Old Friends, New Friends, Dancing and Dinosaurs

Early June arrived and it was time for Frank to trek to the annual Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention. Oh, and also Stella Dot's 4th birthday!  Single parenting for the weekend, I was desperate to fill the time.  Luckily, we had play dates and parties to attend!!

Here, Stella Dot's friend Stephen takes a break from leading the group on a treasure hunt at the park. 

Stella Dot and her Dora cupcakes.  Needless to say they were gobbled up promptly.  Stella Dot got lots of goodies, cake and pizza were eaten, and juiced up kids were running wild -- very successful party!

After nap that day, Maddie met a new friend, Sarah, at Monkey Joe's.  Monkey Joe's is a huge building filled with nothing but inflatable jump houses and screaming, shoeless kids.  It is always fun and wonderfully exhausting for the kids.  A perfect 100 degree day activity.

Sarah is the daughter of a coworker and a very energetic little girl.  She and Maddie jumped and bounced until we carted them off for chicken nuggets.

Mason finally played in the tiny bounce pit for his age group.  It only took him five tries and some crying spells, but he was a happy kid once he got the hang of it.

Fast forward a week.  Our garden is now starting to produce some.....er produce.  Here we have our first ever green beans from our garden and a hiding cucumber.  This is the first year we've grown green beans and Frank and I made a bamboo tee pee for the vines.  Only three plants this year until we see how they yield.  Maddie and I ate the entire cucumber that night.  Yum!

The green beans were eaten that night too.  Fresh and free.  Well, if you don't count the hours Frank has spent watering the garden and the medication for my many mosquito bites while weeding the garden.....so basically free (smile).

After her first taste of s'mores, Maddie is now an addict.
The gooier, the better she likes it.

Maddie's dance recital was June 10th.  A few days before, I invited my Mom to come up to see Maddie's recital and she made it work.  We didn't tell Maddie that Grandmama was coming to visit until the night before.  She was excited about everything...and we were nervous.   Maddie has been taking some tap and ballet classes through a special instructor who visits the day care and teaches a group of girls.  We were in Germany for last year's recital, so this was the first one we'd been to.  It was a long day and a big night because it was on a Friday and she had her end of the year party at a park earlier.

  She told me all about her ballet costume and how she would wear a yellow bow in her hair....haha.  We told her to just do her best and try to remember all the steps.....and that there would be a lot of people watching!  The theme was Toy Story so all the kids were dressed like different characters from the movie.

A very tired Mason made it through the entire recital -- which ended at around 9 p.m.!!  Frank and I were so very proud of her.  She had been asking for ballet classes and I think the recital convinced us that she is definitely in her element when she's dancing.  She absolutely glowed and did a good job remembering her steps. 

Maddie quickly put on her costume before the show.  My little ballerina!

The flash on my camera didn't work too well for zooming, so this very dark photo is all I got of her actual ballet performance, but Frank videotaped the whole thing!

Mason was kept entertained by a toy shark that Mama and I pretended was going to chew off his finger...He loved it and cackled the whole time.  He really was a great boy during the very long recital.

After ballet came the tap portion of the recital.  The girls were dressed up like cowgirls....Maddie's costume was so long she kept pulling it up so she could tap.  So funny, but she had fun anyway.

After the recital, Maddie got a bunch of pink roses from Grandmama.  All smiles here!

Another photo at home.  I promise I did not tell her to pose like this......really.

And an outtake.....

Saturday was filled with fun with Grandmama and then she headed home.  On Sunday, we made plans to visit the Dinosaur Trail at a local museum.  Mason is obviously ready for a journey to the jungle.  Maddie, not so much....

The dinosaurs were very close to scale, and very lifelike, but this was the only one you were allowed to touch...um, and sit on.

Maddie practices her dinosaur roar. 

Mason is not sure what to think.

Ah, finally made it to the butterfly house.  Say cheese, guys!

Some of the other kids (girls) had butterflies landing on their hands, so of course Maddie wanted one to land on her also.  We tried and tried and finally, with the help of a sympathetic volunteer, a butterfly found its way to Maddie's hand.  It stayed there so long, we had to move it back to the volunteer!  Maddie was ecstatic that the butterfly "really liked her"!

Last week, Maddie went to Vacation Bible School every night after day care.  I helped teach Maddie's VBS class of 19 four-year olds from 5:30 to 8:15 every night.  Maddie and I both had fun but are glad to get back to our routine.  We missed Mason and Frank!!  Now Maddie has started a summer ballet class with Stella Dot and will start swim lessons in a week. 

Meanwhile Mason has started telling us "no" a lot, and if he doesn't want something we try to feed him, he tells us, "no! you!"  And points to us. Smart kid.

Recap of April-May Happenings

Easter seems like so long ago and yet I have no posted pics to show for it.....until now.

