Leah's Dance Recital

Thought I would share a few pictures from Leah's recent dance recital. She is learning tap & ballet and she is loving every minute of it. I did take some video of the recital, but I can't figure out how to get it from the card to the computer yet. I also took it sideways, so just shows how much i know about doing the video thing right now...

Anyways, here is Leah dancing to one of the tap songs:


And doing some of the moves with some of the ballet stuff mixed in:



Walking with a bean bag on her head, they are working on balance (Leah had also done this in gymnastics, so she knows what to do here):


Sitting and hanging out waiting for the music to start:


At the end of each class all the girls gather with their teacher to tell what their favorite part of class was & to get sprinkled with fairy dust:


My mom & Ian had fun watching the dustings after the recital. Hope everyone enjoys the pics. If I figure out how to do the video thing, I'll try to post one here.

Catherine

New Swim Class

We recently started a new series of swim classes after taking the summer off. Ian is now in the Big Pool, which the depth starts at 4 ft. deep. He was a bit nervous before the class (as was I), but he managed to jump right in at the beginning of class:



His new teacher is wonderful. She had him swimming in no time, and Ian did great listening for a change of pace.



Here he is half way through the class & is all smiles. He had so much fun that first class, and is still really enjoying being in the deeper pool. He wants to swim under the water now & his teacher is trying to teach him the strokes on top of the water, so we're working on it a bit.


Leah is still in the kiddie pool that only goes about 3 ft. deep total. She is still working on getting her kicking down in her class and she finally hit a milestone in her last class, she finally put her face in the water! She's had a real fear of going under the water, so this was a huge step for her. She wears the goggles & ear plugs because of her ear tubes, so that gave her some comfort.



On the way out, they have a new display in the lobby and the kids of course have to put their faces in the holes now every time we go swimming. Leah is in the mermaid side & Ian is in the sea king side.



Hopefully the kids will continue to learn & progress in their swimming skills so we can eventually take classes here on our base. Leah is the slower swim learner, but I'm excited by her progress. She has always been more timid in the water, even in the bathtub, so getting her comfortable in the water is worth the drive to the nearby air force pool. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures.

Catherine

School Carnival and more...

First of all, I'd like to thank my sister Christina for letting me use some of the pictures that she took while on her trip here from Memphis.

We went to the Elementary School Carnival tonight & the kids had a blast. I'm thinking they are going to sleep well tonight!

They played the "fishing game" and Ian is here looking at his prize he got while Leah sees what she got:

They also both had fun in the bouncy houses. Ian went into the bigger kids bouncy house:



Leah went into the one for the smaller kids:




We had dinner out there & each kid got some cotton candy & popcorn, so they were very happy campers.


Since I know Marc will also be happy to see a couple other pictures of the kids, here are they kids before Leah's ballet class:


And also here is one of us at home & the kids were waving at Christina & there I am in the background trying to get out of the picture.


I hope everyone enjoys seeing a few pictures of the kids & I hope all is well with all of you!

Catherine

Soccer Ian

I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a soccer mom. So far we've had 2 games & I've had a hard time watching both of them. Ian had fun his first game. Here he is before the game:



and, of course Leah had to have her picture taken too:


These beautiful sunny pictures are from Ian's first soccer game. It was a glorious day & Ian's team wound up winning 6 - 2. Ian had more fun pushing around the other kids than actually kicking the ball, but it is pewee soccer. His # is 11.


This foggy, kind of hazy picture is from today. Ian still had more fun pushing around the other kids until the coach told him to not push his own players also...sigh,
so Ian wound up in a bad mood & didn't want to play in the game anymore. Hopefully next week will go better. His team won 2 - 0 this week.


At the end of the games, they were taught to go & tell the other team "good game".



So, we'll see what this week brings. We have 8 more games still to play! Hopefully I'll survive the season. I'm sure Ian will. His skills get better with each practice, so maybe one of these weeks he'll actually focus for the game & enjoy chasing the ball a bit.

My Paris Pictures

Since I've been nagged on Facebook for my pictures from Paris, here they are! I actually took a few, but wish I had taken a few more in Normandy. Oh, well I think I had 8 total & here are 4 that I thought were decent.



Here is the view of the Arc de Triumph from our spot on the double decker bus.



Here are Ian & Lynne listening to the talk on the bus explaining where we were.


Leah also listening in to the tour (I think). She just liked having the ear bud in her ear for awhile.

Here is my daytime shot of the Tower. The red dot at the bottom is the traffic light we had gotten stopped at. I may have to have Marc photo shop it out, I actually thought this was the best picture I took. Hope everyone likes seeing my shots of Paris!

Catherine

Picking Up Ian From His First Day of School

I could barely get Ian to stand still long enough for me to get a picture of him after school. He thought that he was going to get to ride home on the bus for some reason (we walked both ways, we're only 4 blocks from the school basically). We also had to get Leah over to dance class today, so we went from the school to the playground and then over to dance class, dropped off Leah & then Ian and I came home for about 20 minutes before heading out again.




Here he is after I told him to stand in the corner of the doorway for me for a minute.

Here is Ian just before I could get him to stand still. He was still engrossed in everything going on around him at the new school.

He had a fantastic day playing and learning with his friends. We made sure to do his homework and part of his learning is by my reading to him, so I have started to log books that I read to him.
All in all a good day. The kids fell asleep right away at 8 and I'm off to bed shortly myself!

Catherine

Ian's First Day of Kindergarten

Today was the big day & Ian was really excited to get to Kindergarten! He had a hard time sleeping last night he couldn't wait to get into his class.



So, here he is getting his sneakers on before we headed out the door to walk over to the school.


Waiting outside for Mrs. Obermite to come take the kids into class. Yes, it was a bit chilly this morning in the 50's or so.


Finally time to go into class. He's the one with the red sweater/spider man backpack. He was third in line & ready to go! I'm not even sure if he said bye to me. He just went & had so much fun.