Dancing queen

Maddie yesterday afternoon before rehearsal, with her goofy grin...

Maddie and her friend, Lauren, after their rehearsal.

I seriously own enough makeup to fit in a small ziploc bag, and I don't really have a knack for doing hair. But she turned out pretty cute anyhow. Too bad she fell asleep on the way to the rehearsal (the location of recital is 40 minutes away) and her hair went flat by the time we got there. Sheesh, some girls there had their hair professionally done and more makeup on than I don't know what. Oh well.

Big recital night tomorrow and then again Saturday. Photos aren't allowed during the show, and group photos were taken the night of the rehearsal, and so I took a few, too.

irresistable!

The first purchase I've made for the new baby...$2.99 on clearance at the Children's Place.

and probably there won't be too many more purchases, seeing as we have plenty to go around, be it boy or girl. If it's a boy, I might have to buy some more outfits, seeing as what is packed away of Cal's will be 10 years old!!! We are buying a new crib. We really should've with Maddie. I'm sure we'll just go to a resale shop or rummage for that.

a few things...

Cal has slept over the past two nights at my Grandparents' house. The girls have been inseparable...literally. Sometimes it involved nice things like reading or playing doctor, but there has been an awful lot of wrestling and arguing and fighting. It's going to be a l-o-n-g summer.

The kids had excellent report cards, plenty of 4's (great!!) which are hard to come by (the public school gives 1-4; I find it very weird & I don't like it). While we intend on sending them to the private school in fall, curiosity still hit when finding out who their teacher would be in fall, hypothetically remaining at the public school. Poor Cal, for the second year in a row not a single close friend in his class. People he knows, yes. But his two best friends were each put in a different class as well (there are 3 different classes for his grade level). Same thing happened to him last year. He made a best friend in second grade, and then hardly spoke to him again once in third grade since they were separated. Kaycey's grade only has 2 different classes, so chances of her getting friends in class were much higher. I can't stand this method, and will never understand it I suppose. I was with the same 18 kids for 9 years, and I wouldn't change that at all.

I have been searching high and low for landscaping ideas for a sloping front yard. I am not having much luck, and will probably end up at the library. Not that that's a bad thing. And not that we are in some rush to landscape. Neither of us want a high maintanance yard anyhow. But I thought maybe there was something I could work on in the summer, besides painting the porch. We'll see. Our to-do list keeps growing!!!

Another big thunderstorm last night. This time we unplugged the *new* TV.

officially summer...

That Maddie...what a ham.

Though I'm not sure it feels like summer. Today was the kids' last day of school. Weatherwise, today was a great day. In the days ahead, not so much. I don't think it will feel like summer for a while. We will keep busy for sure no matter what the weather, with house stuff, baseball Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights thru end of July for Cal & Kaycey, Brewers games, gymnastics (for Maddie), dance day camps (for Maddie), Girl Scout camp for Kaycey, Girl Scout day activities, baseball camp for Cal, overnight camp for Cal through Camp Philip (through our church)...just to name a few things!! It'll be one crazy busy summer.

I made a few very simple cards; one for each of the kids' teachers and one for the bus driver. The kids took the cards on their own and wrote in them.

card for the bus driver

for Kaycey's teacher

for Cal's teacher

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Went to the Dr. today (nothing exciting today, but 3 weeks and 6 days till we find out if it's a boy or girl!!!) but they needed a urine sample. Maddie was rather fascinated by this. Quoting Maddie, "Wow, when I grow up I wish I could pee in a cup just like you, Mom"

nesting?

I have been cleaning and organizing like crazy. Not that I don't clean the house regularly, but I am talking cleaning out drawers, reorganizing rooms completely. Seems quite early for that whole "nesting" stage they talk about with pregnancy, but I don't know what else to attribute this crazy cleaning organizing sweep of the house to. I am super anxious to find out what we are having this time around (we didn't find out with Maddie), so I think maybe that's a little part of it because I spent an awful lot of time reorganizing the kids' rooms and playroom, in great wonder who will be sharing rooms...if it's another girl, Maddie would eventually share with baby girl and Kaycey would get her own room; if a boy, he would get the spare room and the girls would continue to share. I have big plans...don't know how it will pan out, or if Mike will allow it : ) I am sort of thinking the area in the bonus room that was to be my scrap space would make an awesome bedroom for a preteen/teen...I have big plans for the play area side of the bonus room, too. I am going to take a corner of it and create a play kitchen for the kids (white/black checkered floor, get an old or cheap sink and stick it in some cheap laminate countertop, have stools with an island/peninsula, red/white tile on some plywood nailed to the wall behind the "sink"). Then, my plan is to make it so that as they get older, we can have a mini fridge, microwave up there. A hang out place with their friends. Don't think it's cost effective to get plumbing put up there for a real sink, which is unfortunate, I wish we would've. ANyhow, so I've been getting house decorating ideas in my "off" time from scrapping. Though with all the crap I've been buying, I plan on reorganizing the scrap stuff tonight so I can get cracking!! Where would my scrap space be if Cal got the potential bedroom in the bonus room?? Well, I would love for it to be in the dining room (currently the family room, really). Don't know that Mike will go for that one. But alot of my stuff has been sitting in there for months in piles, so what difference would some more stuff be ???

I also came up with the bright idea to have a book--kind of like a journal. In it, I am putting everything I don't want to forget. Things I remember the kids saying when they were little, things I remember from school, anything and everything so I don't forget all those things I don't want to forget. Perhaps it will serve as inspiration as well as I get back into high gear with scrapbooking!!