Our Easter was actually great except for a little bloody finger issue with  Maddie, who thought a crayon sharpener was for fingers also.  We weathered through a tornado near our house, and the kids learned to take shelter.  We had a beach trip and several parties.  And even met some new friends.   I'll let the pics and captions do the talking:

Here, after the bloody finger incident, Maddie finally returns to the decorating table to sprinkle crayon shavings over a still-warm boiled egg.  The egg turned out great, Maddie learned that not all Easter eggs are plastic and Dora band-aids saved the finger.

Maddie dyeing an egg for the first time....she loved it!

"Hey, there's a basket in the planter."

Maddie helping Mason find his Easter basket.

On Easter day, we went to my family's annual Easter Egg Hunt at Great-Grandma's house.
Here, Mason sees how many balls he can carry.  He is such a boy!  

This was the first year Mason really "got it" and he had fun finding all the eggs, but there's some heavy competition now -- four great grandkids and counting....

All the great grandkids (Maddie, Brendan, Mason and little Noah).

Cheese face.  He knows what "cheese" means and
uses his cheeks to their full potential (smile)!

Uh, are we out of these toddler snacks??  Mason is a huge snacker but not great meal eater....We have tried everything and the pediatrician says to keep doing what we are doing. He is not wasting away, though.

Self portrait of Mommy and Mason snuggling.  Such a sweet boy.

Mason helped set up for a party by removing all the juice boxes from the ice tub.....
He probably would have removed the wine bottles also if he could've lifted them!

One of Mason's favorite things to do is put a bucket on his head....
hey, whatever makes him happy makes us happy.

You da woman, Mommy!

  Mason during his nightly naked time.  Maddie and Mason both have a few minutes every night before bath or dressing for bed where they run around naked like wild things.  If Mason doesn't get his "naked time," he gets very, very, very upset.

OK, I'm sure I'll get some emails about this, but sometimes I miss doing little girl hair. Maddie won't let me do much with hers and uh, Mason's was getting kind of long and I was playing with it.  And the pigtails just happened.  But isn't he beautiful just the same?? 
And yes, I plan to keep these photos forever and show them to his first girlfriend.  I think she will laugh with me, no?

Strawberry pickin'.  Maddie was happy for about 3.5 minutes until strawberry juice got on her hat.  She had a tantrum, had to be taken to the car, and I finished picking with Mason.  Not one of our finer family moments.

Mason helping me fill the buckets.  He was actually a huge help to me. 
I'm glad someone enjoyed themselves!

Trying to wrangle the kids for a photo in front of the giant strawberry.  No go.

A few weeks ago, we managed to make it to Emerald Isle for a long weekend at my Aunt and Uncle's place. We had some concerns about Mason sleeping, but he fell into a routine the second night.  As usual, Maddie loves the water and wants to be in it almost every second.
Mason was hesitant and preferred to be held the entire time.

I love this photo of Maddie.  She's wiping sand from her hands because as we all know, beach sand doesn't belong on your hands.....cracks me up.

Dancing in the sand while we're getting the umbrella set up.

The first day was super windy, so Mason kept his shirt on and toddled around with the beach toys.

And had a blast feeding snacks to Frank!

My Aunt left a huge Care Bear collection at the beach house.  It did not go to waste.  Maddie made a nice little nest with some of them during the lazy morning TV time.

Mason tries on Frank's sun hat.

At a local gift shop, Maddie picked out a sparkly cape (for princess dress-up of course) and Mason selected a Brachiosaurus.

Maddie is posing with  her shark's tooth necklace.  Frank spent some time combing the beach for a shark's tooth for Maddie and found one!  Then he made a necklace with it and gave it to her.  She may be a priss, but she wears that necklace every single day.....even with her pinkest dress!

Here are a few pics from Maddie's Gymnastics Showcase.  All the kids in her preschool class go to gymnastics once per week.  They showed the parents what they learned this year.

Yay for Maddie!

Maddie goofing with her buddies before they strut their stuff.

Posing with her ribbon.  She definitely knows how to ham it up!

Camping out time!  Frank has promised Maddie for many months that they would camp out in the backyard together.  Well, the time came a few weeks ago.  She's obviously prepared, and a walking contradiction.  But I love how it's all cool with her.  Let's see:

*Keen hiking shoes: check
*Eyelet lace socks: check
*Pink dress with bows: check

*Boots ring: check
*Shark's tooth necklace: check

First taste of homemade s'mores before the camp out.  Yum!!

Frank roasts the marshmallows to perfection over the fire pit.

Every camper needs a Care Bear, right?  She's ready to turn in for the night.  Incidentally, Frank thought they'd be back in the house by midnight. He was wrong; she slept outside the entire night!!! Go Maddie!!

Memorial Day water play with Stella Dot.

Maddie's friend Salem practices her beach pinup.  She's so funny...

Mason tries to see if he can push the beach ball sprinkler around the yard using only his belly.  And he did!

The three of them are oblivious to each other.  In their own little worlds.

Salem, Maddie and Stella Dot -- water buddies!

Next post: Dance recital and Dinosaur trail visit!