whoopsie

As Thom John pointed out to me, I created our first REPEAT post yesterday!  Silly me!  When prepping a post, I generally make an album of photos and then write about the photos and the post evolves from there.  Well, I guess I made two albums with the same photos without realizing it.  Anyway, here's a snippet of our night tonight - that'll help erase any memory of the double-post :-)

First Dance Recital

Clare has been taking dance classes every Monday during the school year.  There are only five girls in the class - four pre-kindergarteners and Clare :-)  Her teacher put together a little recital for the girls' families in May.  Sean was very happy to support Clare at her first recital:

Clare's teacher taught them some jazz, ballet, and cheerleading and the recital was a little bit of everything.

Her teacher also worked with the girls to improve their flexibility and helped them perfect their splits:

Here are some videos of a few of the numbers.  Here's Jazz:

 

The Kitty Cat Pounce:

Ballet and a solo performance:

After the performance, we got to congratulate the little dancer while she enjoyed her lollipop and showed off her ribbon:

The Butler

Overheard while driving the kids home from school today:

Sean:  "We should get a butler for our house so he can carry our stuff and cook for us and help us."
Clare: "I don't want a butler!"
Sean:  "Claaaaare!  Butlers aren't scary.  They're helpful to us.  All they do is wear a black tie and a white shirt with stripes on it."
Clare: "Okay."
Sean:  "Sometimes they have mustaches, too. And leeeeetle chubby cheeks - just like yours, my little Clare!"
(Both kids giggle so hard, there are tears in their eyes when we pull up to the house!)

Beauty tips & teeth time sweeties

"The hippo is eating my hair. Then it throws up my hair and that's how my hair is so straight and smooth!"

"Clare, you're a good little brusher, little sister.  I love you."  

"You're a good big tooth brusher too, big brudder.  I love you too, Seany!!!"

15 Selfies

At Sean's basketball practice this morning, I put Clare's hair up in a bun.  I turned my camera on to "selfie" mode so she could see how nice her hair looked and Clare started clicking away.  She took 62 pictures in about 6 seconds!  Here are a few of those pictures:

Holiday Concert

Clare's preschool had a holiday concert on Monday - and Clare not only sang in the concert, but her dance class did a number, as a well! We arrived a little bit early to stake out seats and admire the set:

Sean enjoyed some time with his Grandma and Grandpa, as well:

After the younger classes went on, it was time for Clare's class - here she is going on stage:

And her little class altogether - they sang "Dreidel Dreidel" and "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" - Clare sang this year!  And she sang loudly!

Afterwards, Clare's dance class stayed behind and they five girls were supposed to do a dance to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" but they seemed to get stage fright and the girls kind of swayed and twirled to the music - it was totally cute anyway :-)

Then, the whole school got up on stage together for a rousing rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" - Clare kind of scowled through most of the song, but she sang the song, too :-)

Merry Merry!

Sock Snowman

Sean's school held another holiday craft contest - a sock snowman contest! Of course, the Sooys entered - we love being crafty :-)  Sean wanted a superhero snowman and I thought Superman would be pretty easy to do although looking back, I think a tiny Batman mask on a snowman would have been pretty cute.

First, we gathered our materials:  a (brand new) white tube sock, a big bag of rice, rubber bands, different colored scraps of felt, buttons, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, and our trusty little hot glue gun.

The Sooy kids took turns scooping rice into the sock while Mommy held the top of the sock open (this was hard work because it turned out I picked up a pair of compression/support socks - wow, my arms were tired the next day!):

After filling the sock a little over 2/3 full, Mommy tied off the bottom portion with a rubber band.  And then the kids scooped some more rice into the sock and Mommy tied that portion off to make the middle.

For the top, we stuffed the sock with cotton balls until we were happy with shape of the snowman's head.

Then we got busy decorating - Mommy traced out shapes for the cape and the Superman emblem and Sean cut them out.  Clare added the pipe cleaner arms.

And then Clare took a picture:

Sean and Clare picked out buttons to use the eyes, nose, and mouth, Then Sean cut up little strips of black felt for the hair.  And then Sean cut up red felt to make his little boots :-)

After everything had been hot glued into place (and then hot glued again to ensure the snowman could handle a bus ride while stuffed into Sean's backpack), the kids were proud to show off their creation:  Super-Snowman!