This and That

We are having fun around our house these days.  Most nights just enjoying each other and loving how fun our kids are!!  Our girls love to dance.  If there is music on they are shaking their booties.  Especially Camdyn, she cannot help but dance whenever she hears a note of music.  We dance a lot.  Last night we were dancing and Tatum started showing us all the ways to do splits.  She was making me do them with her, all sorts of interesting twists and turns and lots of laughs. 

Friday after school we came home and the girls wanted to paint.  So paint we did.  It is fun to see how good Tatum is becoming at painting.  She is very precise when she does it.  She likes to make sure each part has color on it and it is just right.  I think we have a little prefectionist in our family.

All set up.

Here we go.

Finished Painting

I am not quite ready to let Camdyn have a paintbrush and paints all on her own quite yet, but I like her to still feel a bit independent.  So I put some paint in a ziplock bag and taped the bag to the table and let her squish that paint all over, however she wanted.  It was fun to watch her see how it was moving around!!

Checking it out.

Big sis watching little sis

Finished painting

Camdyn is growing up so fast.  Since she is becoming such a big girl we have decided it is time for her to become a binky free big girl.  Camdyn is super attached to her binky.  Literally it is attached to her 24 hours a day.  She loves having that thing and popping it in her mouth.  We were very nervous how she was going to be when we starting taking it away.  Thank goodness Camdyn has amazing teachers at school who are willing to help us.  Friday was the first day that Cam went to school without her binky and she didn't get it all day.  She had a bit of a hard time wanting to lay down but after about five minutes she fell right asleep.  And the whole rest of the day went great!!  Saturday she went the entire day without her binky as well!!  We are not quite ready to take it away from her at night yet.  Camdyn doesn't really know yet how to soothe herself without her binky, so when she cries it is for a bit longer because she doesn't have her security blanket there.  But we are so very proud of her and at the start of day 3 without her binky she is doing awesome!!

No binky on me!!

Tatum got to have a special big girl day yesterday and go to the movies.  We went to see Brave and she was all dressed up like a Princess.  It was such a friend morning!!  We met my friend Megan and her daughter Madison, who was also dressed up like a Princess.  They girls enjoyed the movie.  Tatum was definitely Brave while she watched Brave because she didn't need to wear her ear muffs and she only covered her ears a couple of times.  Was so very proud of her for not being scared of the noise!!

Father's Day 2012

We had a fun Father's Day in our house on Sunday!!  We are so lucky to have such amazing men in our family.  My Dad and Matt's Dad are both such wonderful men and truly are role models for our girls.  Tatum and Camdyn could not be luckier to have Matt as a Daddy always there for both of them no matter what!!  It is great to get a day every year to make sure they know how much they are loved (but hopefully we show them everyday).

On Father's Day Tatum, Camdyn and I woke up and snuck downstairs to make Matt breakfast.  We made biscuits, eggs and chocolate milk.  Since it was such a special day the girls and I decided we should have a picnic on the loft for Daddy so that's exactly what we did.  The girls woke up Matt by saying, "Happy Father's Day Daddy," and brought him out to our picnic.

Excited to wake up Daddy

Getting our picnic blanket all set.

Picnic Time!!

After our picnic we played and relaxed a little bit.  Then we headed to Costco for a quick trip.  One of Matt's favorite things is going down EVERY aisle and seeing what all is there.  Usually I am in a hurry and want to just get what we need and get out of there.  But since it was his day we went down all the aisle's he wanted to.  Pretty special, I know ;).  When we got home from Costco Gramma and Grampa were here so we had lunch (a new pasta recipe that turned out very good) and opened presents. 

Decorations the girls made, they even made special placemats.

Banner made by Tatum

Open your present Daddy

The Best Daddy

The Best Grampa

Fun!!

After present time we headed over to Uncle Adam and Aunt Lindsey's house for more family Father's Day fun.  We got to swim, open presents with Papa and have an amazing dinner.  We had so much fun being together as a family.

