FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL...(INSERT SAD TEAR)!

The day finally came that I had been dreading. I was excited when Emma started kindergarten, it was a new expierence for both of us...but it's true what they say, once they start school, everything changes and time goes by way to fast. Knowing this, I have been dreading Eli starting kindergarten, I knew it wouldn't be the same anymore.

Sunday Jared and I had to give the Sacrament prayers. I said the closing prayer and while I was giving it I asked that the kids starting school the next day would make good friends who would be good influences on them, that they would learn and grow, blah blah and I cried. What a boob. A few people came up to me afterwards and asked if I had a kindergartner starting tomorrow - was it that obvious?!

Right after church we sat the kids down and had Jared give them their back to school blessings so we would still be in church clothes and have a better spirit about us. It is amazing to me how many different times I have been wondering/stressing over things and wanting to make sure I make the right decision and then the answer comes to me through someone else's priesthood blessing.

I have been wondering what to do with the twins, do I start them in kindergarten next year when they are actually the right age, do I keep them back a year so they are that much older and bigger (a little "red shirting" involved I will admit), but also, they are my last, they are my babies, I am in no way wanting to get them out the house, I want them to stay home as long as possible :) During Tyson's blessing he was blessed that he, "would grow physically, mentally and emotionally this year and be ready to go to kindergarten next year." Ok! I got the answer, loud and clear! Jared was worried about Emma and her dance and school this year. During her blessing he paused for several minutes while he cried and tried to gain composure of himself...yes I peeked and saw the twins pointing and whispering ever so quietly to each other about how daddy was crying, Eli just kept his eyes closed and his arms folded and a couple of times Emma ever so sweetly would rub her hand against Jared's hand to comfort him while she waited for the next words to come out of his mouth. Jared's answer was also very direct, she would continue to work hard and learn how to balance church, school and dance and would be very successful at all of them. The kids all received great blessing that they each needed.

Before we all took Sunday naps, Eli and Emma picked out their clothes for the first day of school. Eli didn't really care at all about it, he just wanted to play with the twins, but Emma, well she was a different story. She layed out several different outfits including shoes, bows, jewerly, etc. After they picked out the perfect first day of school outfit, I ironed them and got them all set for the next day.

Just before 7am on Monday morning, Eli and Emma came into our room first thing and announced that our 5th grader and kindergartner were up and ready to eat breakfast. Emma had requested eggs, bacon and juice. After breakfast I satarted doing Emma's hair while Jared helped me pack their lunches, we got their notes in there and he finished getting Eli ready. Once they were all ready, we said our family prayers and took our traditional first day of school pictures. I just love these pictures of Eli. He is truly happy! 

 Eli's new Avengers backpack

 The twins were pouting on the couches until they could get in on some of the picture action

 On our way to the bus stop Eli informed me that he has never been on a bus before and that this was his first time :) Maddy, Emma and Eli. These 2 cute girls are all prepared to take care of Eli this year!

Here comes the bus!

If you look close you can see Eli waving excitedly out the window!

After the bus drove off, Jared took the twins home so that Stephanie and I could drive to school and meet the bus there and make sure the kids got off and got to class ok. See how I am getting better, I didn't follow the bus this time (ok, only because Emma was on there and knows exactly what to do).

After Eli got taken to his classroom by another teacher, I went in and watched him for a minute. The teacher showed him where to put his backpack, his lunchbox and he sat down ready to go.

Right before I left the teacher said, "Raise your hands if you know why we wash our hands after we go potty" Eli quickly raised his hand and then I was happy he was actively participating in class and felt comfortable enough to do that, phew.

 

Stephanie and I went home and Jared took off for work. At lunch time I dropped the twins off at Stephanie's house and she watched them so I was able to go and help out in the cafeteria with all the new little kinders. Eli was so happy and was having the best day. That boy is the slowest eater, but he must have been starving...I have never seen him scarf his food down so fast, it was hilarious. Sandwich gone, cookie gone, drink gone and most of his chips gone, they all would have been gone if he hadn't run out of time :)

As I was leaving the school, I saw Eli on the playground surrounded by a bunch of boys, I rolled down my window like a good stalker mom and watched him for a minute with the biggest smile on my face, I shouted his name but he didn't hear me. So I grabbed my camera and took a picture of him starting a rousing game of hide-and-go-seek!

