Monday, April 23, 2012

The Twins Style

Today when I told the twins to get dressed this is what they came up with and I totally thought that these outfits embodied their personalities. Above is Emily - she loves leggings and skirts and shirts with some kind of embelishment. There always has to be some shade of oink in Emily's outfits and she loves to pose for the camera. Also, if you look close you can see a band-aid on Emily's foot. She is definately my most accident prone child at the moment and tends to have a boo boo somewhere at all times. Below is Elizabeth - she is definately my little tom boy. She loves caps and hats, tennis shoes, and overalls. She actually set these close out for church yesterday and it was quite the power struggle trying to convince her to wear a dress. She thought I was being pretty silly taking her picture, so the best I got was a half smile with her hands in her pockets. These girls are definately becoming best friends and the difficult moments are getting less and less as they get older, just in time for our new addition to make his or her arrival in October.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Ballerinas and Monster Trucks

We had a very busy weekend and will have several busy weekends for the next few weeks. On Saturday, we got up bright and early for the Idaho Dance Fest competition. We arrived at 7:30 a.m. and didn't leave until 8:00 p.m. with the exception of taking a lunch break. Abigail's dance teams did well and really, I thought all of the other teams did well too. I thought the competition was a good representation of dance in Idaho. At the end of the day the dancers did a dance down. A Dance Down is where a choreographer teaches a dance and then the dancers are judged according to memorization, personality, and technique, there was also a freestyle section. There were four categories Novice (age 5-7), Beginner (age 8-10), Intermediate (age 11-14), and Advanced (age 15 and up). Abigail was in the Novice category and she WON! I was shocked. There were about 30 other girls in the Novice age group and she was the last dancer standing. The judges give the dancers a ribbon if they want you to sit down until there are three dancers left and then the dancers do a dance down. Lots of pressure and kind of scary if you ask me. There are two runners up and a winner. The winner gets a trophy and a certificate. ABI WON! I was laughing and about to cry and her little heart was beating so fast, but she worked that dance floor. Proud mommy moment for sure! I am so bummed though that I didn't get a video recording or picture of it. I wasn't prepared for the outcome that is for sure. Her other dances Yellow and World of Toys did well. Yellow got four stars and a technique award and World of Toys got five stars and a high score of the day.
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This picture is of Abigail and some of the "toys" in her dance. Abigail is the toy soldier, there is a bear, jester, ballerina, and a doll (the doll didn't want to be in the picture).

Below is a link to the World of Toys dance. I have to say that this dance wasn't Abigail's best performance, you can tell that she really has to go to the bathroom and the distraction of having to "go" makes her get off beat for a little bit. I am still proud of her though, even if she is doing an underlying potty dance. She is the toy soldier in the front of the soldier group in the red shirt. The one in the white shirt is a little boy.
Abigail has become really good friends with a little girl named Maddie Long at dance. They are buddies and really cute together.
This is one dedicated dance dad! He woke up at 6:30 to cook Abigail french toast for breakfast before her competition. I was just going to feed Abigail a bowl of cold cereal.
Since we experienced all things girly at the dance competition it was time to get in touch with our red-neck side and go to the Monster Truck Rally. I don't think I have ever seen the ISU Holt Arena so full. And wow, there were some interesting walks of life that came out of the wood-works for this show. Darin got free tickets because he had to work after the show hauling away the smashed cars. It was a fun and EXTREMELY LOUD experience.
This truck was the girls favorite. It's name was BIG FOOT!
Sometimes the trucks didn't make their jumps over the cars and they had to be towed away.
We got some pretty good shots with our camera. Too bad they were blurry.
This was a tow truck. Elizabeth was pretty mesmorized by the moveable hood.The girls had fun at their first Monster Truck Show. What a long day! 12 hours of dance and 3 hours of Monster Trucks. Everyone slept well after all was said and done.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Let's Go Fly A Kite

The twins got kites in their Easter baskets and we didn't have to wait long for a windy day. They had a blast flying their kites and the kites only got tangled in the tree 4 times, flew over the house twice, and got tangled up 3 times. The funniest thing was watching Mr. O'Malley go "nuts" because he couldn't catch the tails of the kite.

Monday, April 9, 2012

These pictures are kind of in reverse order, but oh well, they give a short re-cap of our Easter weekend. The picture below was of the girls in their Easter dresses, they sure looked cute despite the tears.

Elizabeth was ecstatic to get her first glove and ball from the Easter bunny. She didn't want to put them down all day, hence the tears in the above picture.
The Easter Bunny came. The girls didn't get very much candy, but they did get stuff for t-ball and softball, a Frisbee, kite, hula hoop, and some coloring books.
Our ward had their Annual Easter Egg Hunt and Pancake Breakfast, the girls made off in the candy department.

Box Fun

What can occupy a child longer than any other toy? Well, the answer is a BIG BOX. I can't remember why we got this box, but when Darin emptied it, it became an instant toy for the girls. They played with it for hours and had a blast until it was completely annihilated.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

New Dresses

Grand Nan sent these dresses a couple of months ago. This was the first Sunday that the grils agreed to wear them all on the same day. Little cuties! Thanks Grand Nan.

Technical Moves

On March 17th we headed up to Idaho Falls for a dance competition. DSDS did great and rocked the competition! I was especially proud of Abigail when the different age groups did a Dance Down. Her group had about 50 kids in it and Abigail was in the top 5 remaining dancers. Good job Abigail! She is a quick one and LOVES to dance. Abigail is above in the purple leotard and crazy socks learning the choreography for the dance down. Below Abigail is doing her World of Toys dance in the soldier costume. This dance won a Platinum award and the Judges Choice award for her age group.