Deep Thoughts By Kaitlyn

While eating graham crackers with Kaitlyn at the table:

Kaitlyn:  Where are these crackers from?  Are they made in China?  Everything is made in China!

Family Reunion - Porter Edition

My brother, Matt, and his family drove down to Texas from Ohio in early June.  We hadn't seen them in about 3 years.  It was so good for the kids to get reacquainted and just to hang out with Matt.  We just wish their stay was a little longer.  Matt's boys just really wanted to swim so we did lots of swimming, played some Just Dance (Grandma got in on the action too), and spent a day at 6 Flags (A pretty empty day too, we rode rides over and over again).  Laurie even flew out a joined us with her youngest.  It was almost a complete Porter reunion, we were missing Laurie's husband and older boys.  Maybe next year.

It's Dy-no-mite!

 Tan girl

The last ride we rode with the kids was a new one for us, I can't remember what it was called but it spins you while you go on the coaster.  Matt and I were riding with Kaitlyn and she started freaking out as soon as we started picking up speed.   I was laughing too hard at her reaction and the ride I showed her no sympathy.

Matt sat across from us on a boat ride so we were facing him.  He was trying to get a picture of the group.  Another family sat in front of us and was directly now in front of Matt.  Matt pretended his record for holding in the throw up on  a ride was 15 seconds.  The kids in front were getting a little worried.  Matt acted out that he was getting sick and made us all laugh.  Next time he'll have to play it up a little more.

At the end Matt really wanted to ride the Superman ride so I joined him.  It was fun listening to Matt scream a little bit.  Good times.

 Laurie's youngest was born a week after Alec.  They happen to have matching Pjs!

Father's Day

My sister-in-law gave me this great idea to put the kids faces on a tie for Todd for Father's Day.  She made one for my dad for Father's Day with me and my siblings faces.  It was a fun gift to give Todd,  it might be a traditional thing now - who knows.  Todd was a good sport and wore his tie on Sunday and  I just wish I took a picture of him wearing it.

Last day of School

The last day of school came and went back in May.  I was Kaitlyn's room mom and was involved a bit in her Kindergarten class this year.  We were nervous about putting Kaitlyn into Kinder since she turned 5 the day before school and most of her classmates are a full year older than she is.  We didn't need to worry because Kaitlyn did great!  She made some good friends and excelled at school.  She loved going and she learned so much!  Kaitlyn is ready to tackle 1st grade!

Abby's class had their party right before Kaitlyn's and it was so much fun to see their Minute-To-Win- It party.  Talk about loud chaos!

Abby made the A honor roll again this year with straight A's and received the Responsibility award in her class.  She had a strange situation with her teacher at the beginning of the year going on maternity, having a sub for 8 weeks and her teacher not coming back and getting, basically, a 3rd teacher to finish the year.  She handled all the changes very well.  We are so proud of you Abby and all your hard work!

14 months- Alec

Alec is now 14 months and is just as cute as ever.  He is walking now - he started walking on June 22nd.  That morning he just decided it was time and walked across the living room.

-gives kisses

-waves good bye

-loves to dance

-weighs 22 lbs

-likes to swim

-points

-has a very loud scream

-still wakes up around 6-6:30 every morning

-cries if he can't see mom

-loves to dump crayons, markers, toys, anything on the floor

-likes to throw things away in the trash can

-likes to go down slides and swing

Alec's birthday hat that Kaitlyn made for him.

 Likes to try and put socks on

walking around!

 Happy little boy!

Dancing

 The girls look darling in their dance costumes.

 Ahh dancing.  Abby had a friend in a Jazz dance class that talked us into joining back in November.  I thought it was a good opportunity for the girls to learn something different and to see if it's something they'd like to pursue.  Since I put Abby in Jazz, there was a Combo Tap and Ballet class around the same time for girls Kaitlyn's age we signed her up too!

By the time Feb. rolled around, Abby was done with dance she wanted no more.  Her attitude rubbed off on Kaitlyn and both complained every Tuesday when it came time to go.  What it came down to for Abby, was that she just wanted to stay home and play and not have to go to another class.  We had already paid the recital fee for the May recital and had already had the costume fee so I felt that after we shelled out a couple hundred dollars the girls were going to have to stick with it and go all the way through to the recital.  I was also hoping for an attitude change.  That never came.

The recital in May finally rolled around.  Both girls were a little more excited once they got to wear makeup and get dressed up.  The whole family came to the dress rehearsals, one the night before the performance and one the morning of the program.   Abby was performing in the evening and Kaitlyn in the morning and I wasn't about to make everyone sit through 4 hours of dancing!  Kaitlyn's morning dress rehearsal took forever and was behind.  We then had to drive 30 minutes back home, quickly grab something to eat and head back up to Kaitlyn's performance.

Kaitlyn was all smiles and sass during her performance.  She did a great job in both numbers and she was really cute to watch.  The end result was a positive one for her but she says she'd like to try gymnastics next.

Instead of having me drive Kaitlyn home and then get Abby and drive back up, Todd just had Abby dressed, dropped her off and picked up Kaitlyn.  I was just lucky enough to stay all day at the high school performance hall.  The one snafu was that Abby had left her belt at home!  Ahhhh!  I was just frustrated at this time with how some of the day was going (ran out of programs, they tried to kick us out of our seats between performances, long dress rehearsal, the cost of it all for one dance, forgotten belt, it all put me in a sour mood) but Todd was so great, he drove back home and back up (30 minutes each way) to get the belt.  What a dad!  I decided I needed to quickly change my mood to make it a good experience for Abby and let her have her moment that she worked on all semester.

Things did go much better.  Abby was very happy to have her whole costume back together.  She had a great smile, performed her best, and screamed at the right time during the finale curtain closing.  Abby too ended on a great note but just like Kaitlyn, would rather not go back into dance at this time.

So ends our experience in dancing until the day comes they ask and beg to dance again.  It will have to take a lot of persuading to go through this again.  And just to let everyone know, I should have listened to Todd back in February and pulled the girls out.  Lessons learned by me.