Recital 2018

The girls have worked hard at dance all year and the recital is when we finally get to see them debut their hard work. Abby was in her third year of dance this year, and her second year at Motions Studio. She took a tap, jazz and ballet class this year. 

Abby and Addison in their ballet costume. Their ballet dance was to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack song Battle on the Mount.

This was her jazz outfit. The jazz dance was to the song Happy and both girls loved it! Poor Addison had gotten hit in the eye with a softball the night before so we had to use some creative makeup to cover up her shiner!

This was her tap outfit. Her tap song was Broadway Baby.

This was Emmy's first year in the recital. Last year she did a couple months of the parent and me class but this year she was in the preschool class. She was always a pain to get ready for class because she hates tights but she did enjoy it. 

Emmy's song was Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast

Emmy's class helper gave them all a flower. 

Recital day is always a long day especially for the older girls. Abby had been at the school for dress rehearsal the night before until 10pm and then had to be back at the auditorium for morning rehearsal at 8 and stay all day. Luckily, her best friend Addison was with her and she handled it well even though they were tired. Emmy just had to be there in the morning and then Bob and Susie took her home for a nap and she came back to dance in the late show.

Emerson's class with her favorite teacher Emily and the high school helper Audrey.

Abby's class. She had the studio owner Melissa as a teacher this year and Miss Sydney the high school helper.

I wasn't a room mom for Abby this year since I was in with Emmy but I still got to spend time back stage helping her get ready. By the end of the day she had changed costumes, tights, shoes and her hair dozens of times. She is at a fun age because she is old enough to do most of it but young enough that she still likes me back there to help.

I was pretty nervous how Emmy's first recital would go! She didn't like having the dress on because it was itchy and she didn't like the hat because she hates hats. Needless to say, I was worried about getting through the day. However, she loved being on the stage and being the star. She thought it was very cool dancing on the stage for the rehearsal and then she couldn't wait to do it again for the show. Everyone clapping afterwards made her feel like a star and she loved it. She did great during the show. She didn't remember all the steps but no one did and they all looked adorable so it was a success.

The recital was a huge success! It is always so fun to see them give it their all on stage. We are so proud of them!

The girls were lucky to have lots of people come to watch them!

Thanks everyone for coming to make their day and Congratulations Emmy and Abby on a fabulous recital!

Makeup Practice

 We did a makeup practice run for recital today. It is funny to see my pretty girls in this much makeup but I needed to figure out what we were doing before pictures and they love wearing makeup!

I think we have finally perfected the ballet bun.

Emmy has to wear a hat so we had to figure out how to pin it on well enough to stay. We got it pinned and I told her to run around wild for a while and see if it comes off. She put it to the test and it stayed so we were successful.

It was funny to see Emmy in this much makeup. I would typically say that it was silly for a 4 year old to wear makeup but the bright lights really wash you out so if you don't wear over the top makeup you end up looking really pale on stage.

Robbers Cave Tour for Bob's Birthday

To finish off a fun day we went to the Blue Blood Brewery for supper and then went on their cave tour. They built their brewery on top of Robbers Cave. The guy that gave the tour was a middle school teacher so he kept the attention of all the kids. He was writing a book about the cave so he was very knowledgeable. Robbers cave used to be a place that was open to the public and it used to host large parties and in the day it was a speak easy and even a hideout for Jessie James. 

Look at these 3 good looking boys!

Abby and Brook

These 3 are adorable!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Bob!

We had a great time in the cave. We got to see all the crazy drawings on the wall. We got to look at the area that used to be open to the public, the area that people have been sneaking into for years, the stage, and the area that was thought to be the Jessie James hideout.

We had a great evening!

Husker Spring Game

Our family rarely goes to the Husker games because it is too expensive so the Spring Game was a fun opportunity to take the whole family. The weather was chilly and rainy but our seats were under an over hang so we didn't get wet. We all had a good time and the girls got to see what the Husker game day environment was all about. (Not sure how I didn't get a picture of them)

After the game, we had to stand in the tunnel walk area so that the boys could try to talk to the players. They ended up getting a selfie with one of the new recruits but we don't know his name. I guess we can hope that he is good because then the boy have pictures with them.

Bryce needs to work on his selfie skills.

Kansas City Shopping Trip

Every year  Abby and Addison look forward to the KC shopping trip. They save up all their money from Christmas and their January birthdays and spend most of it in a weekend. This year we stayed 2 days which made it even more fun. We originally started going so that they could go to the American Girl store with their dolls but they have started to grow out of their dolls and now we mostly clothes shop. We still had to get a picture in front of the American Girl Store.

Love these girls. They have been best friends since Kindergarten. I can't wait to see what the future holds for these girls. 