The Best Papa

Daquiris by the pool

Fun with Grampa

Camdyn dunking

Tatum in the hoop?!

Double dunk!!

Camdyn and Uncle Doo Doo playing Shuffle Board

We had a perfect weekend and a wonderful Father's Day.  The girls and I are so very blessed to have such extraordinary men in our life.  We have the absolute BEST!!

Recital- Cirque de Soleil by Dance Connection 2

Tatum started dancing in August and this weekend it was finally time for her very first dance recital.  Tatum and her dance friends have been working super hard with Mrs. Peggy the past few months on their dance Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.  The weekend was so much fun and we are so proud of our dancing girl.

Last weekend was recital pictures.  We were a bit rushed and ran into the studio just in the nic of time because the photographer was running way ahead of schedule.  Luckily being rushed didn't affect Tatum at all and she smiled bright and looked so cute!!

Tatum's Dance Class

Recital Picture - Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Thursday was dress rehearsal out at Queen Creek Performing Arts Center.  I had been telling Tatum for a while that she would get to wear special lipstick for recital, so I went out and got her a red and a hot pink lipstick to choose from and she was very excited about that!!  Dress rehearsal was crazy.  There was so many students and so much going on!!  I was anxious to see how Tatum would do on stage.  When we first walked into the auditorium Tatum had a bit of a mini freak out because of the noise.  That made me a bit nervous that she wouldn't like the noise when she was dancing.  So we had a little chat about the music being loud and how it would be fine and we crossed our fingers hoping the noise wouldn't be too much for her.  The girls walked out on stage and they did their dance and my goodness we were so super proud of our big girl.  She did so awesome at dress rehearsal, we couldn't wait for the big show!!

All ready for dress rehearsal

Dancing time

1,2,3,4...

Checking out the lights

So fun!!

Toe tapping

Shake that booty

Tell the people what she wore.....

Ta Da

Saturday morning was RECITAL DAY!!  We all woke up so excited for Tatum's big day.  Tatum woke up in a great mood ready to take on that stage.  Tatum had so much of our family come out and support her for recital.  Recital was at 11am and the girls were the fourth number to go on.  As soon as Tatum took the stage I got all teary eyed and enjoyed every single second of watching her dance.  All of the girls looked like they were absolutely loving being up on stage and soaking up their star moments.  All of the performers came back on stage for the finale and they all had balloons and glow necklaces.  Tatum thought that was just so great.  I went back and got her after the show and she was just so full of happiness it was so awesome for us to see!!

Beautiful Girl

Ready for Recital

Mommy and Tatum before the show.

Tatum and McKenna

Tatum after the show, she was AMAZING

Tatum and Mrs. Peggy - such a perfect teacher!!

So many flowers

Our little dancer!!

After recital we all went to Tatum's favorite place to eat, Chick Fila.  It was fun all of us being there talking about recital and how proud we all were of Tatum!!

Gramma and Tatum

Nana and Tatum

Aunt Lindsey and Tatum

Tatum and Grampa

Camdyn playing

Tatum on the slide.

I am so happy that Tatum loved her first year of dance and her first recital.  Hopefully she will continue to love it and want to dance forever!!  We are so very thankful that Tatum had Mrs. Peggy as her teacher.  She truly is a wonderful teacher and such a perfect fit with the girls.  We are a little sad that Mrs. Peggy won't be Tatum's teacher next year but Ms. Lisa will be fun too!!  Dance Connection 2 is an amazing studio, my Mom and I went back Saturday night to watch the company show and it was absolutely breathtaking.  The choreography was out of this world and the company is just so incredibly amazing to watch.  I got goosebumps so many times while watching the company members, I feel so lucky that our girls are surrounded by so much fantastic talent!!  I really hope our girls love dance and want to continue growing and performing.

So proud of Tatum!!!!

Nap time!!