When I got home the twins were buggin'. They were bored. They had never gone this long without Eli to entertain them. They kept following me around, calling my name, Jared was home for lunch by this time and he was cracking up. I shouted Eli's name in hopes he would magically appear and of course he didn't, but then the twins said, "Where is Eli? We want Eli? Where is he?" as they started to look around for him.

To entertain ourselves we decided to make Emma and Eli some first day of school cookies. The twins washed their hands, dumped in all the ingredients and helped me roll the snickerdoodles and dip them in sugar. Look closely at the picture, the cookies are in one corner, they are not balls and they only are half way covered in sugar. After I quickly fixed them while they weren't looking we put the pan in the oven and it was off to bed for them until it was bus stop pick up time. 

 The bus finally arrived and the kids got off and were hot and tired  :)

We had to hurry home and get Emma ready for dance and the boys were excited to share their homemade cookies with them.

Here are the responses to the kids first day of school:
Emma: (who was nervous this year because for the first time she was going to have new kids in her class and a new teacher she knew nothing about) I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Ms. Whitehead. She is so nice. I have such a good class. I even made a new friend with Penelope by just asking her when her cousin Mercedes started dancing! People loved my outfit!

Eli: My favorite thing is computers at school, they have a lot of computers. We played on the playground 2 times. We watched a movie and did the chicken dance. (I did ask him if he even learned something and he assured me he did!) He also let me know that he had a new friend and when I asked what his friend's name was he said, "I don't know but I can play at his house cause we have the same pants!"

Eli takes a nap every day. I kept my camera with me all day waiting to snap a picture of him crashed out somewhere. He never went to sleep at all until bed time. Then I was just positive it would be hard to wake him up in the morning, but when I went in there I found him quietly sitting on his bed playing my iPad. When will he crash? Any bets?

All in all the first day of school was awesome for all of them.

I want to remember how awesome Emma's 3rd and 4th grade teacher was, she even sent me a text the first day of school to see how Emma liked her new teacher and to make sure she had a great first day! 

PRIME TIME DANCE NATIONALS

Live and learn, I guess. This year's dance nationals was very different from last years. The one good thing, it was a lot cheaper because Palm Springs sucks and there just isn't a whole lot to do there. We did go shopping at the outlets and did go shopping in the LA Fashion District, but other than that we danced and went swimming.

The competition was lame. It was spaced out over 6 days and Emma basically did a dance one day, nothing the next, a day the next day, nothing and then all the dances again...or something like that. I felt like it was a lot of wasted time and we could have crammed the whole thing into 3 days. Emma decided to have a dry coughing attack each night as we were getting ready to go to sleep and then wake up again between 3-4 am and continue coughing. Cough drops and cough syrup did not help and she could careless and slept right through and so did the girl we shared a room with,  but me and Elsabe, well that was a different story. Jared and Elsabe like their sleep. You don't mess with it. I am actually surprised Elsabe didn't strangle Emma, she was that annoying with her cough. The last night I made Emma sleep in the bathtub at 4am to try and get her to be quieter. Elsabe and I decided to save a lot of money and stay in a different hotel that was not the host hotel. Yes, we saved money, but that was about it. We ended up driving back and forth to the host hotel every day, using their pool because ours was boring with just the 4 of us and we just felt out of the loop being away from everyone. We will not be doing that again, from now one, lesson learned, always stay their the dance competition is, even if you do end up paying more money!

I could go on about more of the negatives of this competition, but I wont. It is always fun to see Emma get up on stage and do what she loves to do, it is always fun to escape for a few days with her away from the boys in the family and it is nice to see what the other studios do so you can see how you can improve and see the things that we do that we like better.

This was the last time the girlies performed their trio, Footloose. At least they went out with a bang and it was the best I had ever seen it look! Great job girls!

Sunday happened to be Father's Day and we were bummed out we couldn't be home with Jared taking care of him, but since we didn't have dance that day, the next best thing to do was to drive into LA and shop in the fashion district. We went with Stacia who knew all the tricks of the trade. I had always wanted to go there so that was fun. Emma and Bella were so good shopping for 5 hours with us. They never complained once!  They loved buying their new purses and nerd glasses...

and even posed for some big 'ol booty pictures!

