piano, tumbling & baseball...oh my!

It has been a super busy start to spring around here!  The kids are involved in a lot of activities and our calendar is full!  But we wouldn't want it any other way!

Andrew started piano lessons this year.  He has done a great job and his teacher says he has natural musical ability!

I was so bummed when he wanted to quit Tae kwon do.  I think he is just still trying to find his niche.  He doesn't enjoy practicing piano, and I'm not sure how long he will want to keep doing it.  But we are having to encourage him a lot to find an activity he enjoys.

He says he enjoys piano, but he wants to know how to play really hard songs now!  He's tired of the basics, but I keep telling him he has to learn those first!  Ha!

Kerigan was excited to go to his piano recital!  She wants to do everything her brother does.

My little man playing his songs!

This is Andrew's music teacher from school.  He also teaches piano and he is a super fun teacher!

These are all the students he teaches.  Most of them go to Andrew's school too.  It's so fun for him to participate in things with his friends. #ladiesman

Ga Ga and Papa brought him Mixels!  He was so happy.

Then my girl did an amazing job in the State Tumbling Meet a couple weeks ago and qualified for Nationals!!

She was so excited to win a trophy!

Getting ready to do her pass

She got 3rd in her flight, and 10th overall.  When I saw her come out with this "3" I was freaking out!  She did so good and I was so proud of her!

I couldn't believe she placed 3rd.  They got a medal for their flight and then a trophy for placing in the top 15 for nationals.

I could not have been more proud and excited for her.

To be right up there with all these girls and she's only 4, and has just started tumbling this year, she is amazing.  Nationals are in Tennessee this year and we are so excited to take a family vacation there to watch our girl compete in June!

These two girls are in her class and both qualified for nationals too.  So proud of our girls!

We're going to Nationals!!

Last time she competed and didn't get a trophy she was still happy but asked if she could stand on "top" next time so she could get one.  So when she saw a trophy sitting there on her step, she was thrilled.

The state competiton was close to Ga Ga's house so we stayed there the night before.  After she competed we went back for a little party!

We grilled out and Ga Ga got her this sweet little cake.

Proud big brother!

She was so funny she kept saying "sing happy birthday to me!" and so we sang "happy tumbling to you" instead!  Ha!

Andrew has started baseball and had several games.  He's doing so well too!  It's fun having the kids go to each other's activities and supporting each other.  Kerigan loves going to Andrew's games.

My little man up to bat!

It has just been beautiful weather and only one game has been rained out so far.

Why does he look like a teenager to me??

My mom found this sweet picture of him when he first played baseball when he was 4!  Could he be any cuter??

I love this so much!

We've made it a tradition to go to Culvers after his games because a magician is there every Wednesday night!  He is so fun and he knows my kids by name now!  Ha!  They look forward to this so much!  He does awesome tricks at our table and makes the kids balloon animals.  It's a fun way to end our baseball evenings!

Only 15 more days of school... but who's counting!?

life lately

(I'm behind again!  But this was written when this was happening...ha!)

Well.... so this is the first thing for life lately!  Ha!  Craig and I have been binge watching the Walking Dead and caught up this past season and couldn't believe how crazy the finale was!  We can't wait til October (well... we can, but you know!)

This.cat.  She's huge.

We have a reader!  She's in preschool and she's 4 years old.  She brought home her first book and has tested over it and passed onto book 2.  Her preschool does this where they send one book at a time for her to practice.  She is so excited and is doing amazing sounding out words!

This was so precious when she brought her book home she wanted to read it to everyone, but spent extra time with Papa!

She adores this guy!

We watched the ISU game with friends and Andrew pretended like Parker was his brother, as usual!

My little ray of sunshine on her spring picture day!

And baseball season started for Andrew so we've been having fun goofing around while we watch practice!

Baseball sister.  She's been cracking me up lately because she no longer wants to wear anything with ruffles.  This is a problem for this ruffle-loving mama!  Ha!  This is her "sporty" outfit and that is all she wants to wear lately!  She always says "Mom can I dress sporty!?"  Ha!

For April Fool's Day the kids teachers both gave "brownies" for a joke!  Ha ha!  I thought it was so funny that they both did that and they are at different schools and don't know each other.

The first weekend in April we met my aunt, uncle and cousins at Hickory Park for lunch!  They were in town and we were so happy to see them.  It had been a while!

Then we went to Ga Ga and Papa's and attempted the park, even though it was freezing!  Ha!

The weather can't decide what to do.  It always seems like that's the case this time of year.  I've had the winter coats packed away and had to get them back out several times! When it's nice we have enjoyed days at the park and biking around our pond!

This is our neighbor Heidi's little dog and Kerigan loves him!  Kerigan always loves to ride her bike to Heidi's (2 doors down!) and turn around in her driveway.  She loves it when Husker is outside!

So I got talked into getting Snapchat.  I think I am the last person to get it, but oh my gosh.  The kids and I have had so much fun with it!  Andrew comes to my classroom every day after school and most of the time I'm supposed to be working.  Ha ha!  We laughed for a full 5 minutes at this! #faceswap

Kerigan had "fun bun" week at dance so we did a rainbow for April!

April showers bring May flowers, right!?

Then the next week they had dance pictures.  Why do dance pictures seem almost as stressful as the recital!?

Her sweet friend Olivia from preschool is in her class too!

Can you tell Kerigan does the "shuffle step" wrong?  Check out her scuffed up shoes!  Ha!

This year's recital is Disney themed and this is so exciting for us!  We are big Disney fans!

Kerigan's class is Minnie/Mickey.  They dance to the Mickey Mouse March and Zippity Doo Dah!  So fun!  And look at that adorable little Mickey!  Kerigan is always talking about him. #firstlove

When daddy saw her he's like "Is she wearing make up?"  Ha!  He's not thrilled about his little girl growing up quite so fast.  #slowdowntime

As if we aren't busy enough, Kerigan had another tumbling meet.  This one was at "daddy's roundhouse" in the high school gym, so it was nice not to have to travel for it!

I was trying to get a picture of Kerigan and I.  Ha!  #photobomb

Andrew was not thrilled to be getting up early on Sunday and sitting here for 3+ hours.  We usually have the kids watch each other's performances and games, but tumbling has so many meets that we don't require Andrew to go to all of them.  Just once in a while, and this one was in town so it made it easy!

I love this kid!

He does too.  #daddysgirl

These two.

Her friend Lily did the meet too so they were coloring before they were called down to warm up.  Luckily daddy is the Activities Director and has access to markers and snacks on short notice!  Ha!

Time for warm ups!  Ha!  This girl can do quite the back bend!

Getting directions from her coach

Doing her pass for the judges

Her flight on their way to awards!

She placed 5th out of 9.  She was super proud of her medal.  But on the way home she asked why she didn't get to stand on "top."  Ha!  I told her to keep practicing and she would someday!  For her first year at this, we were pretty proud of her even if she had gotten 9th!

So proud!

And what's better than balloon animals??

Lily and Kerigan- silly friends!

We let the kids pick the lunch or dinner place on their special days and she picked Subway.  Of course.  We should buy stock in that place.

Proud of our girl!

I think that almost catches me up... whew!  Happy almost spring!