Tag: Emilee

Grandma Jana and Grandpa Jones Come For A Visit!

My parents are moving from South Dakota to Tampa Florida this summer. They finished selling the house and finalizing things and drove to our house and stayed for a week on their way to Florida. There are pros and cons for them moving to Tampa. I am not a huge fan of the general climate of South Dakota so I am not sad that I won’t have to go there anymore. It is a lot easier and quicker for us to get to South Dakota then Florida though, so we won’t get to see them as often. We can get some good flights to Florida if we watch, and it’s Florida so it is always a nice place to travel too. They will be living by my sister so I can see twice the family when we see them too.

We had a really nice week with them. I worked the first day they were here so they watched the kids for me. Ryan and I are really awesome parents and they love being around us and eating up our wisdom (heavy sarcasm there if you can’t tell) but one-on-one time with Grandma and Grandpa while Ryan and I aren’t around is pretty fun and doesn’t happen very often so they were looking forward to it. They had a fun day playing games, making cookies, competing with each other at Wii games, telling jokes, going swimming, and enjoying each others company.

The week went by really fast. Allison and Grandma kept us stocked in yummy cookies all week. We watched a couple movies together (some of us took naps while we did that-me and Grandpa). My mom and I went and did a little shopping together and went to lunch. She found some sandals and summer shirts to add to her ward robe for Florida. Matthew had regular, makeup, and state tournament baseball games throughout the week. My parents have never seen him play so it was a good week for them to be here. They got to watch 6 of his 7 games. They were troopers. The first two games had nice weather, after that is was ridiculously and miserably hot and humid. Yuck! One afternoon we made a trip to Sam’s Club so my dad could enjoy walking around and looking at everything. We also had a fun afternoon at the pool a few times.

Sunday morning my mom flew to Florida so her back and neck wouldn’t have problems. My dad left that morning in their car to drive it to Florida. They invited Allison to go with them for a few weeks until we see them later this month in Colorado. She was pretty excited. It will be a fun time for her and help redeem her summer a little bit so it’s not just remembered as the summer she couldn’t do anything because she broke her arm.

It was a really nice week having them here. I am glad they came to visit. They are great Grandparents for my kids. They have endless patience with my kids, especially the girls. They teach and correct them without them realize they are doing it. They have endless patience with them. Watching them reminded me to stop and take the time to talk with my kids more about what they want to talk about and less of what I want to tell them.

Wrapping up the month of June

Our first month of summer has buzzed by. It has been a fun month.

Emilee had a birthday party with Jovee and went to a birthday party with her friend from school Stella. They are two little peas in a pod. It was actually Stella’s older sisters birthday and her mom let Stella invite a friend so she would have someone to play with. Mission accomplished. They had a fun time together.

Allison got her full arm plaster cast off and switched it for a half arm water proof cast. She is loving having more use of her arm back and being able to swim and shower without a big plastic bag.

Matthew’s team played in the State Tournament for baseball. They played really well and ended up making it into the top 8. The game we lost they were fighting the whole time to win and never gave up. It was a great game. One of the games Matthew was nominated for the State All Star game. He was pretty pumped about that. We are going to be in Colorado during the tournament so he won’t make it this year though. Hopefully next.

It is about time for Ryan to get a new car. He has been working out how to get a Tesla for the past 6 months. The original plan wasn’t fast enough so he kept working on it and doing the math and got one a week ago. He loves it.

These pictures were sent to me from Emilee’s old preschool teacher. She was organizing her photos and found a bunch with Emilee in them from preschool. They are from 2 or 3 years ago but I’m putting them in here anyways because she is stinking cute.

  • Plaster project
  • Playing in the leaves.
  • Making volcanoes
  • Painting her whale
  • Princesses riding on their horse
  • First day of 2nd year of preschool
  • Bug catching
  • Play time.
  • Dress up time.
  • Playtime.
  • Emilee’s birthday cookies she brought for the class.
  • Halloween.
  • Playing at the park.
  • All the girlies together.
  • 1st day of 1st year of preschool.

