Back to School!

I can't believe how fast summer went!  It seems like it always takes forever to get here and then it's gone in an instant.  We love summer because it's full of a lot of family time and adventures.  The girls and David actually really enjoy school starting though.  (I'm the odd one)  Kadence and Shelby started school on August 21st, David and I will start on August 25th and David will start teaching on August 26th.  It was really nice that David didn't have any workshops to go to on the girls first day of school so he could help drop them off.  He really hates missing things like that so it was nice.  August 20th was David and my 9 year anniversary......as well as back to school night.  How romantic!  David went in to work all morning, came home and helped me give the girls baths.  We ran a few errands and played together with some new Guardians of the Galaxy toys and then went to dinner at Chili's.  It was nice because both girls went to the bathroom leaving David and I about 2 minutes of alone time at dinner.  We were able to talk to the girls about the new school year.  We asked what they were excited about and Shelby is excited for art and Kadence is excited to see her friends.  We asked what made them nervous and both were nervous about testing.  (How horrible is that?!) We came home and got our first day of school clothes laid out. We had taken the girls shopping and let them choose their outfit all by themselves which is the first time we have done that.

 Sadly Kadence's shoes didn't fit so we're still working out those details.

 After we had the clothes ready we were off to meet their new teachers!

 Kadence will be in 3rd grade with Mrs. Andrew and Shelby will be in 1st grade with Mrs. Jackman.  On Monday we decided to pull Shelby from the dual immersion program for multiple reasons.  Shelby was ok with it, the school was super kind about it and I think it will be better overall for Shelby.  Because of that Shelby didn't have her name on a desk when we went to her classroom. This made her panic a little.  She knew they would get her a desk, but she didn't know how she was supposed to find it.  :)  Both girls were still very excited and thought their teachers seemed very nice.  They were also excited to see friends from last year. 

The first day of school I thought needed a special breakfast.  I got all the things to make fruit and yogurt parfaits and the girls were in heaven!  They got ready really well and were in great moods.  I was happy to have Davids help because I don't love mornings.  It was pretty wet and rainy out so we took our pictures inside for the first time ever.

They both had a great day!  Right after school we didn't have much time to talk because they had a birthday party to go to.  We did however get time to talk over dinner.  Shelby said she actually liked lunch and they "even had buttered rolls!"  She didn't like how loud it was in the lunchroom and the fact that people "popped her body bubble."  Kadence loved every second of it! She said they are trying to learn everybody's names and that it is really hard.  She got to see Chloe at lunch.  Both girls think their teachers are so so nice and enjoyed going to school the following day.  I'm glad they are excited and love school.  I can't wait to see what this school year brings and I'm excited to watch them learn and grow.

As a side note, from the second we dropped Kadence off at her classroom David and I went into pure panic.  What if she didn't follow her rules?  What if she was asked to do something she wasn't able to do? How would she react?  What if she fell?  What if kids got rough with her?  What about all the kids that pick her up because they can due to her being so little?  What if she bent and her rod went through the skin?  So many things could go wrong!  This was the first time she was out of our site (Or Jeff/Rachels) for more than a few minutes.  I checked my email about every 10 minutes.  We made sure our ringers were turned on versus silent.  It was such a huge relief to see her walking down the hall, all in one piece and happy as could be.  Her teacher seems really great and like she'll take great care of her.  It caused David and I to really get realistic and answer the what ifs we had all day.  Truly she would be ok no matter what happened.  Even if her hardware fails or her rod goes through her skin, it is fixable.  It would be a dramatic situation of course, but it's all fixable.  We had talked to someone recently who had their hardware fail and the mom told us she didn't feel any pain from it. That was a huge comfort!  The rod going through if she chooses to bend definitely would cause some pain, would need an ambulance ride, and the thought of me not being with her right away terrifies me.....but she would be ok.  It is fixable.  This helped us as we sent her off the second day.  I'm not going to say it is easy to send her.  I won't tell you how many times I've thought about switching to homeschooling even though I'm against it.  I will tell you that I am taking it day by day and day 2 was slightly easier than day 1.  

