Dance Recital 2009!

Mother's day weekend was the dance recital again this year... 2 shows on saturday, and 1 on sunday. And it actually turned out quite well, but exhausting - a lot of running around backstage! So I'm glad it's over!

The recital theme this year was "Dance Theatre Studio - On Exhibit" and was supposed to be dances from different museum exhibit themes.

Joshua was once again in the preschool movement class this year, so we filmed his dance... it's pretty darn cute! His dance's museum theme was the Benjamin Franklin Museum and the music is "Let's go fly a kite" ... get it? Our camera was acting weird though and kept trying to focus on different things so it's fuzzy sometimes, and for the 1st half you can't see Josh that well because he's behind a girl, but then he moves to the front line and you can see him better. And OOPS his shoes were untied! Some dance mom I am! geez! At least it was just the dress rehearsal. This is the best video we have of Josh because our seats were pretty far back for the actual show. Josh was really excited because after the last show on sunday he got to take his kite home :) He even tried "flying" it in the parking lot on the way to the car... it wasn't raining TOO hard! :)

Check out his bow at the end... what a little stud!

The next dance is my senior girls' rhythm tap group... they really did well this year! I was very pleased with how the dance turned out. They are supposed to be representing the "American automobile museum" or something, hence the car theme - "dancing machine" song, mechanics coveralls (in hot pink nonetheless!), and car formation at the end.

Ok, so I put up 2 videos of their dance, but for different reasons. The first is the dress rehearsal, and it was taken from the 2nd row so you can really see and hear their taps clearly... so that's nice! However, they were still trying to figure out the lighting so that's kinda messed up, and one of my girls didn't dance the dress rehearsal because she was recovering from pneumonia and she was the front wheel of the "car" at the end. Still, it looks pretty good up close...

The second dance is actually from one of the recital performances... I think the saturday matinee. Everyone was there for this, so it's probably a better representation of the dance as a whole, but you can't see as much detail since it's further away. Half of them are graduating this year... very sad! I'll miss them.

Yay! you go girls! :)

Videos of Claire and Josh

I took these videos of Claire a couple of months ago, but they're so cute I thought I'd put them up... better late than never, right?

Jason is a boy scout leader for the 11 year olds, and is gone every wednesday night for scouts.
I took this first video while he was at scouts one night... it's pretty funny!



She was trying to explain it to me, because I CLEARLY did not understand :)

This next video was also taken about 3 months ago. She knows more animal sounds now, so maybe we'll do a follow up video sometime :)





And finally, Joshua's "Pizza Perfect" commercial.... haha

Rain boots!

Winter in Michigan is LOOOOONG and very very cold...... and long. I really can't wait till spring! I needed a little pick-me-up, and I've needed rain boots for a long time, so I decided to just go ahead and order some online at target.com.... they have a TON of different rain boots, and they're all really cute! These boots kinda stood out to me:

They make me happy! :)

I got a rain coat too to go with it... it has the same plaid details.

It rains a lot here so it really is a good investment.... I keep telling myself this because I don't spend money on clothes for myself a lot.

It actually warmed up to 40 today and rained, so I got a chance to break my new rain gear in. Later when I was making dinner I turned around and Claire was trying them out!

I have no idea how she even got them on, let alone stood up in them! It was pretty darn cute though. She kept looking down and pointing, saying "mama's boots".

Happy Birthday Josh!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JOSHUA!!!
We spent Josh's 4th birthday up in Canada at my parents' house. Josh had a great day! My mom and I made an icecream cake... it was supossed to look like the fire from the rocket blasting off, but it looked pretty messed up because the icing kept sliding off! Josh was excited to play with his rocket. We made a scavenger hunt for him to find his gifts that day and we all decorated a gingerbread house together.
Joshua's favorite gift was GUM!!! We have been telling him since he was 2 years old that he could have gum when he was 4, so he has been waiting a long time for it and was very very excited :)
He had to show us his first piece!



I know, Josh's birthday was back in November, but just because his Mom is a slacker he shouldn't have to suffer..... so,

here is my tribute to my 4 year old boy! Wow I can't believe he's 4~
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSHUA BRAYDEN GILBERT!!!!!

Joshua is such a sweet, wonderful kid. He is smart as a whip and really keeps up on our toes! He is kinda a ham... loves to "perform" and act silly for people. Josh loves to socialize and has lots of friends at school and at church.
He sings songs all the time, especially when he thinks we're not listening... it's fun to hear him sing songs from the radio. His teacher tells me that he built a stage at school and made a pretend rock band! Josh loves to help his Dad shovel the snow and fix things around the house. He also loves to bake and cook with his mom! If I bake something without him he gets pretty upset that he missed out on cracking the egg.... I've never seen him drop a shell in the batter! He still really loves his trains, and even though he plays with several other things, he always comes back to his trains and includes them in his activities with the other toys.... like building train sheds out of legos.

He loves to draw and color, and has a little desk downstairs where he loves to do art. He worked really hard every day for several weeks coloring and writing names on wooden ornaments for his friends and teachers at school, all on his own motivation. He is such a sweet boy and he still loves to cuddle with me every night before he goes to sleep... he is a very sweet brother to Claire and really tries to look after her and protect her. He trieds REALLY hard to share his toys and be nice to her when she wrecks up his train tracks, and I know that's hard for him. He has a good heart.



