Molly is such a creative little girl! She loves to play with all of her toys, figurines, and Barbie dolls. Although I've moved all of her Barbies upstairs to her room, they have slowly all made their way back down to the living room slowly over the summer. Here's a setup she had for some of her Barbies under a table in the dining room. I thought it was so creative and fun to see!
Lucy started taking dance classes when she was three years old and has always done a good job at dance. I know we are her parents and might be a little biased, but she truly is a good dancer. She did such a great job at her last recital! She had a smile on her face the whole time, was so graceful with her moves, and didn't seem to miss a step.
Last week the dance studio we went to sent out an email with the fall class schedule. While I was looking through it I received another email from the dance studio stating a specific class they would like Lucy to take in the fall. I was so happy and proud to read this email! I'm so thankful they see how good Lucy is and want to help her continue to excel at dance. Here's the email below:
I hope you are all having a wonderful week! Our Fall schedule is now live and we couldn't be more excited to hopefully have your family and dancer join us again this upcoming Fall. The Dance Canvas staff have met and hand-selected some of our stand-out young dancers from this past season and created classes specifically for them and their level and progress. Your dancer was of course one of those stand-out students! If you are planning to enroll your dancer, the class I'd like to steer your dancer towards in the Fall is the Starlet Junior class! If your dancer was in the Starlet Junior group last year please know that this will be a continuation from where they left off and not a repeat class. We really strive to keep dancers with other kids of a similar level so they can grow together and also create friendships within their classes as they grow and learn together!
Thursday 4:35-5:35pm - Starlet Junior 8-12yrs (Ballet & Jazz) with Miss Genevieve
The girls have been asking to make tie dye shirts this summer and I finally said yes! We did these one day last week and it was actually pretty fun to do! We set up a work area in the garage, prepared the shirts and dye, and got to work! You can watch them work on it a little bit here. Both shirts turned out really good!
I let the girls dye their hair with Kool-Aid last week! Molly had been wanting to do this for quite a while and I said why not. I looked up how to do it, we bought the Kool-Aid mix, and got to work! It wasn't hard at all and was a quick process really. I just boiled two cups of water with the packets of Kool-Aid and the dye was ready to go. We found a chart online telling what flavor of Kool-Aid to use for what color hair you wanted, so that part was pretty easy. I put their hair in a ponytail and let the ponytail soak in the Kool-Aid mix for about seven minutes. I pulled out their hair, dried it off, and they had colored hair! Lucy's turned out really good due to the length of her hair. Molly's was a bit spotty in where it was colored because her hair is a little shorter.
It was fun to do and they enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind to try it again, but first want to see how long it stays in. Some articles I've read say the color stays in for a long time, others say it fades pretty quickly, so we will see!
I have written letters and cards to family and friends for as long as I can remember. Even when I was a little girl in elementary school I would write letters to my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I don't remember a specific starting time of doing this, but it has stuck with me through my entire life and still to this day at 42 years old I send letters and cards to family and friends. I would imagine my mom encouraged me to do this because she would forever be writing letters to her parents and often times we would have to rush down to the post office in town to beat the mail pickup so the letter could go out on that day.
I remember writing to my Gramma Ward recently and commenting on how the information in my letters has changed over the years! When I was in high school I'd write about the sports games I played. When I was in college I'd write about all my classes and tests. When I was out of college and working I'd write about my job, my exercise classes, and my training runs or climbing trips I'd go on. When I met Ross I'm sure my letters were all about Ross, and then now they are probably just all about Lucy and Molly!
Last week I got a surprise in the mail from my Aunt Cheryl. She sent me an envelope full of some letters I had sent her over the years that she had saved. There were also some newspaper clippings I was featured in from our local newspaper that she had received. I was so surprised and happy to get this mail! She said she'd been cleaning out lately and came across these and thought I might enjoy having them. It was such a treat and also fun to think that she saved some of my letters! That means a lot to me and was such a special surprise!
I try to get my girls to write letters to their friends and our family, but they're not too interested in it. I hope this changes and they find enjoyment in sending people letters and staying in touch!
We went to Omaha last weekend to celebrate my Gramma Ward's 93rd birthday! My sister rode with me and the girls for the trip and my parents took my nephew, Trevor, with them the day before. My dad and Trevor worked on the to-do list Gramma had for them. It was a nice time visiting with Gramma and seeing my aunt and cousins.
Friday night when we were there a big storm came up and ended up knocking power out to most all of Omaha and knocking down huge trees all over the city, too. Gramma was out of power from 7/10 until 7/13! Thankfully it wasn't too hot up there and she got along okay without having her A/C on.
The girls had fun staying in a hotel and were thrilled to finally get to use a luggage rack the hotel offers for moving your luggage in and out. :) I hope I'm like Gramma someday when I'm 93. She lives alone, in the same house she's lived in for 70 years, rides her bike most everyday, and is in very good health! She is quite an example to live up to!
We have some really great neighbors! I watched their son after school for quite a few years and we have become good friends with them. Mike is quite the jokester and always seems to find a way to play a joke on us, well, mainly on me! One morning I had this "slow, children at play" man outside while the girls were playing. We went to the pool for the afternoon and I left the slow man out. When we got home I went out to bring it into the garage and saw a beer can taped to its mouth. I laughed and had no question in my mind of who did it....Mike! I did go back on our security camera and look at the footage of him walking over and taping it on. I sent the video to him with a snarky message, and of course, he replies with an even snarkier message!
I'm glad we have such nice, fun neighbors...even if Mike does tend to pick on us some!
