Alphabet Garden

About a month ago, my friend Natalie (author of Our Berry Vine blog that I follow,) emailed several friends about "teaching our kids through play." She wanted us to compile some ideas for summer fun activities, projects, crafts...that could help us reinforce our kids' cognitive development. In otherwords, lets do something fun with a learning goal.

And I haven't really had a ton of time to think up and send out a lot of ideas...but today, I came up with one. And that's really how I roll anyway...I make a lot of this teaching/activity stuff as I go! :-)

This morning, on a whim, I decided on a fun little activity for us to do. The kids have been wanting to cut and paste things, and they've needed to practice using safety scissors. This project reinforces the alphabet, the order of the letters, phonics, uses observation skills, and helps develop fine motor. Here's what you need:

A piece of poster board, butcher paper or even construction paper
Old magazines
Safety scissors
Glue stick
Brightly colored tissue paper squares
Pencil
Poster paint

Allow children to peruse old magazines looking for letters of the alphabet. They need to be large enough to cut out. We went in order. Emma looked for "A," Alec looked for "B," etc. After finding each letter, ask "which letter comes next?" My kids would sing the alphabet song until they arrived at the next letter every single time. You can also ask "what sound does the A make?" if you want to reinforce phonics. It took us a good long while to find A-Z. I was pretty surprised that the kids stayed focused through all 26. I thought we may do like 10 letters and then pick up another day...but we made it through! After finding all the letters, we glued them down in order on the poster board.

Then, since we had all of these little tissue squares leftover from Sunday School, I had the kids help me make a "garden." You twist the squares around the eraser end of a pencil and then glue it down. It looks like a flower, or clusters of flowers if you put them close together. I let the kids make lines or circles of the glue all over the poster board, and I put flowers everywhere there was glue.

Then I added the title and let them help me write their names in glitter glue.

Then they wanted to add hand prints, so we did that with poster paint.

Their masterpiece is now hanging on the wall in their room...and they are really proud of it!

Happy Anniversary

On July 13th, Aaron and I celebrated 9 years of marriage. It's kind of wild when you think about it...how much time flies. Hard to believe that we've been married for 9 and together for 15 1/2! The actual date fell on a Wednesday, so we waited for the weekend to go out. We were planning to go to this place in Fayetteville called Savor, that supposedly has this new chef with amazing credentials...but after hearing a few "less than stellar" reviews, and seeing the most ridiculous commercial for the place on their website, we decided to go to Bordino's (also in FAY) instead.

We had some good friends watch the kids that evening. Melissa and Jon are engaged. Melissa has worked with Aaron at Walmart forever, and the kids know both of them from Aaron's softball team. They love them!

Dinner was spectacular. We both had Tomato Bisque, that was garnished with goat cheese and fresh croutons. Aaron had a steak medallion with gorgonzola butter and asparagus for the main course, and I had chicken and black eyed peas in white truffle cream sauce. So...ridiculously...good! I don't really like black eyed peas, but I'd heard the chicken dish was divine, so I went with it. They actually made them taste good. We both had white chocolate creme brulee for dessert, and it was out of this world too. And there was vino. My favorite was a red sirah/verdoh blend called Petite Petit. Very good.

We ate early, because the only reservation they had open was 5:45...so it was really quiet and nearly empty where we were seated. That is until a really obnoxious bachelorette party showed up, and ruined the calm. It wouldn't have been so obnoxious if they weren't "almost 40's" acting like "almost 30's." But I suppose it's fine. We were on our way out as they were getting their beverages.

Next year, for the big 10, the plan is to take a super fabulous trip to Hawaii. I have my eye on the Grand Wailea resort in Maui. I love the thrill of planning a trip. We haven't flown anywhere since we went to Puerto Rico in '07, and actually, we haven't so much as taken a weekend getaway since the twins came along. Yes, I realize we need to get them acclimated to being away from us, and we plan to...so it's not a major shock when we're gone for 5-7 days. So I'm really really excited...and I'll probably take the whole year to track down the best package and research all of the fun things we can do. Yipee!

The Running Post that I Forgot

Somehow, in the midst of everything going on at the end of June going into July, going into vacation time, etc...I managed to miss posting about the outcomes of the Nike Challenge and the Cancer Challenge 10K that I finished.

The Nike Challenge was set up by V and Dr. Dan. It was a team challenge. V and I ran on a team and Dr. Dan and his friend Chris (the punk that beat me in the Palm Sunday to Palm Beach Challenge last year) ran on a team. It was the Ballet Dancers vs. the Beer Drinkers. Obviously, the Ballet Dancers reigned victorious! Yay us! The boys didn't put up much of a challenge, since there wasn't an awesome prize to be won...just bragging rights. Whatever. I don't need a prize to kick some butt. :-) Just as a side note: we won the challenge by more than twice as many miles.