We went to every girly store in the mall. We spent hours in Justice trying on every outfit that they had. Abby bought a lot of cute clothes for summer. At the Gymboree store they picked out swimming suits for their little sisters and then they found the same suit in their size. Since Gymboree is a little kid store they didn't have a changing room so these crazy girls just put the suit over their clothes. 

We talked them out of McDonalds for a least one meal and ate at a Wood Fire Grill place that was delicious.

Our hotel had a pool so these girls took advantage of that and they even wore their "twinsie" suits.

Look at that haul. We had a lot of bags to take home. It was such a fun weekend!

Gall Bladder Issues

I have been having stomach issues for awhile now but I am a nurse and I am stubborn so I haven't went to the doctor. I work with all the GI doctors so I don't really want to go see them outside of my scheduled hours. One of them saw me holding my side and made some smart remark about I could come see him for a scheduled appointment or he could see me in the ER. It got bad enough one night that I almost thought about going to the ER but I talked myself out of it. I decided that I was going to research foods that trigger it and stop eating those. My gall bladder attack happened the night before Abby and I were suppose to go to Kansas City for our annual trip. I couldn't ruin that for her so I at least had to make it through the weekend!
Update: I did go to the doctor the next week and my labs were ok and so was an ultrasound of my gallbladder. So, I guess for now I am planning to keep all my original body parts intact. I have found that stress makes it worse and heavens knows I have been under a ton of stress. Not sure that the stress is going away anytime soon but hopefully I can at least manage it better so this doesn't happen again.

New Job

I have changed up my nursing jobs a lot over the last couple of years and as Robb would put it I look a bit "job hoppy". This was not my intention but it is true. I had went back to NICU because that is my true love but our unit has been really slow for the last 6 months and we have been getting cancelled from our hours, put on call or being used as nursing aides or sitters all over the hospital. I don't mind being helpful to units that need it but I do mind never working in the area that I was hired for and having to do everyone's dirty work! Earlier this year a friend of mine told me about this new surgery center that she was putting in an application for. It sounded interesting and they were going to be doing pediatrics so I would still get to do kids. I put in an application and had an interview. It was a brand new outpatient surgery center so they were pretty up front with saying they didn't even know what they didn't know. I was fed up with nights and ready for a new challenge. Fast forward to April which was my starting date. I was now an employee of Doctors Outpatient Surgery.

Good bye navy blue scrubs and hello Carribean Blue. When I started most insurance companies were not yet approved yet so we had no patients. We spent our days doing a lot computer work. We made all the forms that we were going to need, we created the policies and burned time. We burned time for 2 months with having only minimal patients. Everyone started to get antsy and bored and the company ran out of money. They gave us options and we were leased to Bryan the hospital we were a part of. Some of us went there and some of us went back to where we came from. I decided to keep working my prn job at St. Elizabeth in the Endoscopy unit. It's not my favorite but its an ok job. I am trying to ride out the hard times at this new job because I like the people that I work with, the management and if I can just hold on through the hard parts, my hours will be really nice eventually.

Zoo Trip with my Little

 I have been enjoying our days together because I know that soon she will be in school just like the big kids. I will probably get more done but I won't get to hang out with this crazy little girl.

It was the first week that the zoo was open for the season and it was still pretty chilly but we had fun!

Emmy loves to ride the pony so she rode Bullseye the pony. 

We fed the crazy goats. She only likes to feed the baby ones which are just small adult ones but I'm not going to burst her bubble and tell her that.

The weather was perfect for a penguin!

This little guy sat in the corner and let Emerson talk to him for quite a while. She got a kick out of that.

And of course the trash lion. No zoo trip would be complete without me emptying all the trash out of my purse so she can feed the trash lion. This is still her favorite animal at the zoo. *Sigh*

We ended the day with a train ride and a snack. We had a fun afternoon. Now I keep my fingers crossed that she doesn't nap in the car so we can nap together when we get home!

Swimming Lessons

We decided it was way past time that we put Emmy in swimming lessons. The other kids have always taken swimming lessons from about age 2-7. Well Emmy is 4 and we are just getting started. We are around water so much as a family that this is a really important skill that our kids know. Turns out we were excited about swimming and Emmy hated everything about it. The water made her cold, she wanted a parent to come in, she just likes swimming with a lifejacket and the list goes on and on. The first few weeks were pretty rough and a teacher had to peel her off of me while she was screaming "HELP ME, HELP ME". If you didn't know what was going on you would have thought that she was being abducted by a stranger.

This continued for 6 of the 8 weeks and on the 7th and 8th week she did ok but by then the session was over. Since, she had made progress and at least stopped crying we should have continued but I needed a break from dragging in a screaming kid. I guess we will try next spring.

Don't let this smile fool you!