Each night we would end up at the host hotel and the girls would swim with all the other dancers. For some reason this year the big thing was making human totem poles...


The girls were a little excited to finally arrive at our hotel after driving 5 hours :)

The nationals this year was live on the web so Jared got to turn it on and see most of it live while Emma was dancing! (Emma is back point in this picture)

The girls and their "Roll It" trophy. This is the little dance that could. It was super hard and technical and it finally got the recognition it deserved! 
 
One of the things I love about being gone away from my boys is Jared will send me lots of pictures via text and they always make me smile :)
Eating Chicken Tortilla Soup...

Playing with water before they went swimming at Grandma Joyce's house

Eating ice cream cones...

They get bribed to eat a good dinner and then get dessert afterwards...

Sunday morning Jared had to go wake up the boys for church and this is how he found Tyson and Tyler

I had a great time with Emma and the Muriettas, but I was super excited to come home to my boys :)

DIAMONDBACKS/DODGERS BASEBALL GAME!

Jared won 4 tickets at work to go to the baseball game. Yes, just 4. Everyone assumed we would take the older two, that just makes sense, easy split up. Nope, not so much this time. Little Miss Emma gets to do A LOT, so this time it was someone else's turn. Eli had to go because he loves baseball and would get the most out of it. As for the other winner, well, since Jared didn't want to take all 3 boys himself we did a pros and cons list (out loud not on paper, does that make us less nerdy?). Tyler came out the big winner, but just so some day when Tyson reads this, he won because he would have thrown the biggest fit when we left him at home with Grandma and Grandpa, so thank you Tyson for always being so willing to do what is asked of you!

Grandma and Grandpa took Emma and Tyson out to Chick-fil-A for dinner (Tyson's favorite) so that they could do something fun too! When we were all leaving to go our separate ways, Tyson saw that the other 2 had baseball hats on and he wasn't about to be left out of that so he ran and grabbed one too! How stinking cute is he?!

 Since the Diamondbacks were playing the Dodgers and we have reasons for liking both, we decided to represent for both teams.

After we finished watching batting practice and when we finally got to our seats the boys were excited but mostly were excited to finally get a treat at the ballpark...

 First choice, snow cones, but since we couldn't find any, the next best thing was cotton candy!

 

 Tyler being my non-big-fan-of-sweets eater, only took a few bites and then he was done. He then requested to have some pizza! So pizza it was. He was so funny about having to carry his own pizza box down to his seat!

 

 

 After pizza it was back to cotton candy! But this time around both boys were saying how much they missed Tyson and wished he was there to eat it with them, ok melt my heart.

 

 Tyler made have gotten a little bored during a few parts....

 The boys loved doing the claps with the crowd and made sure we were all clapping. They loved standing up and cheering and watching the balls get hit way up high!

 

 

As soon as we got home, Tyson was so excited to tell us he got root beer and an ice cream cone from Chick-fil-A and Tyler had to quickly tell him he got cotton candy!  We had such a fun time with these boys and hope to go back again with all 3 of them!

 

 ps - Jared wishes that someday he can be so important that people are paid to vacuum up his spit out seeds :)

ELI'S FIRST SHOPPING TRIP!

Each year before school starts I take Emma out on a little mommy/daughter date and we do lunch and shop for new school clothes, she loves it, I love it, its a win/win really - except for Jared who has to pay for it all, ha ha :) This year I was most excited to take out Eli for his first back to school shopping trip, but even better than that - it was his first time shopping for his own clothes! Usually I just buy them when I am out and he has no say in it, this time I was going to let him  pick them, with my persuasion influencing him of course.

After we hit up 3 stores I could see he was fading quickly so we grabbed milkshakes to drink on our way to do more shopping in the mall. The milkshakes were a great pick me up. Shopping with Eli is not like shopping with Emma. She can go and go and go and loves it all. Eli on the other hand had more fun walking around all the racks and playing hot lava with the tiles on the ground through out the mall. As the old saying goes, "when you can't beat 'em, join 'em," so I joined in too. After we bought 6 new shirts and only 1 pair of new shorts, I told him we needed to go get some more shorts so we needed to go to another store, his response, "CRAP!"