On to the Cancer Challenge. Several members of our church formed Team Liz, to run in honor of our friend's battle with cancer. We formed the team, not realizing that by the time the actual run took place...we'd be running in her memory. I think we all put a lot of spirit into the task, remembering how well Liz ran the race of life. We miss her dearly, and were all so glad to be able to run for her cause. After the race, we compiled our numbers and all signed a hat to give to her mother.

The course was stinkin' hard! There was one ridiculously long hill, that gave me a little bout of mental Tourette's as I was climbing it (I only stopped running to get a few sips of water) and then as I was rejoicing over that stupid hill being over...in the distance...are you freaking kidding me?!?!?!?! another stinkin' hill?!?!?! Yeah, it was. It was shorter but steeper. At least it was over pretty quickly. But those dang hills really did me in! Oy!

Even with the dumb hills, I managed to shave off a little over 3 minutes from my Race For the Cure 10K time. I was pretty stoked about that.

I haven't actually gone running since the Cancer Challenge. I was a little burnt out and I had a littile tendonitis happening in my left ankle. After the run, I was pretty much laid up the rest of the day after we got home. Had to ice and elevate. After a few hours, it went back to normal.

I'm going to go to the gym to do a nice little 2 or 3 mile run today. Need to get back into the swing, but I also need to get some new shoes...so we'll see how my feet do.

I have to say, I loved the experience being a part of Team Liz. It was so awesome to be surrounded by my church family, really dear friends, working hard and striving for a common goal and purpose. And then, as we all crossed the finish line, to have our team mates there cheering for us and encouraging us, and doing that until the last member crossed the line...it was really awesome. I couldn't help but think about how it will be like that as we cross the finish line of life. How cool will it be to get to heaven and be met by friends and family, cheering us on...and to cheer on others as they enter eternity! It's going to be amazing!

Here are some pics!

Team Liz

Rocking in on to the finish line

Almost done

So happy to be done!

Official time 1:03:42.9 (better than my last race at 1:07)

Nice and sweaty!

Texas Adventures

With Titi V

Gonna find some treasure!

Examining shells

Beach Babies

Galveston

At Discovery Green

Walking in Downtown Houston

PaPa giving Alec a frisbee lesson

Me and the girlies

Girlies and bubbles

Surfing at the Park

Aaron, King of the Rock

Tres Primos (3 cousins)

GiGi took us all out to Red Lobster

The Brothers Davis

Youngest to Oldest (Alex, Andrew, Aric, Aaron)

With GiGi

At Splashway!

Throwing rocks into the Guadalupe.

Painting in the shade.

Slip-n-slide!

Usually, every summer about the first weekend in June, we go to Aaron's family reunion at Dixie Dude Ranch in Bandera, Tx. This year, his Uncle Larry is getting married (to a woman he met at DDR, who was also a "Dixie Dude lifer.'") The wedding will be at the ranch in September, and so both the reunion and wedding will take place then. I think September might be a nice alternative, since it probably wont be 110 degrees then...maybe.

So, since Aaron had a bunch of vacation days to use and we really wanted to see all his mom's side of the family sometime this summer too, we decided to take a vacation down there.

First we hit Houston/Galveston. We stayed with my best friend, V, and her hubby, Dr. Dan. We went to Galveston beach that Saturday. That was the kids' first beach excursion ever. Aaron was able to show off his MAD PARALLEL PARKING SKILLZ, because when we got there it looked like there was no way we were going to find beachside parking. It looked like we were going to have to pay and walk. But somehow Dr. Dan spotted a miraculously empty space at like the very last nanosecond, and miraculously there was no one right behind us, so that Aaron was able to brake, and back right on in. Perfect! I still can't get over that.

We enjoyed our day at the beach very much. We packed a lunch/snacks/drinks to take along, and just played in the sand, sun and surf all day. The kids really enjoyed digging around in the sand, finding a treasure trove of seashells, and of course the water. Alec, a bit more than Emma, to be sure. He thought he was good to just swim right on out into the deep, but Aaron kept a handle on him. His favorite thing was wave jumping with Daddy. Emma took a lot longer to make nice with the water. She just wanted to sit in the shallow water with Mommy. Eventually, she decided to wave jump too. We had an awesome time, and then went back to Titi and Dr. Dan's for some RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME Cuban food. They treated us to take out from their favorite restaurant. Aaron and I split this sampler with fried pork chunks, steak, shredded beef, black beans and rice and plantains. Holy moly! And then, to top it all off...the BEST arroz con leche I have EVER had! Seriously, to die for.

Titi and Dan were super hospitable. They were very thoughtful about making sure that there were kid friendly foods in the house, and didn't mind surrendering their tv/dvd for A & E's entertainment. We all had an awesome time!

From there we headed home to Victoria (after making a quick stop by Discovery Green downtown in Houston). V had been telling me about this really neat park that has fountains for kids to play in, a playground, all sorts of fun stuff. So, we went by there to let the kids splash around a bit, and then took off.