Omaha Slumpbusters Trip

We did a traveling baseball tournament for the first time this summer. We made a fun family trip out of it. We went up to Omaha Nebraska for the Slumpbuster Tournament, which is at the same time as the College World Series (CWS) for baseball.

We drove up on a Wednesday afternoon. There has been a lot of flooding between here and Omaha this summer. The freeway was actually closed until the day before we went up. It saved us a lot of time to not have to go around it. The flooding was really sad to see though. Lots of homes and farms and towns still underwater or damaged from being underwater. We checked into the hotel and the first item of business the kids wanted to do was go swimming. They thought it was a great kickoff for the long weekend. There were a few other families from the team that came up that night. A group of them went to watch a CWS game. The rest of us ordered pizza’s and spent a few more hours swimming in the pool.

  • On their way to CWS
  • They found princesses at CWS!?!

The next day everyone met at the Omaha Zoo. The kids loved walking around as a big group and looking at the animals together. We saw a lot of cute little baby animals-including a seal, giraffe, gorilla, and some other kind of monkey. When we finished exploring the zoo the kids decided to play a game of wiffle ball at the wiffle ball park in the zoo parking lot. Then is was back to the hotel to play card games and cool off in the pool. Coach Jimmy had a little meeting to kick of the weekend before we all headed over to the opening activities for the Slumpbuster Tournament the boys were playing in. At the Tournament Kick-off they had a lot of activities and baseball equipment to try or buy. The main attraction was giant bonfire with wooden bats and some fireworks.

  • Wiffle Ball at the Zoo
  • Emi and Anna
  • The Cheetah taking a picture with a cheetah.
  • Emi, Lexi, and Anna
  • They thought it looked like they were swimming with the fish!
  • Jake and Matt
  • Lunch at the zoo
  • Bonfire

Friday was the day we started playing games…but the weather didn’t cooperate. We had a lot of rain all night long and into the morning. We were supposed to play two games a day on Friday and Saturday. Friday our 8 am game was postponed until 10 then 11. Everyone started going their own way and exploring different shopping areas. At 12:15 we got a text saying we had to be in Lincoln (one hour away) because they had playable fields to start a game at 2. Everyone made it and we had our first game. Ryan’s parents came and watched and were glad they had to drive 10 minutes because they live in Lincoln, instead of an hour. The game did not go well. We tell Matthew all the time he can’t blame an umpire for loosing a game, it’s a poor excuse. However, this time it really was the umpire. Ugg, I won’t waste time explaining but, he was awful.

  • Playing spoons.

Our second game that day was cancelled so we went to Grandma and Grandpa Terry’s house. Grandma had made a spice cake for Ryan’s birthday so we had cake and ice cream together. The girls stayed at their house that night. Allison and Grandma went to the craft store together and made rainbow loom bracelets and slime. Emilee and grandpa played with the stuffed animals beanie baby collection all night. They were pretty happy.

Matthew, Ryan, and I went back to Omaha and went to the Omaha Storm Chasers (AAA Baseball) game that night with the rest of the team. Coach Jimmy arranged for the boys to go down on the field and meet the team and make a high five tunnel for them to run through. It was a fun experience for them.

  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s
  • Storm Chaser’s

Saturday we only ended up having one game as well in the morning. Grandma and Grandpa brought the girls back to us and watched us beat a team 20 to 0 in 2 innings. It took about 40 minutes from start to finish and was not a satisfying game obviously. We were done with baseball by 11 on Saturday. We went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa before they headed home, then we joined the rest of the team in downtown Omaha for some sight seeing, shopping, and Ted and Wally’s Ice cream. It was very good ice cream but they were out of a lot of flavors we were willing to try (no one was willing to try banana/peanut butter/bacon flavor) when we ordered so we ended up with vanilla or a root beer freeze. The rest of the team continues to make fun of us for getting ‘just vanilla,’ the jokes on them though because we all liked our ice cream, everyone else couldn’t say that. After we finished in downtown there was another giant swimming party at the hotel for a few hours. Then we ate dinner and had another impromptu game of wiffle ball behind the hotel in a parking lot with anyone that wanted to play. We made it to bracket play on Sunday and had a game at 8am. We must have had too much fun all weekend while we killed time waiting for the rain to stop. The boys were not jiving. We ended up getting run ruled! I don’t think we have ever been run ruled in the two years we have played with this team. We packed up and were home by early afternoon.