Dance!

With having two little girls I knew that we would have dance involved in our lives.  I always wanted to put my girls in dance and soccer and I figured I would do so until they could voice that they wanted something else.  Kadence went along with soccer but wasn't a big fan of the ball at all.  Shelby didn't want soccer because she didn't want to kick something.  Instead she wanted to try pageants.  (That just about killed me!)  Despite wanting nothing to really do with soccer besides watching RSL play, both girls really loved dance.  I'm not saying they have always been great or taken it seriously but they love it.  Both have said many times over many different years that they want to dance when they grow up.  Finding Dance Illusion has really been so good for both girls.  The owner and staff are simply amazing.  They offer so much encouragement and really help build confidence in these little girls. (And boys)  What's even better is that they have amazing competition teams and really focus on technique in all of their levels of dance.  We had to take Kadence out mid year but Shelby continued on.  At her dance recital there were trophies and ribbons displayed that the competition teams had won.  Shelby decided she wanted to be on the team so she could win a trophy.  I tried to explain to her that you don't just get a trophy, you have to work really hard.  She told me that she would work hard.  I then said that most of the girls on the competition team have been dancing more seriously for longer than her.  She understood.  I also mentioned that she wasn't nearly flexible enough.  She understood that too.  Either way she wanted to audition.  She stretched every morning and every night.  I also signed her up for a summer class which was musical theater.  She was in LOVE! It was a little hard because for 4 weeks she went to tumbling and musical theater and Kadence wasn't able to do either.  I would take her out for ice cream and we had fun, but it was hard for her to watch her sister be able to do the thing she loves so much.  She never complained and just was excited for her sister.  Parents were invited to come to the end of the 4th class to see what they were working on.  Shelby learned a little dance to Mrs Maisey from Seussical the Musical. She also learned another dance to Hard Knock Life from Annie.  My phone freaked out when trying to record the second dance of course.  She loved it and it was fun to see how much she grew in such a short amount of time.  

 I decided to let her audition.  I think you learn a lot by trying and failing to be honest and even though I didn't think she would make the team I thought it would be a great opportunity for her.  I explained to her that she would try this year, but that she probably wouldn't make it.  I told her that it would help her to know what it's like to audition so she'd be better prepared for tryouts next year. She understood completely and still wanted to try.  We sent her off to her tryout clinic and when I peaked in toward the end I was so happy to see her keeping up mostly with the other girls.  She had fun and was so excited.  We practiced and practiced all night.  One problem was that we thought she would be able to hold on while doing her heal stretch and that wasn't the case so she had less than a day to figure out how to balance well enough.  She went to tryouts feeling confident.  Never in my life did I think a child of mine would let me drop them off to go to a closed audition with about 25-30 other girls.  I was always way to shy for something like that.  When I came to pick her up she was so happy.  She felt she did her best and she told me that she was able to do her heal stretch!  The following Monday was when the teams would be announced.  We watched all evening online.  If she made it we were going to drive her to the studio to see the results and if she didn't we were just going to tell her at home.  While waiting David had to rush out to go help his family with something pretty serious.  This changed our plans completely, but you have to do what you have to do.  About 20 minutes after he left the website was updated and....

 Shelby had made the "Tiny Company".  I tried to wait until David was home to tell her, but it was getting really late and she knew that she would know before bed.  She had asked a few times and I tried to push it off as long as I could.  I then made a note and recorded it so David could see....

 She started dancing all around the room and did a celebratory heal stretch

 She had her team dance camp which was 2 1/2 hours for 3 days in a row.  She LOVED it!  Here she is after class one of the days.  She got glasses that said "We're 'LOOKING' forward to a great year"  She thought it was great!

I'm so proud of her and how hard she worked.  She still stretches every morning.  She isn't someone who is naturally flexible so she has to work harder than other girls.  She's determined though and she's so excited to compete!