We love you so much Joshua.... happy birthday sweetheart! :)

Joshua's 4th Birthday Party

Joshua turned 4 on November 29th and we held his party a couple of days later....he wanted a Dr. Seuss party, and we had a blast thinking of ideas together! We decorated our house really fun with pictures we found on the internet, as well as pictures Joshua drew himself of the "Cat in the hat".... I included just 2 of the several pictures he drew of the Cat in the hat himself, and then he also drew a map of how to get from the Cat in the Hat's house to Sally's house :) The kitchen looked really fun with lots of Dr. Seuss pictures, and red streamers taped to the wall to make it look like a circus tent or something. I tried my best to make the cat in the hat's hat as a cake, but messed up taking the cake out of the pan and it all fell to smaller pieces, so I ended up doing his whole head, hat and bow tie and it actually turned out alright. Josh liked it! We got these koolaid drinks that were red and blue and had funky dr. seuss looking shapes to them, and put out goldfish crackers in a fish bowl, red swedish fish scattered here and there, and multi-colored swedish fish in the goodybags. We got snacks that looked kinda funky like they could be from a dr. seuss book. We also lined up all of our Dr. Seuss books on the ledges in the living room as decoration. We even put a picture of the Grinch on the window greedily guarding the presents. The games turned out pretty fun! Insead of "pin the tail on the donkey", we did "Pin the wocket on the pocket" - Josh won because he was the only one who cheated and would not wear the bandana over his eyes, but since he's the birthday boy he was allowed I guess. :) Then we played "hand, hand, foot", which is basically "duck, duck, goose".... it was a hit! We also had the kids do a craft - Thing 1 and Thing 2 puppets! I cut up a fuzzy blue scarf for the hair and we glued it to the top of white socks, then added red felt for the "body" and white felt with "Thing 1" or "Thing 2" written on it. We added googly eyes and drew on a face with a black sharpie, and Voila!! Puppets! Before the kids left we played one last game outside - Sneetch Tag! The kids ran around and if you were tagged you got a star put on your belly (shirt), then you had to hold hands with the person who was it and run and try to catch another person...that person then got a star and joined the chain, etc. We had lots of great friends come and we're very greatful to all of them :) Overall i think Josh had a great birthday party, and later that day he was already planning for his 5th birthday! Yikes give me a year to recover! :)

After Bath Cuddles

Josh and Claire LOVE bathtime because they get to wear their little robes
afterwards. I took these pictures back in November, but they're so cute I thought I should start putting them up.
They have matching orange stuffed kitties which they both call "Tucker", after one of our real cats Tucker (who is orange and stripey). I wonder if Malea, our other cat, feels left out... ?
Josh had his kitty since he was a baby, and Grandma Grimmett bought Claire one in the summer. Josh carries his around everywhere he goes, so she carries hers around now because she sees from Josh's example that is what you're supossed to do. The only way we can tell the 2 of them apart is that Josh's is faded in color slightly, and not quite as fluffy. But for a week or so after it's freshly washed they are close to the same color. I was surprised to see that Claire can tell them apart and will make sure they have the proper cats when we're going out.
We have a spare "Tucker" hidden in the closet in case something disastrous and tragic happens and we need to replace one of them... I may stock up if I see them in the store again.... just in case!

Josh has nice teeth!! Maybe he won't ever need braces :)

I love this picture... so sweet :)

NASTY!

I know it's been a LONG LONG time since I posted, but the longer I waited the more overwhelmed I've been feeling about catching up! I will catch everyone up eventually....LOTS has happened since Halloween....Josh's 4th birthday and 2 parties, Thanksgiving, trips to Canada, trips to Washington, Family visits, preschool fun, Jason's graduation, planes trains and automobiles, Christmas, New Years, teething, snow and SNOW and MORE SNOW! and LOTS of COOOOOOLLLDDD days here in Michigan.... that about sums it up! No I will post some pictures and individual catch-up blogging... someday!

But today....today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so Josh has no school.... I was very happy to just stay home and go absolutely nowhere today! Jason has the car so we didn't have to get up early to drop him off, so we're just hanging out in our jammers. Maybe I'll even get around to taking down the Christmas tree.... maybe.

So my little Claire bear is getting quite independent, much to my dismay! She can now climb up on the kitchen chairs and retrieve whatever she wants from someone's previous meal. She not only opens all the cupboards, but now opens bags of food in the cupboards.....yesterday she came into the living room caked in white powder...all over her hands and face, leaving a trail..... I called out to Jason "Your daughter got into the anthrax again!" ... of course it WAS just powdered sugar, but it got his attention. And another big new accomplishment for Claire is opening up the toilet lid. We used to be safe just shutting the lid but keeping the door open, but now she can open up the lid so we need to remember to keep the door shut. I've caught her a couple of times dipping a wad of toilet paper in the toilet and back out again... just fascinating to her. Which leads me to today's little story....


I am very thankful my son is such a tattle-tale right now.

This morning while I was getting breakfast ready I hear josh calling from the other room... "Mom, Claire is dipping bread in the toilet, and eating it".

hmmm.... ya, 2 problems with that ...first of all, where did she get the bread? probably found it on the floor under something caked in crud and cat hair.... probably old - maybe 2, 3 days.... and stale and gross....
2nd problem: DIPPING IT IN THE TOILET AND EATING IT? yummy.

I know, I should have taken a picture.... I was just reminiscing with Lori the other day about how we wish we had taken a picture of Claire eating the cat food over the summer. But once again I didn't grab a camera.... too disgusted at the time. Besides, she had already eaten it all...only a few soggy crumbs remained on her mouth!

Maybe I should break out the baby gates again...