  • Emi opted for a sucker instead of ice cream.
  • Coach Jimmy coaching ‘Matty Baseball”
  • Wiffle Ball
  • This sign was up in the pool area.
  • My two little boogers.
  • Allison got her driver’s license

The baseball was a little disappointing with how things worked out with the weather. It was a fun weekend in every other aspect though. We got to know the baseball families a lot better. The kids loved the zoo and all the swimming. It was a different vacation then we have done before. It was a nice change of pace and all of us had a good time. Hopefully the next time we travel for a baseball tournament we get to play more baseball though.

Things that drive me crazy now, but someday I will miss.

As summer is getting started and we are all adjusting to being around each other for most of our day. I have had the thought cross my mind a couple times one thing or another just drives me crazy. As I have thought about these things, sometimes they legitimately drive me crazy and I want to pull my hair out. Somethings that drive me crazy though I think I will miss someday so I should quit my complaining and enjoy it while it lasts.

The first thing that came to my mind was our family seating arrangements for church on Sunday. This has changed a lot over the years as the kids go through different ages, we have had assigned seating, rotating seating, and occasionally ‘you pick’ seating. Currently ‘first come, first serve’ is the way seats are chosen unless people get rowdy then Ryan and I start making them play musical chairs. The whole thing is quite ridiculous. It is just sitting and listening for 45 minutes but they act like they are making a life altering choice.

Whatever the seating arrangement is, there seems to also be some unspoken rule that says everyone has to get as close to me as possible and take up as little space on the bench as possible. Every Sunday I feel like I am being smothered during Sacrament. I have one or two people trying to sit on my lap or lay their head on my lap, hold my arm or hand, lay on my shoulder, wedge their body underneath me for warmth. Aaahhh, sometimes I just want to sit by myself and stretch out. I know someday they will sit in their own space though or not be there at all and I will miss it, so I just try to enjoy if for now.

I’ve always had a rule that my kids can come get me at night if they need me or have a bad dream but they can not sleep in my bed. They can snuggle a minute, or sleep on our couch in our room, or I will even lay by them in their bed until they fall back asleep but they are not supposed to sleep in my bed because I like to sleep without being kicked or squished or wake up with a kink in my neck because someone wedged themselves underneath me. Matthew and Allison follow this rule very well. Matthew has already outgrown needing me at night for a few years now. Allison occasionally will come poke me for a hug but not very often. Emilee has been the hardest to enforce this rule with. Partly my fault because she has always been a little cuddler from day one so if she comes for a snuggle, before you know it I’m waking up and its morning time. She has also mastered crawling into my bed without waking me up when she crawls in so I wake up in the morning with a sore back and her mouth breathing in my face. It is getting better but Emilee’s approach to disobeying has always been ignore or act like you don’t hear and smile cute when you get caught. That is really hard to combat at two in the morning when you are not conscious and want nothing more than to stay that way for the rest of the night.

Little Things That Make Me Smile

Sometimes as I am going about my day I come across things that bring a smile to my face. Usually it is something sweet and child like that my kids do. As my kids have gotten older I realize that these situations are happening less and less often so I have tried to start taking a picture when these moments happen to remember them for later… or when they are driving me crazy and I need to focus on their more endearing qualities. First up, in no particular order is a few of Emilee sleeping.

Before I go to bed each night I peak in on each kiddo to make sure they are sleeping happily. This night when I checked on Emilee she had decided to wear sunglasses to bed. She woke up with them in the morning too, they stayed on all night much to her delight.
This is Emilee sleeping in the car. When I looked at her something caught my eye. When I looked closer I found a little toy frog tucked under the edge of her shorts for safe keeping during her nap.
This is Wrinkles the puppy and Froggy the frog. They are Allison’s favorite stuffed animals. She left them hugging in her bean bag one day.