We spent Sunday afternoon and all the next week in Victoria, with a few trips to Goliad. Aaron's brother, Aric and his daughter, Cira (who is almost 3) were there too...which was awesome, because all three kids got to play together and had so much fun. I'm so so grateful that Alec and Emma have several cousins so close to their own age. My sister and I just had eachother...no cousins our age. So, I feel like it's a really big blessing.

We spent our days enjoying family, letting the kids play in the pool, on the slip-n-slide, at the park, at Aunt Linda's with playdoh and bubbles and frisbee, visiting HEB, and the list goes on. PaPa Davis took us all to a waterpark outside of Halletsville (Splashway) one day. It was so fun...perfect for the kids. They had a blast!

We returned home Saturday, the 9th. We all had such an awesome visit, and really appreciated the family time. Love us some TEXAS!!!

The New Teaching Situation

Oh my gosh, it has been a busy few weeks. Two weeks ago I finished up another Nike Challenge and training for my second 10K. Last week was spent getting ready to go on vacation. Today is the 4th of July! Happy 4th to all! We are here in Victoria with Aaron's family. I will devote a whole post to our adventures while in TX after we get back home...but the purpose of this post is to explain my new teaching situation.

So, for the past few years, I've worked for a place in Bentonville called Classical Ballet Academy (CBA). I've taught modern and ballet for a few hours on Monday nights. One Friday a month (usually) during the school year, I'd go down to WAB in Ft. Smith to teach company class.
And that's been the extent of it, because carving out enough family time in the evenings is of utmost importance to me right now.

CBA was a great studio situation. Really one of two studios in the entire NWA area that really specialized in true classical ballet programs.

So, two weeks before end of year recital, the director told me that CBA would be no more. For starters, she'd gotten divorced from her husband in December (I had no idea.) And apparently because it was not necessary, she never took a salary for herself from the non-profit academy and company that she had built. So, there was that. Secondly, all but two of her teachers (me and someone else) were moving, having a baby, going back to school, etc. So, long story short, she was going to transition and get a "day job" and going to lease her studios to a dance entity called Infiniti Performing Arts, (while still hoping to be able to teach a few evening classes and possibly to continue to direct another Nutcracker.)

So, basically, it was my prerogative to work as a ballet instructor for the new dance entity. Infiniti was originally set up as a dance, cheer, tumble place. The dance part was largely committed to competition preparation, with a few "rec" classes available for your regular Jill of the street. The dance director had always wanted to have a "legit" ballet program, but since all of the real ballet teachers were already taken, she'd send her dancers to CBA to get their ballet technique. She understands the fact that ballet is foundational to all of the other forms of dance that they offer.

So, I was a little uncertain of what to do. Part of me wanted to run like hell, because the thought of actually being employed by a "competition studio" made my stomach turn. I figured I could just go work for my friend at the "other real ballet studio." But then part of me really felt for all the CBA dancers that truly were pursuing ballet as serious dancers, that basically felt that they'd been dropped and had nowhere to go. So many students and parents came to me hoping that I'd stick around so that their kids could continue to take ballet or modern with someone familiar. So, I agreed to go ahead and teach there.

I'm continuing to be a "one day a week" girl...because I'm not ready to devote any more evenings away from my family. But on that one day, I'm working my butt off. And it will be even crazier in the fall. The past few weeks, I taught 4-9:15 with no breaks. Sr. Rep Team ballet, Int Ballet, Int Pointe, Adv Ballet, Adv Pointe. No, 5 hours isn't really a long day, but teaching 5 straight hours of ballet can make anyone loopy. I've been covering the 4pm class for a friend. After the holiday break, I'll go in at 5:15, so that will be easier.

In the fall, I'll add morning classes on Mondays, since the kids are in MDO. Probably a creative movement, adult ballet, and Zumba. And the new director is wanting to schedule me from 5-10 in the evening. So, Mondays this year will pretty much knock me out. (I've never worked anywhere where classes go so late. I don't know if I can handle teaching until 10. 9 yes, but 10 is doubtful. And I can guarantee that the dancers that are coming from CBA will not stay at the studio past 8:30.)

So, I'm kindof getting my feet wet under the new label and direction. Attendance has been low because it's summer, and because communication of the actual schedule has been almost non-existent. That's another story.

I'm determined to stick it out for a year, and see how it goes. I will also be teaching a modern class for the other studio I spoke of. My friend who owns it will set it up so that Alec and Emma can take Creative Mvmt. while I teach modern. That will be another day of teaching, but earlier in the afternoon, and I don't have to worry about childcare...so its fine.

Okay, I think that's most of the info about that. I've been trying to find the time to post about this for a while...but I just haven't had the time to get it all down.

I will try to get some pics up of my last 10K and some of the pics we've taken so far on our trip if I can find the camera cord.

Happy 4th of July!