Dancing Girls

When we lived in Spring Lake, I came across a dance studio, World of Dance.  It was the most inexpensive dance studio I called and it was really close to the house.  We started attending when I was pregnant with Joshua and for the first year, only Hannah attended. 

Hannah quickly felt comfortable being there, she liked the teachers and liked dancing.  Halfway through our first year we moved across town.  However, Hannah was comfortable there.  The second year I put Riley in classes there, as well.   What I paid for two kids, is what I would have paid for one kid everywhere else I called.  

Above: Hannah is the 3rd one from the left.  

Below: She is on the right. 

In conclusion, though it is now 35 minutes away, we still attend that dance studio.  We are going into our 3rd year, and honestly, I don't see us changing studios anytime soon. 

That being said, here are some pictures from their dance recital this past June.  

Riley absolutely ate it up; she loved being front and center with so many people staring at her.  Hannah is a little more serious.  You can just see her focus and concentration.  We're working on remembering to smile while we concentrate.  

These are their professional photo's.  

Hannah is the second one from the right.  

I am typically a stage mom.  This gives me a free ticket to the show and I get to hang out with the girls back stage.  Last year, it gave me a terrific spot to see Hannah.  This year Hannah was on the opposite side of the state, so I saw very little of her but I had a great view of Riley.  

Here she is waving at me.  

 

Backstage, before their second performance.  

Riley, performing her heart out.  After the show, I was told by a handful of people that Riley stole the show.  He small size causes her to stand out some and then her over the top personality makes it impossible to not notice her.  Put her on stage with hundreds of people looking at her and she is the star!  

Spending time at Smith Lake

Hannah spends a lot of time dancing now.  With her newly acquired spot on a competition dance team, her time spent at the studio went from 1 hour a week to 4 hours a week.  It's too much of a drive to come home so we find things to do near her studio.  It takes less than 10 minutes to get to library from there, to a park with running and hiking trails and to a paved river walk.  

Right now, while we have nice weather, we've been going to Smith Lake, which is an Army recreation center.  There's a lake and lots of hiking/running trails.  They also have two, very large and shaded, playgrounds.  

We have an arrangement, I run with the kids for 45ish minutes and then we go to the playground.  Many times, we will bring a snack and have a picnic while we are there.  I have loved spending this time with the kids.  

I can focus on just Joshua and Riley.  Sometimes I push them in the swings for 20/25 minutes straight. And the kids can explore without the interference of someone older.  

They have these great swings out there: I can put both kids into one swing.  They love it and so do I!

Here's some of my running path.  

More of my running path.  

Right on the other side of the far trail is Smith Lake.  Now the entire recreational center sits directly behind Simmons Army Airfield.  So we get the added bonus of seeing helicopter flyovers most every time we are out there.  

As long as the weather is nice, I'll continue to take them out there to do this.  Once the weather gets cold, or when it rains, we'll take our chaos to the library.  

A Weekend of Parties

Where does the time go?!?  I'm not quite sure though I know who is responsible.  SO I started this post months ago.  And then summer happened.  And we drove across the south eastern states.  It was fun.  But exhausting.  

So without any further waiting: here are the pictures from Hannah's birthday party.  She wanted to have it at the roller skating rink, which was fine for me.  I've become fond of having parties somewhere else.  Then it's someone's else's mess.  

Riley on skates is the best thing ever.  She turns docile.  It's incredible. 

We had a great turn out of kids.  I'm pretty sure we used all our of skate rentals.  In the picture below is Hannah, beside her is Madison and beside Madison is Peyton.  They both attend co-op with Hannah.  

Our friend Audrey usually does the cakes for us.  She created a dancer's cake fro Hannah.  

There Hannah is, chatting with Chase.

This is Emilie, with Reagan and Sydney

I let Hannah open all her gifts much later, because I wanted her to skate as long as possible.  She received books to read and a lot of art related materials.  

The following pictures are from a birthday party the day after Hannah's.  The party was for Chase, who was at Hannah's party as well.  

Riley, enjoying some skee ball.  This was a mildly dangerous scenario.  But it was one of the few game she could actually play, so she spent a lot of time there.   

I love this game, the one where you smack the animals that pop up randomly.  I thought that Riley would love this game.  She did not.  

Though Riley could not play many of the games, her and Joshua were very content sitting in these games and pushing buttons.  I didn't have to pay for them, they had a blast without any monetary contribution.  

This is probably the only picture I snapped of Hannah.  She was so wrapped up in playing with her friends, and I was trying ti keep up with Riley and Joshua.  

Look!  One more.  

Hannah takes her mini golf seriously.  Riley does not.  

So there's some photo's from May.  I wish I had more to say about them but that probably comes from waiting months to post this.