Ryan was saying something to Matthew about how he used to hold him when he was a baby. Matthew jumped in his arms to goof around and said he would let Ryan hold him like a baby if he sang a lullaby. Ryan started singing ‘Sweet Baby James’. They were being silly but Matthew was a little embarrassed when he saw I had gotten my camera out.

It is hard for Allison to brush the back of her hair with her broken arm so Matthew was helping her brush her hair. It made me smile so I snuck a picture.

We have played Nerf Dodge Ball since Matthew was 4 or 5 years old. It is hard to say if the kids or Ryan and I love it more. Most of the time its the kids run through the kitchen and Ryan and I sit in the living room and try and shoot them with Nerf guns. Sometimes we will switch spots and let the kids shoot at us. It is a pretty therapeutic game. 🙂

Girl Scout Day Camp

Allison went to her second year of day camp this summer. Her arm was freshly broken and still pretty tender but she decided she felt good enough to go every other day. She loves her leader and her best friend Hailey was in her Unit so she had a pretty fun time. We were able to get a cast cover for her so she could not completely swim but still participate and cool off a little in the swim activities. She grumbled about it a little but overall she had a fun time.

Emilee went for the first time this year. Per her usual she was a nervous nelly and not to excited about going somewhere new without me. Jovee signed up with her though which was a big help, and there were several other girls in her group she new from school or gymnastics as well. It was also a huge perk that they got to ride on a bus to and from camp everyday and go swimming. She loved it. She was exhausted but loved it. Her and Jovee were really into SWAPs (Share With A Pal). They are little trinkets that each girl makes a bunch of before camp and then during camp they trade and swap them to pin on their hats, by the end of the week they have a hat full of different trinkets from camp.

I asked Allison if she wanted me to come and be a helper during the week for her Unit. She thought about it for two seconds and said no. I did not ask Emilee because I knew she would say yes and want me there all week and she needs to work on her independence. I also didn’t really want to go to camp. A few weeks before camp I got a call saying Emilee’s unit needed a helper on Thursday. I decided to do it and spent one day at camp with Emilee. We saw Allison once, when we waved she pretended to not know us. We had a pretty fun time. Jovee and Emilee insisted I sit in the middle of their bus seat instead of the empty seat next to them so i wouldn’t be lonely. Sweet thought, I agree. Not the most comfortable though. We spent the ride singing camp songs, talking about what we were doing that day and they shared all the details of their SWAPs and how they traded for them with me. We did opening flag ceremony and went to a science lab station about density. The girls had a great time. Then we made volcanoes out of lemons and baking soda. Then it was their cookout day, so we cooked hot dogs and smores over the fire. Then it was scavenger hunt/hiking time. I think I have mentioned this before but Emilee is the least ‘outdoorsy’ of our family. None of us are very outdoorsy to be honest. We like the comforts of modern amenities but we like going on hikes and enjoying the outdoors on occasion. Emilee does not. About 15 minutes into our hour hike (which was maybe a mile and a half round trip just VERY slow going) she decided to start the whining and asking me to carry her, or her stuff, or just sit down and be done completely. It took a lot of coaxing, begging, dragging, and threatening to get her to finish but she took every step on her own. At several points she did just sit down and refuse to walk any farther. Luckily we were hiking with 8 other kindergartners so it was slow going enough and they took enough breaks that we weren’t to far behind when she finally flopped the last little way back to camp and I was muttering to myself this is exactly why I didn’t want to do this in the first place. Her leader confirmed with me later that she didn’t have any other issues the rest of the week when I was not there keeping up or cooperating with what they were doing. Oh well, we finished our day up with a painting craft and closing flag ceremony and all three of us shared a seat on the way home again (I did insist on taking the outside seat though). We fell asleep as soon as the bus pulled out of the parking area to head home.

