Emma's Mother's Day / Father's Day gift

So mid last week Emma throws me this book and says.. 'oh ya.. happy mothers day.. i finally found this'.... hahaha She threw me this spiral bound book titled, 'Important Book about Mom & Dad'. It was a comglomeration of all each student in her class writtings about their mom and dad. Below is what she wrote about her mom and dad:

MOM
The most important thing about my mom is that she always keeps us organized. If we had messy rooms she'd freak and let's not forget she understands my feelings. But the most important thing about my mom is she keeps things very organized


DAD
The most important thing about my dad is that he is smart. Sure he blows my sister and I good night kisses and cares about me, but the most important thing about my dad is that he's smart.

trumpet, dancing and kites

Well its been a whirlwind week of the kids activities coming to an end. On Thursday we had Emma's band concert. Emma took up the trumpet towards the end of March. (same instrument I took in school!) . She's only been at it for 6 weeks with private lessons. She went from not being able to make a sound on the trumpet to being able to play jingle bells and learning 5 different notes. Its been fun having a trumpet in the house. I've picked it up a couple of times and brought down the house with TAPS! haha The concert had the newly formed 4th grade, 5th grade and 6th grade bands. It was amazing seeing the difference a year and make when we listened to the 5th grade band.

Saturday was our next finale . All year Katelyn has been practicing her dance moves at a local dance studio. She loves getting all dressed up in her leotard with her hair up and of course the ballet slippers and tap shoes. This weekend was her dance recital and she could finally wear those two costumes that have been hanging in her room for the past 3 months. All the grandparents came and she was so excited to perform for them. She did awesome. Its the first time she's been on stage and we couldn't be prouder. She knew it was her day and was beaming at all the attention. When we picked her up after the recital I caught a moment where she was surrounded by family and she was just looking up at everyone and smiling with excitement and pride that everyone was there for her. Thanks everyone for coming and sharing her special day. She wore her pink costume out to dinner with us at Red Lobster and asked if she could wear it to bed too!

The next day was a windy one, perfect for flying the new kites Grandma and Grandpa Hawley gave the girls this weekend. We went down to the new development where there is lots of room and no trees. We also ran into Katelyn's good friend Sydney who helped Katelyn fly her kite. Amazingly they were able to get the kites up and loved every minute of it. Katelyn of course was still wearing her pink dance costume!

Introducing Nora!

We promise Emma that she could get a kitten for her birthday. She's been complaining for several months that she doesn't have her own pet. Which really I guess she doesn't. Its well known that Christmas is my cat.. she follows me everywhere and runs when Emma comes around because Emma chases her. And Bronson, well he just loves Darin so much and he puts up with Emma. We also felt a void with our loss of Leo... She even put together a complete campaign over spring break at Grandma Nichols house. She informed us why she should have a pet and the different choices of pets she would like. (kitten, guinea pig or rat). It was very thorough with postitives and negatives, even pictures of the animals she printed from the internet and charts!

So yesterday my friend Kim and stopped in at the humane center in Buffalo but to our suprise they had very few pets. They had 2 dogs and 3 cats! It did our hearts good to see that tho.. they said they had a huge weekend of pet adoptions. When I told Emma this she wanted to look on the internet for kitties and one thing led to another and we were on our way to Brooklyn Center to an adoption center! Once there we found they had a room full of kittens. There were 4 litters and 12-15 kittens. What a hard decision! Emma fell in love with 3 of them! But Nora finally sealed the deal when she licked Emma's hand and face! So with a quick stop at the pet store we headed home. Nora spent the night in Emma's room as we wanted to make sure she was somewhat confined. I don't think Emma got much sleep tho.. she said Nora was very playful and layed on her neck a lot.

Bronson sniffed her once but we've pretty much kept him away from her. Christmas spent some time with her but was very stand offish but curious what this playful thing was. Katelyn has been extremely patient but was anxious for Emma to go to school this morning so she could have Nora all to herself!


We can't wait for everyone to meet her!

Cousins

As promised here are more pictures from this weekend. These are ones of the girls being silly.

Weekend with the Nichols

We had a busy weekend again. Here goes the happenings.

Friday we all went to the middle school play "Willie Wonka Jr" to see our friend Hannah perform as one of the umpa lumpa's. Everyone did such a wonderful job. Its just amazing how good everyone was and how creative the props and costumes. At the point where Mike TV gets sucked into the TV they shrunk him by using a Ken barbie doll that was dressed in the same outfit.. we all got laughs out of that. They also sold Wonka Chocolate at intermission... but unfortunately ran out before we got to the front of the line. We were so proud of Hannah and her performance.. at times we weren't sure which one she was but we just looked for the tall umpa loompa and hoped it was her! The play made Darin and I a little nostalgic and started encouraging the girls.

