back to dance

Kara finally talked us into letting her take dance lessons again. She is taking a "kid's pop" class, and thought it was really cool that there are 3 boys in her class. It was supposed to start January 12, but the first week was postponed because the teacher had a conflict, and last week was canceled for snow, so thursday was the first class.

Kiersten had to go an entire month with no accidents to be able to take a dance class. She was successful for the entire month of December (and most of November). She is so elated to be a ballerina. She is taking the "ballerina enchantment" class. There are only 4 girls in her class. She was so proud to show me all the things she learned in her first class. Her class is right before Kara's, so that part is pretty convenient.

Most of the pictures i took ended up like this. Kara would wait to do her pose right as I took the picture, and kept blocking poor Kiersten. She was pretty worried about it.

I finally got Kara to do an arms down pose.

Ben ordered Evie a plush Mickey and Pluto to complete her collection of clubhouse buddies. They arrived this week, and I cut the tape off the box so she could open it. As soon as she saw pluto, she started saying, "hot gog! hot gog!" and clapping her hands and dancing around. She was so excited, and once I got the mickey out of the package, she squealed even more happily and gave him hugs and kisses. Then she ran in my room and started begging to watch, "cubhow". (mickey mouse clubhouse).

December to remember

Growing up, my family always used to decorate our Christmas tree on Dec. 5, because it is Sinterklaas day in Holland, where my Dad is from. I like to try to keep that tradition, but usually only end up doing it on the 5th, if it falls on a weekend. So I was happy this year that Sinterklaas day was on a saturday. Ben and I put the hooks on and tried to let the girls do most of the decorating themselves. I did move some of the ornaments up higher so they wouldn't be only on the lower branches. Kiersten was only helpful for a few minutes before she decided to start un-decorating instead.

the girls checking out Kiersten's first christmas ornament from last year.

Kar really loved decorating the tree. She always wants to decorate the house. She had fun hanging window clings, and putting out Christmas towels in the bathroom as well. Today she even went through the boxes and got out a few things I hadn't planned on using this year to decorate the livingroom and kitchen.

I wanted to put candy canes on the tree this year. It has been several years since we have, due to having young girls who we thought would just eat them at will. I thought this year, they are both old enough to understand that they are not to touch or remove anything from the tree, including candy canes. I was wrong. About Kiersten anyway. I think she's already eaten them all off the tree. Kara is the Christmas tree police. She's ready to tattle on Kiersten for going anywhere near the tree.

Kara had a dance recital on saturday as well. Here she is in her school uniform ready to go. She absolutely loves wearing her tap shoes.

Kiersten with a mohawk. I don't remember why she was crying... probably because we took a candy cane away from her.

Kara's class was second to perform, so we decided to sneak away early. It was extremely crowded and hot in there.

Here she is, dancing her way down the stairs.

They have a gazebo there, so we let her do the dance for us again.

Kiersten tried to do the dance with her, pretty cute.

2 of our major december events down, and countless more to go.