  • Happy Day Campers after their first day.
  • My day at camp with the girls. Bus ride to camp. We sang LOTS of fun camp songs
  • This is where we found our last clue on our scavenger hunt hike.
  • Some of Jovee’s SWAPs. Her dad helped us out and 3D printed a bunch of SWAPs for Allison and Emilee.
  • Eating our fire cooked hot dogs.
  • Working on our density science project.
  • End of the day. Dirty, tired but happy, and ready to head home.
  • This little power nap on the way home is why they arrived at home with just as much energy as when they left that morning.

Emilee finishes up Kindergarten!

Emilee had her first Field Day this year. She didn’t really understand what it was but it was talked up enough by everyone and her teacher at school that she was very excited for it. She had a really fun time. She ran super fast in her relay. Her class was not the strongest at tug of war but they were the fastest in the mat pass. She loved the hamster ball and blow ups too. She tried the slip and slide but didn’t want to get to wet. I had a fun time sitting on the sidewalk drinking our lemonade and eating our snack. She is fun to just hang out with. She smoked everyone at the rope and net climb. She was pretty amazing on the pull up bar too. her gymnastic teachers always tell me how she is super strong. I don’t really notice it until she is doing more pull ups then the 3rd graders and climbing the rope in 3 seconds.

  • Playing Jenga with Carter.
  • Running in the hamster ball.
  • Zipping up the rope.
  • Racing the other kids up the net.
  • Getting ready for the class relay race.

For our end of the year celebration for Girl Scouts we went to a swimming activity. We had pizza and cupcakes and the girls swam their little hearts our for two hours. It was a fun time. Emilee says she wants to do it again next year so I guess I am in for another year as her Troop Leader. I still can’t believe I signed up to be a girl scout troop leader.

Emilee is getting really good with her reading and writing. I find lots of notes around the house that she has written. This is a picture she had laying next to her the other night when I checked on her before I went to bed. I loved it! We had just taken our family pictures the day before so she had drawn one of the poses we did. We are all lined up holding hands. I love the details she included too, all of our hair is correct and Ryan has his beard. Hehehe! So cute.

Ryan has been trying to take the girls out on a daddy date for some one on one time lately. Emilee was very excited and was watching like a hawk for Ryan to come home on their date day because she was very excited to go her Daddy Date. A friend came over and asked her to play and she said she would have to play another time because she didn’t want to miss her date with her dad. Emilee has the worlds biggest sweet tooth. For her date they started at the donut store with the best milk every made-strawberry flavor. Then they headed to a park and ran off some of the sugar.

My youngest is done with Kindergarten! It seems like just yesterday we were taking Matthew and Allison to Kindergarten! Emilee was excited to go to school this year but she struggled with the separation in the morning. She got braver each day and before long was jumping out the car door and skipping to class. She really likes her teacher. Mrs. Pahl is very nice and very organized and does a really good job making everyone feel special and important. I don’t think Emilee realizes yet that she won’t have Mrs. Pahl for 1st grade. We can worry about that later though.

For Kindergarten Promotion the kids sing a few songs for the parents. They all have a cute little graduation cap and tassle. Afterwards everyone goes back to their own class and the teacher hands out awards. Emilee got the Butterfly Award for her amazing colorful art work.

  • Promotion Songs
  • Emilee is not shy when they sing as a class. She loves it!
  • Heading back to class for awards after the performance.
  • Getting her Butterfly Award.
  • Emilee with Mrs. Pahl.
  • Only one more day of Kindergarten!
  • Mom and Emi selfie.
  • Emilee and her friend Bennett
  • Emilee and her friend Stella
  • Emilee and her friend Alton
  • Emilee and her friend Laney.

Mother’s Day Weekend

For Mother’s Day weekend Ryan and Matthew decided that I would love to watch baseball. Just kidding. The coach asked if the moms were on board for a tournament that weekend and none of us were going to be the one that poohooed the idea so the coach decided that’s what we would want to do for Mother’s Day. The boys probably put him up to it though.

