Happy Valentine's Day!

Clara didn't have school yesterday (Lincoln's Birthday), so we spent our day getting her Valentines ready... all SIXTY of them! :-)

We walked over to Michael's to get the last of the supplies that we needed. When we got home, we sat down and assembly lined them out. Here are some of the finished treats...
(please ignore the fine dusting of sugar that I can now see on my coffee table)

They turned out really cute, but the process made my kitchen table look like this...
It was worth it though...Clara was so excited when we found these Valentines at Walgreens. She's very into collecting pin/buttons, so these were perfect!
Hope you have a great Valentine's Day!!

the pre-dance photos...

Saturday while Clara was still in ballet (and I still had some natural light), I decided to take some detail photographs before the dance.

I started with the shoes I had just picked up for her. As luck would have it, she outgrew her dressy shoes about two weeks ago. So, I, of course, waited until the last possible moment to get a replacement pair. I picked up two pairs for her to try right after we dropped her off for ballet (a marathon day of 4.5 straight hours). They were the only two left in her size. I hoped one pair would work.

Jeff and I looked at both pairs and determined this pair the winner....
We were sure this would be the pair that she would pick. I took lots of photos of that pair of shoes.

I took two photos of this pair...
Guess which pair she picked.... yup... the second pair :-)

Mango sat on the couch watching me photograph shoes...
I'm sure she thought I'd lost my mind.

Some dress details...
One of my favorite things about the Daddy Daughter Dance is the timing. It's right after the holidays and right after all of the holiday dresses go on clearance. Clara and I pick a day and camp out in the dressing room at Macy's and try on every single dress left in her size. She has so much fun! And also because the prices are fantastic... I let her have free reign to pick out whichever dress she wants.

Here's the one she picked (the jacket is a separate piece)...
I'm not sure I loved it at first and may have even tried to persuade her against it at one point. But I remembered my pledge to give her free reign with the decision and let her pick it.

I ended up LOVING it and I think by the attitude in this photo...
she loved it too!

The part that stresses me out the most, is hair and make-up. I can actually do age appropriate make-up okay... but I stink at hair. I even considered making her a hair appointment, but in the end, I just couldn't justify it.

However, I think things turned out just fine...With some guidance from the woman at Claire's, we decided to go with a side bun using one of those donut things....
The whole style went perfectly with her dress and it was really easy too!

Showing off her nails...
Basketball was cancelled on Friday night, so after school we went and had her nails done. A woman who was there for her appointment got so excited about Clara going to the dance, that she helped her pick out the perfect color and was the one who suggested the glitter top coat. Very fancy :-)

And finally, the happy daddy-daughter duo....
off to the dance!!

Way to go Alex!

Alex had a great day at ski club yesterday!!

First of all, he came home with this...
Third best time of all levels competing! He was so excited about this! He had managed to keep it a secret until he got off the bus. He had texted us about the race, but had kept all of his answers pretty cool, without letting on about his medal.

The other surprise he had for us, was that he got promoted up a level in lessons! He was very excited about this as well. He had thought that it was coming soon, but he didn't know if it would happen or not since we're so near the end of the season.

I have a bunch of photos to post from yesterday as it was Daddy Daughter Dance night! Clara and her friends went again and had a fabulous time! It's so much fun getting her all dolled up for this each year. I'm just sad that we discovered it so late. They don't have many years left of wanting to do this... but as long as they all want to do it together, I think they'll keep going at least a couple more years.

My friend and I took the "big kids" out to dinner. We had the worst service ever, but it didn't bother us a bit. It was nice to hang out and chat without someone hovering over us to vacate the table. It was a really good evening for all!

(today, my son has requested that I take him shopping so he can by a Valentine present for a girl at school... yikes!!)

I'm so over...

... the snowboarding photos. I still have another day and a half that I haven't posted... but I'm over them. Time to edit and post something else. Maybe I'll go back to them... but, then again, maybe not. :-)

Last month was Clara's ballet class's parent observation. I ended up going two of the three days, but took very few photos. First of all, her class is pretty big now and uses center barres. I was sitting in the "obstructed view" section for barre work and had very few opportunities for a clear shot of Clara. I took a couple of photos but, there are barres and the limbs of the students at those barres in all the photos. I took very little video as well for the same reason.

I did get a clear shot of her during pointe...
This was my first official time to see her in her pointe shoes (I had peeked through the window on a couple of occasions). I took a couple photos, but then mostly took video. She was having an off night, so it wasn't her best outing.