This store was very successful and we found tons of shorts and while I was looking for more, he found it rather amusing to hang the shorts on my purse strap, whatever it takes to make him smile :) He did enjoy trying on all the shorts in the dressing room and he insisted that as soon as we got home, he was going to put on his new clothes and I had to announce to the family, "Here comes handsme (handsome) Eli, doo doo dooo (the trumpet noise)" So I did and he came running out modeling his new clothes. He is funny. I thoroughly enjoyed our shopping trip together and hope he will join me again next year.

12 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Every year on our anniversary would go stay at a resort somewhere in the valley overnight to celebrate together. Randi would always tell me how she loved that about us. Then in 2008 we did not stay at a hotel for obvious reasons - the twins were going to come any day and we didn't want to book a hotel and not get to stay there, then in 2010 we didn't either because in May we went on a cruise to celebrate our 10 yr anniversary, last year was to crazy with Jared just getting back from Oregon so this year...we HAD to go.

We booked it at Gainey Ranch, the last time we stayed there was in 2001. We enjoyed ourselves and went out to dinner, walked around the resort for a bit and then yes, at 10:30pm we crashed and went to sleep for the night. PATHETIC! Birthdays, recitals and baseball championships had worn us out!!!

To make it even more pathetic, we had my parents who kept our kids overnight, drop Emma off at dance the next morning and then bring all the boys to us at the hotel so we could swim and play with them. Sheesh. We have issues :)

The boys really enjoyed themselves and that made us happy! We did end up going out that night to dinner again for some more alone time :)

NRG CONVENTION!

My favorite dance convention so far out of 3 years of going to them. NRG (pronounced energy) gave our studio scholarships to take a bunch of kids for free since our owners are friends with them. The girls had such a great time and got to dance their bootys off. The classes were smaller and the instructors I felt like were more hands on. The convention was Saturday through Tuesday. She had so many great opportunities through them....

The second day part of their classes was learning a little dance routine to dance in a little video for a dance crew that was popular on America's Best Dance Crew, The ICONic Boys. The girls thought they were hot stuff!

Earlier in that day they were taught a contemporary piece by Lauren Gottlieb from SYTYCD. The dance was hard. But, as an exciting moment, she is in charge of this year's choreography piece for SYTYCD National Dance Day. She taught it to the girls and then had her camera crew come in and video tape all the girls doing it and she is going to give it to the show in hopes they air it...Emma is so excited!

On Monday they had their big ICONic Boys, MI5 and Code 5 concert.
 
 While the girls waited forever for the concert to start (they got free tickets, again because our owners are friends with them, otherwise people were paying $75 for them, no thanks!) they all sat in a circle and played the slap game
 
Electrolytes also made a quick appearance since they had just won ABDC...

The girls enjoyed the concert and really got into in the end, but mostly I think they were getting slap happy from being so tired!


Afterwards all the groups were signing autographs and our girls wanted to get some, but the lobby was packed and we would have been there for at least an hour and we just wanted to get home! As we were pulling out of the parking lot I spotted the groups walking around to enter the lobby...we stopped the car, I grabbed the girls and we ran up to them and I said to Rustin (the guy who is in charge of NRG and friends with Andrea and Stacia), "Hey! These girls are with SAS Dance Studio, can they get a quick picture with them before they go inside?" He was awesome! He stopped the group and they came back and posed for pictures with the girls, they were thrilled!

The last day was just a quick 2 hour day, but sadly I missed the best day. Tiffany was kind enough to take Emma for me so I could stay home with the boys since I hadn't been with them for the last few days. That day the entire faculty taught the girls all a dance that incorporated each of their different dance styles, the kids LOVED it! Then they had their final class with Lauren Froderman, also from SYTYCD. Emma had a class with her last year and loved her so she was excited to have her again. Emma was most excited though after she taught the kiddos the dance she said to everyone, "where is my orange munchie?" (she called all the kids, munchies and Emma was wearing an orange shirt) Emma raised her hand and she told everyone how Emma was giving her exactly what she was looking for as far as emotion, faces and dancing goes. So she had Emma come up to the front and then she had another 4 or 5 kids and then they danced it for everyone to watch. I got a few texts from different people telling me about how cute and exciting it was. I was sad to miss it, but so excited for Em! Way to go Emma!!

We loved this convention and hope we get to go back again.