I do very much enjoy watching them play though so I wasn’t put out. The rain decided to come down almost nonstop for the whole weekend though so instead of playing baseball we spent most of it waiting the rain out in the car, or under an overhang somewhere. One of our games was close to one of the players homes so we went and had a little Mother’s Day celebration there while we waited for a bit. The boys each gave us a red carnation with a card that they wrote a little note to us on and it had a team picture and an individual picture of Matthew for me. There was brownies, donuts, and chocolate too so it was a pretty fun time. While the moms hung out and relaxed the boys and the rest of the kids decided to have a game of wiffle ball in the cul de sac. I think we only ended up playing one game the whole weekend. We all went to lunch together while we were waiting too. We do enjoy this team and the families. Everyone is nice and friendly and for the most part gets along. We have fun times together.

Emilee and Allison love being around the boys. Allison plays is cool and tries to act like she could take them or leave them. Neither one of them is supposed to be in the dug out but Allison will casually meander in there and try and go unnoticed as long as she can. Emilee is much less subtle. She knows better but occasionally I have to haul her out of the dug out or an after game huddle. She likes to give the boys more attention then they usually want with hugs, jokes, sharing toys, tickling, stealing their hats, offering one sunflower seed at a time, asking them for sunflower seeds and anything else she can think of. Some of them don’t know what to do with her so they just pretend she isn’t there. A few start calling for Matthew to ‘fix her’ and a couple are sweet and play a little bit with her. We remind Matthew that they will never admit it (at least Allison) but they watch him like a hawk and want to be like him and with him as much as they can so when he can he needs to include them. Sometimes I get an eye roll but most of the time he is good about letting them hang around when they can.

  • Team lunch waiting for better weather.
  • Matthew running the bases in wiffle ball.
  • All the moms and the boys on Mother’s Day.
  • Emilee spending a half inning on dads lap.
  • Matthew forgot how to wear a shirt.
  • Emilee giving Cam the run down on how many flowers she collected so far.

April’s Memorable Moments.

  • Opening day for Spring Baseball! These two were skipping out the door with a big smile at 7am on a Saturday.
  • 2019 Spring Baseball NBA Adams team
  • First home run!

Matthew’s most memorable moment this month has been the start of baseball. After months of off season practicing and boost workout sessions it was finally time to start playing again. It was harder to say who is more excited between Matthew and Ryan but I will give Matthew a slightly higher mark for excitement. He played in a couple tournaments right off the bat. The first one was a bit of a let down. They played great the first game and then it went down hill from there. The next weekend they played awesome and ended up taking 2nd in their division for the tournament. More exciting than that was Matthew hitting his first home run! He was pretty pumped obviously. He has been envisioning that moment for years. He loved it and had a permanent grin on his face for several days after that. There has been a stretch of bad luck for us since then in having everyone healthy on the team. The weekend of his homerun Cam got hit by a pitch and had a concussion. I got hit by a foul ball from another field and got a concussion. During the following week at school Derrick and Caden got concussions at school in recess and PE. We had a few fills at games while everyone was recovering. The first game everyone was back Frank got hit in the head with a weighted warm up ball and got a concussion. It is a little ridiculous. I hope we are done with injuries and we will be ready to go for the season. The new Avenger’s movie-Endgame-came out so we all went to the movies together to watch it. We figured that would be a safe activity that no one should get a concussion at.

  • Making yummy smores
  • She made it all the way to the top.
  • An act of kindness coupon from Allison…

Allison’s most memorable moment was going on the Girls Scout Unit camp out. She likes to camp. She enjoys being able to run wild, eat smores and sleep outside. She had a great time. They had a choice to sleep in a cabin or in a little outdoor hut thing with three walls and a curtain for the fourth wall. She picked the outdoor hut thingy and was next to the curtain so she was a little chilly all night. She forgot to use the hand warmers she took to help keep her warm along with her sleeping back, flannel pj’s, two blankets, and a hat. She is a tough girl though and she survived and had a fun time despite the cold. Her age group was scheduled for the rock climbing area, which she was very excited to try. She made it to the top of the tallest wall they had.

