Ballet Routine

At the end of the girls' last ballet class, the instructor allowed the parents to come in and see what the kids have been working on. The class was a "basics" class for 3-5 year olds. I'm loving the Beauty and the Beast music!! Belle is definitely my favorite princess and her song fits my two princesses to a T! : )

The Last Ballet Class of the Summer

The girls' last ballet class was yesterday. Eight weeks just flies by! We're hoping to continue more classes as these were just "learning the basics" type classes. They both really had a blast and couldn't wait to go every week.

Ella and the Girls

Here's Ella on her birthday with her cousin Anna, who just turned five in April, and Grace, who will be six next month. I was playing around with FotoFlexer online. Very fun site! Adding frames and playing with the colors were really neat - lots of cool things you can do.

Ni Hao Kai-lan Birthday Party

On Friday, we had Ella's 4th birthday party. She decided on a Ni Hao Kai-lan party. We decided on a cupcake cake with Kai-lan on it since it seemed less messy. I also made some homemade cupcakes decorated like the sun from the cartoon with marshmallow clouds. Instead of traditional treat bags, I decided on Chinese takeout boxes with the phrase "Thank you coming to my party!" in Chinese characters. I also did personalized name tags of the secondary characters for the boxes - each of the children's names were in Chinese (the picture of the pink rhino). In the boxes, I had chopsticks, fans for the girls, Chinese candies that I purchased at a local Oriental grocery store, bouncy balls for the boys, and other goodies. I made a Chinese dragon that snaked around the room and I also decorated with Chinese lanterns around the room. For eats we had the regulars - chips, hot dogs, veggie tray, etc. - but Ella's Aunt Sarah made Chinese spring rolls, her Grandma Ruthie made almond cookies, and I made Bing Tang Hulu, which is candied fruit on skewers. They didn't turn out exactly as I planned, but they were still delicious. All of the food items and eating utensils had labels in the native Chinese (you can see this better in the food picture above). Ella wore her authentic Chinese dress and chopsticks in her hair. She was so cute! She received many wonderful and thoughtful gifts from everyone...We are so blessed to have so many fabulous family members! It was such a great day, we can't wait until Grace's birthday next month!

A New Look

For those of you who know me really well, this will come to no surprise that I have changed the look of our blog. I am never happy with the way something looks and am forever changing SOMETHING ; ) This will happen periodically, so don't mind me : )

The Best Sound in the World

Hearing a baby laugh is the best sound in the world! Rarely will Colt stay still enough to be tickled much less be recorded ; )

Dancing Colt

I caught Colt dancing this afternoon with the girls. As most of you know, I'm a HUGE Beatles fan, so seeing him dancing to "Back in the USSR" did my heart a little good : ) Unfortunately, he decided to wing the Wii remote at the wall. Luckily he didn't do any damage : )