Her teacher thought she was doing well enough to do center for the first time though! Clara decided to stand right directly in front of me so I could see her (she was so proud to be doing center). However, I only brought one lens and she was too close for me to get any full body shots (and too close to video as well). So, I decided to take some snaps of her feet in her pretty pointe shoes :-)


She has a long way to go with pointe, but she is really off to a great start. She has really started to take the core strength that's needed seriously and does crunches everyday. Her teacher complimented her over the weekend about how much stronger she's gotten recently!

almost done...

I'm almost to the end of our winter break photos... I promise!

On Thursday, we woke up to a beautiful day...
(there's no one we know in the photo above, I just thought the sky was so gorgeous that I needed to snap a pic)

The kids had decided that they had had enough of lessons and they were ready to snowboard on their own.

So they got geared up...



And did a few runs in Totem Park...


Before heading over for the real deal...



They were so excited! They had the day planned, which included LOTS of snowboarding! Well... let's just say things didn't go as planned. It was the most painful thing I've ever seen, watching them try to snowboard down a green run. First of all... it took them FOREVER! I seriously could have crawled down the mountain faster than they came down on their snowboards. Clara gave up mid-run and just laid there in the snow, sobbing, hoping someone would just pick her up and carry her down. She was doing really well previously, but she totally lost her confidence and just didn't want to do it anymore... but mid-run was not the best time to decide this. She finally made her way down once she figured out that coming down on her own was her only option (unless she just wanted to spend the day up there). Needless to say, they were done after that run and we packed up and went back to the house... sigh.

2nd lesson...

The next day, the kids had a full day snowboarding lesson. While they were gone, I decided to try something new at the spa... a 80 minute pedicure with a hot stone foot massage... it was wonderful!

Anyway, when I went back to pick them up at 4:00, I did see progress!
Until Alex wiped out...
And what do you do when you wipe out and your little sister goes zooming by you? You do what any good brother would do....
.... you throw snow at her as she goes by!

Clara was actually doing quite well at this point...

But now she's down...
And Alex is back up...
They were doing well enough to try a green run, but no one else in their group was ready. Their fabulous instructor, Nate, told the kids that he would take just them down after the lesson was over. Here's what the end of that run looked like...



It was painful to watch! Nate must have the patience of a saint! They took FOREVER to come down the run. They fell so many times! But they had their first "real" run under their belts, and decided they were ready to go it alone the next day. But for right then, they were EXHAUSTED and were ready to go home! :-)

snowboard lessons

On Tuesday the kids were so excited to have their first snowboard lesson! We had only signed them up for a two hour lesson, because we weren't sure how well they would like snowboarding.















Turns out that they liked snowboarding a LOT, and two hours wasn't long enough for them to "get it". Thankfully there were two slots available in the all day lesson the next day! :-)

Crystal Mountain has such fabulous instructors! The kids have had lots of different instructors over the years and they've all been great. However, I think Nate may be one of their faves!

quick list...

... and then I'm going to work on photos (so there may be another real post later!).

1. Alex's school has been selected to beta test a new piece of fitness technology aimed at middle school age kids. He, specifically, has been selected to sit on a panel of five kids representing the school during this beta test. They did their first interviews on Tuesday. They should be getting their product in about two weeks. Alex is really fired up about it! I'll post more about it when I get the OK to do so.

2. Clara has started rehearsals for the school musical. She found out at the first rehearsal that she's not just a townsperson... but that she was picked by the dance/drama teacher to be in a group that will perform special dance numbers throughout the show. Next week is her first specific dance rehearsal... she's pretty excited!

3. Alex has discovered the world of Minecraft! They played it at gaming club last night and he begged for an account all the way home. So, when we got home, he gave me the money for it and we signed him up. One of the teachers at school set up a server for their group and they were all on there, playing together last night. I'm thinking that Alex is going to need his own laptop or I will never be able to use my computer myself again!

4. Clara was sick all weekend and is finally coming out of it. It sure seemed like the flu with high fevers and such. Now she's just congested, but, honestly, that could be due to the springlike conditions we've got going on right now.

6. Bought Alex new church clothes for when he speaks in church this Sunday. Found out yesterday that they are going to have him wear a Bears jersey (he's speaking about the Souper Bowl of Caring), so I didn't need to go shopping after all! Oh well... he needed some dressier clothes and I got them at a really good price! :-)

5. Neither kid has school tomorrow! It will be fun to have them both home with nothing really to do!

Okay... I think that may be all for my list today! Now to edit photos!