The last picture in her memorable moments is more of a memorable moment for me about Allison. For the lesson in church one week they made coupons to give to someone to remind them to do nice things for people. All of Allison’s coupons said ‘might’ or ‘maybe’ in them. Ha! That is so Allison. You know where you stand though.

  • Bus ride for Emilee’s fieldtrip.
  • Emilee’s Paradise Park field trip
  • The car in this picture is the pace car, not the race car. 🙂

Emilee had her kindergarten field trip to Paradise Park this month. She asked me to be a chaperone for it so we got to ride on the bus together. It was her first bus ride and first time to Paradise Park. There were lots of different stations that they rotated through like cooking, art, face painting, water play, outside play, science, theater, and planting a plant. It was a fun time.

Later in the month Kenny, Sherri and Aubry came for a weekend visit. Sherri gave Kenny a Kansas City Speedway driving experience in a Lamborghini. Emilee and I went with them to watch him drive it. We got to be down in the pit and see them get in and drive off. Emilee liked the sounds the cars made, and of course the different colors. We are not a big race car family but it would be fun to go see a race sometime.

Emilee’s Kindergarten Musical

After many years of attending Matthew and Allison’s school programs and trying to see over a bunch of tall heads with little success it was finally Emilee’s turn to have her first school musical. I think she was just as excited that it was Matthew and Allison’s turn to try and see over peoples heads to watch her. Luckily Emilee is one of the tallest, if not the tallest kindergartner so she was up on the top row of the risers and we could see her pretty well most of the time. It was pretty cute. They did songs with a forest/jungle theme and dressed up as different animals. Emilee was assigned to dress up as a porcupine. She strongly declined having a solo speaking part. She did however agree to do the Jungle Hop dance with a small group of other kids. She did a great job.

As excited as we were to see her performance, I was not to thrilled about trying to come up with a porcupine costume. I walk the line between balancing the right amount of time,energy and money for a cute costume that will be worn one time for 20 minutes. It seems like I am often on the ‘most obscure’ costumes list too. Some of the trickier ones we have had to come up with is a worm (we had this one twice, very tricky to not look like a piece of poop or a male body part), Humpty Dumpty (with enough pizzazz and sparkle that Allison would wear it) a snowflake, an Indian, a nerd and a zookeeper (not to be confused with a garbage man).

Each kid is a little different in what they are willing or want to wear too. Matthew usually doesn’t care what I hand him to wear so he is pretty easy. Allison is the trickiest. As soon as she is assigned to dress up as something she immediately rants about how dumb it is and says she refuses to do it. If she sees or hears anything that might indicate you are making a costume it starts the rant all over. Then the day before the performance after everyone at school has been talking about their costumes and building up the excitement she will come to me with a complete over the top idea of how she will dress up as the assigned whatever and expect me to pull it of thin air immediately. This caused complete meltdowns, hair pulling frustration and crying on both our parts the first few years. I really started loathing school programs. However, by the time second grade came around I had figured out a pretty good way to appease my, plan ahead and keep it simple style, and Allison’s flare for drama and statement making style. I digress, Emilee is a mix of the two. I can make whatever I want for her to wear but unlike Allison she does not want to stand out and if she feels like she does she will have nothing to do with it. Case in point. If you ask Emilee if she raised her hand at school she will look and you with a mortified look on her face and say, “No! If you raise your hand people look at you!” So, when I saw she was supposed to be a porcupine I was a little stumped on what would work for her. Pinterest was no help with low key simple costumes. Eventually I came across a porcupine wall decal that would fit perfectly on the front of her shirt. Then we put a pony tail in her hair and made it ‘spiky’. Taadaa! Both of us were happy campers. In fact, I personally thought only one other person had a better costume (according to my criteria of time,effort,money vs 20 minute usage.) One of Emilee’s besties Laney was a peacock. She had a peacock feather in her headband and a shirt that said ‘Pretend I am a Peacock’. How perfect is that! I told her mom I was doing that for whatever Emilee ended up being next year.