rehearsals (K & K) X 2

Dance performance (Caityn) X 1

Caitlyn warming up - "ow", again.

Voice Lesson (Caitlyn) X 1

Soccer scrimmages (Keegan) X 2

Go Keegan! Most of the time she was the youngest and smallest in her group, but she has spirit!

And that's it for this week. Crazy, I know, but it all was so fun. This week, though, we're going to spend a bit more time at home!

Bye, bye butterflies

The time finally came to release Kelsey's butterflies. Bill told her she had to do it Sunday or Monday, so she let them go the very last thing Monday night, and stayed outside until the last one flew away. She was happy, though, because one flew back across the porch "to visit" while she was out there :-). She totally loved these butterflies.

Cute Keegan Quote

"When I get to heaven, I want to run and give Jesus a big hug."
She is SO sweet!

FFF - Daddy and me

Theme of the week - Daddy and me

Looking for these made me realize I need to capture more of those sweet Daddy-daughter moments. It's hard to believe that there is ANYTHING I need to photograph more, but it seems that most of my sweet pictures are pre-digital camera.

Bill and Kelsey in the Nutcracker last December.

Helping Daddy paint the porch - Hooray!

With Caitlyn at the NutcrackerI cheated for this last one. It is a picture of a picture (the big glare was probably a clue :-). but I HAD to include it because it is one of my all time favorites.

Butterfiles

For Kelsey's birthday, a friend gave her a butterfly raising kit. It was apparently the perfect gift at the perfect time, because she absolutely loves these butterflies. They have fresh flowers in their cage and regularly receive fresh sugar water. Today, Kelsey took the cage outside and sat with it for a while, "so they could get some fresh air." She also wanted me to cut up a fresh orange, thinking they might be tired of the slice we gave them as a "treat" yesterday! A painted lady butterfly - I was pleased that all 5 caterpillars successfully made it to the butterfly stage.
For those of you who haven't had this experience yet and wonder about the red spots on the cage, sometimes there is excess coloring left in the chrysalis when the butterfly emerges.

The Little Mermaid

Caitlyn and Keegan both had a chance to participate in a musical with the Missoula Children's Theater. It was a very silly version of The Little Mermaid and they enjoyed it very much. I was impressed with the program. Two ladies kept 38 kids under control and having fun all week long:-)!

Keegan enjoying the cast meeting on Silly Hat Day.

Keegan the seahorseThe group held auditions Monday morning, rehearsed all week, then performed twice on Saturday. Caitlyn is the top left, with red on her bonnet. Her group is reacting with oh so much horror because the king doesn't like their suggestions of names for the new baby prince. To give you an idea of how silly this play was, Caitlyn's suggestion was, "The artist formerly known as."

In the evening show, Keegan got to sing a solo. Here she is, giving her, "Yahoo!"

Caitlyn is in the yellow bloomers and brown skirt. That is the prince in the center of the circle and a couple of mermaids of the far left.Lunch in the lobby on silly hat day. Caitlyn is on the right.

And finally, the finale - Caitlyn is on the left again.

Normally I don't take a lot of nature pictures (I focus mostly on my children, in case you hadn't noticed :-). Last night , though, the sky was so beautiful, I just had to share it. Isn't God an amazing artist?

FFF- Bloopers

Hi everyone. I have been having computer problems, able to post or use Hotmail. MAJOR withdrawal for me:)! Hopefully it is taken care of now and I can catch up, but if I disappear from computer world, you'll know why.

This week's theme is bloopers, those pictures that somehow didn't turn out quite like you hoped. When I saw that I immediately thought I wouldn't have any because I delete all my bad shots as soon as I load them. Once I started looking, I was surprised at how many I found.

Caitlyn was trying to get lipstick off her tooth.

Apparently Keegan's treat didn't taste very good.

The "oops" in this one is that Caitlyn has 3 arms. Kelly if you read this, those are Karly's arms :).

OK, I didn't know the next week's theme would be "bloopers" when I said I wouldn't post the picture of the giant soccer ball flying towards me:-).

HA!

A lovely family portrait.

Last but not least, this final picture just cracks me up.

Theme pictures

A friend of a friend chooses blog themes each week then a bunch of people post on that theme. I don't know if I'll always do it, but decided to try it for a while anyway. Starting with a bang, this week's theme is MESSY SPACES. (Maybe she likes to humiliate people - hmm, why am I posting these for all the world to see? Oh, well, it can keep me humble :). Anyway, here goes....

Caitlyn and Emma creating Polly Pocket world in Caitlyn's room.

Christmas morning - messy is a requirement then, right?

Sorting hand-me-downs. What a huge blessing (and a fun job, too :).

Do messy girls count?

And finally,

cleaning up, so hopefully we won't have so many of those messy spaces!

Bill finally mowed

Ha, ha. I'm not being mean. He suggested I put that :).

Recital Pictures

Finally I am posting pictures from the dance recital in May. One advantage of our school is that the kids get to be in several dances. For Scottish Highland, they got to do as many of the dances as they wanted. In addition to their Scottish, Kelsey did one ballet dance, Keegan did 4 ballet dances, and Caitlyn did a lot, plus choreographed one herself. This is the dance Caitlyn choreographed, so it has the most pictures :). Actually it was near the end of the show. It is Caitlyn (left), Keegan (blue skirt), and their friend Hannah. They danced to "In God We Still Trust." Caitlyn, leaping high, (officially a saut de chat) even after eight or nine other dances.

Keegan on the left. Look at her point that toe.
Caitlyn in the gold skirt.


More pictures from Caitlyn's dance. Caitlyn and Keegan above, doing arabesques. We had to pin in about 6 inches of the waist of the blue skirt, so I was very glad it stayed on Keegan. These 2 pictures are showing how together the girls are in their dancing. I was so proud of Caitlyn and Hannah that on these saut de chats they were perfectly together! And so tickled that I have the picture to prove it ;-).


Keegan saluting at the end of the Sailor's Hornpipe. Kelsey below in the Scottish finale. Really I just wanted to show their sweet faces. Slightly ironic that as I write this I stopped to send both of them to time out, but we'll just ignore that little issue and focus on how cute they look!

Keegan is the second from the left, doing a great job of pointing her toes again.

Mommy guilt & Poor Caitlyn - Caitlyn (front right) had been wearing tan tap shoes to class. For this dance, she needed black. Instead of dyeing her tan ones, I sent some other black shoes we had. Little did I know that she had grown JUST the wrong amount. We thought they fit all right, but during the dance, they tore up her toes. She danced her next 9 dances with hurt toes. I thought she seemed tired, but never knew she was hurt until after the recital was over.

Kelsey, kneeling, at the end of her dance. Ta-da!

Another Caitlyn leap. I like those. Can you tell?

Cute Keegan Indian brave - ready for the pirate and Indian music from "Peter Pan"

Caitlyn, Keegan, and Hannah running through their dance at the studio, before heading over to the gym.


<--Keegan and Caitlyn with our pointe shoe cake.


With the soccer party and the recital, this was a big cake week for us! I had planned to set the heel of one cake on top of the other. That was until I tried it twice. Once the top one slid off, the other time it fell, messing up parts of both (frosted and decorated) cakes. That was about the time I decided it would look cute arranged this way! :)








Keegan's group warming up at the studio. Keegan's back is to the camera, in the Indian shirt.