"Little April Showers" ballet

golfdance 012, originally uploaded by MandyBowman.

Ansley dancing to "Little April Showers" from Bambi

Pumpin' Up the Party

Pumpin' Up the Party, originally uploaded by MandyBowman.

wish I could make this turn but I can't figure it out!

Ballerina Girl

Ansley's spring dance recital was full of little and big girls twirling with excitement over their moment on stage. She started getting excited weeks ago that her costume had an "up tutu" (like the big girls wear) and that Ms. Jennie told them they HAD to wear makeup- blush and lipstick! She's reminded me on several occasions that we cannot forget to wear makeup for her recital. Thank goodness the costume survived two days of pretend recitals at home, complete with her daddy singing songs for her to dance to while I tried not to laugh to the words and interpretive dance going on on the coffee table. Funny how coffee tables have always made the best stages! Finally, yesterday, the day was finally here and after dinner she got to put on her costume, makeup and all! A friend jokingly said, "hey lulu head" when Ansley walked in backstage, to which she promptly responded, "Emory, we don't talk like that today- we're ballerinas."

They tapped to Hannah "Mawntanna's" "Pumpin' Up the Party" and did a sweet ballet dance to "Little April Showers" from Bambi. She especially took the ballet very seriously, walking up as tall as she could on her tip toes. What a fun night watching all those cute little girls dance their hearts out!

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Little decorator

As I was getting things ready today for the preschool teachers' luncheon, Ansley was "helping" me line up and cut the fabric, which soon turned into her own project. She's always wanting to "decorate" things, which usually entails glue, glitter, stickers, markers...you get the picture. So she finally decided on decorating this chair. After lots of tape, princess stickers, and even a taped on crayon, she declared it was finished. Here are a few pictures of her hard at work:

let me also mention that I know that it's halfway through May and we do live in the south, but she said she was freezing and needed to put on something "cozy" while she rested on the couch, and this is what she came up with. Needless to say, the resting soon turned in to helping, and then to doing projects of her own.

I am also attempting to try other ways to post pictures to this blog as well as getting better at using my camera, neither of which actually happened for this blog. I tried a few things differently, but none of them worked. At this point there's just something to be said for actually accomplishing something, even if it's not what I set out to do! While trying to do this, I've put one in time out twice, sent one to her room, taken one to the potty twice, and threatened lots. Maybe next I need to work on teaching independence! Maybe next time!

Grow Slowly!

How can my baby be TWO tomorrow? Two just sounds so BIG! He is big, for sure, always off the charts in both height and weight, and about to pass his sister, but two years old? To me that says that he's not a baby anymore! My boy is much more "adventurous" than his older sister, who remembers every rule and reminds everyone what that rule is if they even look like they might break it, but he is so cute with those blonde curls and big blue eyes that I can't help but laugh when I catch him doing something he's not supposed to be doing. Last week we came home from church and were changing clothes and when I walked in the kitchen he had pushed a chair over to the cabinets, climbed up on the counter and was sitting up there eating bran flakes from the box left on the counter that morning- he just looked at me and said "I dot it!" I had psyched myself up for a challenging two years with babies 16 months apart, and it is definitely getting fun now. He is my snuggler, the one who says "Mama" as he grabs my face, turns it towards him and plants a juicy kiss on my lips, and the one who made me crack up laughing when he pointed up in the sky a few months ago, saw a full moon at dusk, and said "uh oh ball"- with such concern! My most favorite time right now is rocking him at night and singing "I Love You Lord" while he "sings" along. My boy may be two years old tomorrow, but he'll always be my baby! I've gotten his sister trained to say that even though she's growing up, she's growing slowly- but he doesn't seem to have gotten the message!

New Words for Everyone

There seems to be alot going on around here in terms of words from the kids. Bo, who has barely said anything for the past nearly two years (probably because his sister fills in any silence with nonstop conversation or singing), has just started talking and it seems like everyday he is adding at least five new words that I haven't heard him say before. It blows my mind when one day he just points to something and the next he is calling it by name. I should have picked up on it when about a month ago he must have gone around the house 100 times a day asking, "what's that?" When we would tell him his reply would be his typical "huh." Some of the cutest are that he calls Ansley "Sister", something not encouraged by us but he seems to have picked it up and it is apparently easier to say than "Ansley." He calls both of his grandmothers "Nonnie" but with some encouragement will call Honey by her name- guess they are more similar than you'd think! And he can recognize "Daddy's truck" anywhere! It's also so sweet to hear him singing to himself- we were trying to discipher "Di id da daaayyy...maaayyd" in the car the other day and finally came up with "This is the Day!"

In a more bittersweet observation, Ansley is no longer calling things by their cute names like she used to when she was younger which is just more of a flag to me that she's growing up (too fast!). Just today I noticed two words that she has started saying with their correct pronunciation instead of the cute ways that she used to say them. We were playing in her kitchen and she made me a "hamburger"- which was formerly known as a "ham-bay-gur" or a "cheese-bay-gur"- I asked her wasn't it a hambaygur and she just looked at me like I was crazy for calling it that and said, "no mom, it's just a hamburger!" Also, our friend Patrick has been called "Mr. Packert" by Ansley since she could talk, but today she called him by his real name. Again, I said, "I thought his name is Mr. Packert" but she refused to call him that anymore.

However, she still has a few and she is picking up on so much everyday still that it's funny to hear sayings come out of her mouth that are totally out of context- like I asked her what she was doing the other day and she said, "just don't worry about me, mom!" and her Papa told me yesterday that he had to get onto her a few weeks ago at their house and she looked at him and said, "Papa, you don't talk to me like that!" I'm sure that went over well! The Fox and the Hound, her current favorite movie, is known as "The Ham and the Fox" around our house. And a word that they both use to each other, with anger in their voices, is "ABBERR!"- which we're yet to figure out! I asked Ansley what that meant the other day when they were saying it to each other, and she just shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know."