Shortly after we got home our weekend entertainment arrived! The Nichols Family! Ben, Tara and their crew. The kids were very excited to see their cousins but after threatening their life (j/k) they finally went to sleep!

Saturday I awoke to giggling, jumping, shouting and playing of the kids.. at 6:30am! Which is really early for me! I've gotten use to having older kids that enjoy their sleep! So after tossing and turning I finally got up. We made some muffins for breakfast.. which seems to be a regular thing these days and everyone enjoys them. After breakfast Tara and I went into Buffalo and shopped at the antique shops. We were in search of new prop ideas. I bought a very neat miniture row boat that will fit 3 kids in it and some wooden fishing poles. When we got it home Alex was all over the fishing idea! Every time I went pass the studio he was sitting in the boat with my wooden fish and the fishing poles.. it was so cute. I kept meaning to get a picture...

As soon as we got home Darin and Ben headed off to a movie at the IMAX in St. Micheal. They went to Ironman which I was more then happy to bow out of seeing! Once they got home Tara and I were off to a photography seminar which was the main reason for the weekend. It was called 'Bellies and Babies' by Sandi Puc. It was a lot of fun for us but it was also a long day. Elijah was a real trouper tho... he went with us everywhere and barely said a peep. He seems like such a good baby for Tara and pretty much sleeps and eats (well and that other thing). But I have yet to hear him cry! You sure get a lot of attention with a cutie like Elijah. The biggest comment was look at all that hair! Tara and I got back home at 12:30am so we were quite tired yet full of new ideas!

Sunday I woke a little bit later around 8am to sounds of the kids complaining they were hungry. We all got dressed and went to a Pancake breakfast put on by the Rockford Fire department. It was a yummy breakfast and the kids loved climbing on the fire trucks.. especially Alex.

Once back home Tara and I had lots of ideas and started setting up the photography studio. I took some family pictures and some pictures of the kids. Before we knew it 3 hours flew by! Tara and I were anxious to try out some new ideas from the seminar. We were trying a new lighting setup that adds more depth and more specifically shadows in the right spots. I think we succeeded! See the pictures. I took a lot more then these of the Nichols family and the cousins.. which I will add later so check back.

Sadly after 3 hours of pictures the Nichols family needed to get started on their long drive back to Glydon. Even Bronson hated to see them go!

Fun Weekend with Family

We had such a fun weekend with family: Grandma & Grandpa Nichols, Serenity and Alex, as well as Grandma and Grandpa Hawley. They all came to see Emma perform her final dance show of the year on Sunday. Everyone arrived Saturday afternoon. Of course we also woke to 3 inches of snow.. ugg.. its almost May! By the end of the day it had pretty much all melted away tho. We also had dinner and Uncle Ray, Aunt Leah and Cousin Olivia joined us. It was nice to see everyone and the cousins had a great time (being very loud I might add!)

I have pictures posted of Emma's dance performance. I decided to go with black and white for something different. She did so well and I know she's sad to see dance come to an end, but next year she's signed up for Kick and Jazz so she has that to look forward too. I could tell when she danced that she was having fun (she's even smiling in some of the pictures instead of that concentration face all the time!). I know it meant so much for her to have family at the performance. I caught her looking up at everyone cheering her on!

Hawley Cafe

The girls came up with a creative idea to play restaurant tonight. Literally. So Emma made up some menu's that consisted of items we had in the fridge and that she felt qualified to make. Katelyn played waitress. Both had kitchen towels wrapped around their waists to look like aprons. Katelyn had her post it note pad to take our orders but usually had to ask how to spell what we ordered. Darin had PBJ and pineapple and I had tomato soup and pineapple. They did a great job preparing the meals. I did have to let Emma know much later that you have to add milk to the condensed can of tomato soup tho! After running out of milk from the kid sized cup , I reminded Katelyn that a good waitress would come back and check up on their customer to make sure everything was all right and if they needed anything else. She brought me another 2 ounce cup of milk and said (with her hands on her hips) "if I wanted more I'd have to get it myself because the milk was all gone and she couldn't handle a new full container!" What service! haha They even had a desert menu! #1 pick was ice cream. Katelyn came to take my order for desert shortly after delivering my food. I asked her why so soon and yet again with the hands on the hips she proclaims "so we can get it ready for when your done!". After our 2 course meals they even cleaned up the kitchen and got a couple of tips from their customers. I'm not sure if they made themselves dinner tho..I saw them sit down with ice cream at the end and thought to myself what the heck they deserve it!

Its moments like these that I love having a blog to write down these occasions. In 5 years I probably wouldn't remember this special night but now I will!