Kadence will also be taking dance starting this Fall.  She'll have a Jazz/Ballet class and then her and Shelby will also take a musical theater class together.  I will be at the studio 4 days a week, we'll be out a lot of money too but it is so worth it.  My girls love it and I love to watch them do what they love.  Kadence is so excited to start dance and I'm so grateful to a studio who is willing to work with her and her inability to bend.  I know this means that her sister is going to pass her ability quickly, in fact she already has.  What we are hoping is that she will learn to point, learn proper form and technique and learn how to perform.  Then when she gets her other rod at age 13 or 14 she will be able to bend somewhat or at least not be restricted in her movement.  Then she can chase her dreams of being a dancer and hopefully have the technique already.  I love these girls and I love to watch them perform.  

Kadence's 8th Birthday!

To say Kadence had a memorable 8th birthday would be quite an understatement.  She had a fabulous and eventful day.  We started by getting her nice and clean and doing her hair and letting her pick the perfect outfit. I then had to get a picture and she wanted to put 8 fingers up and make a silly face.

 She spent the afternoon learning how to use her new pocket knife.  Her first project was to carve a smiley face into soap.

 Then she carved her initial

 Our sweet neighbor Ashley made Kadence a cake which we all loved!

 The girls always get to pick a dinner to have with the Joy side of the family.  Kadence chose to have "hamburgers, hot dogs, grapes and strawberries" I added in chips and had her pick popsicles to make it a little more of a complete meal.

 David and I told Kadence that her baptism dress, scriptures, jewelry, etc were all she was getting for her birthday.  We then surprised her with a big gift.  I put clues on it to drive her crazy all day, but she actually guessed it right away.....and then kept guessing throughout the day.

 Jason, Nikelle, Brylee, Jeffy, Grandma Joy, Grandma Neal, Sarah, Sherri, Ashley and Breanne all made it up to celebrate with her. 

 She of course used her own pocket knife to open her gift.

 It was a picture of a rainbow over the Logan temple.  It is something I drove past on my way to pick her up from dance last fall. I was dying because I didn't have time to snap a quick picture with my phone.  I found that a professional photographer in Logan had captured it and it was gorgeous.  We ordered a canvas because this meshed both of her favorite primary songs into one picture. It now hangs above her bed.

 After dinner we went outside to light some parachutes.  

 Shelby loved running to try to catch them, but Kadence can't run so she had Jeffy help her find the fallen parachute.

 This is what their feet looked like after.

 After parachutes we logically moved to launching rockets the girls made with David.

 The grandmas even came out to watch all of the shenanigans. 

(But would both kill me if they knew I took their picture)

 Then we took to riding bikes, scooters, skateboards and longboards while we waiting for dusk so we could start fireworks.

 Ashley, Chloe and Naomi joined us for fireworks.

 After a few smoke bombs stained the cement we went down to the end of our housing unit.

 I decided that I wanted to get neat "firework" pictures.

 Everything was going GREAT until this firework below.  It was an aerial.  I captured the first shot and then leaned back to where I was almost laying down to try to get the whole thing in one shot....

 Because I was laying back I didn't really comprehend what was going on.  I took a picture, heard "it hit me!" and then everyone was scattering.  I then hurried and looked at the kids whom were all fine and turned around....

 To this.....

 We called 911 and Logan Fire responded quickly and got to work.  The sheriff told me that "next time we light an aerial we need to put bricks against it so it won't tip." Ummm....there won't be a next time! All the nearby houses were saved, there was very minimal damage done and Jeff was the only one who got hurt and it was pretty minor.  When the aerial tipped, it sent one straight into his neck causing a lot of bruising and a burn.  Overall it could have been much much worse. Since it wasn't we all took a bunch of pictures.  :)

  One of the firefighters was so sweet to take a picture with my girls.  He even let Kadence wear his hat and Shelby hold his shovel.

It was memorable to say the least and I'm so glad everyone was ok.  I can't believe Kadence is 8.  Every year that they get older I can't believe they are older.  I'm happy to be able to watch them as they grow because they are growing into two fabulous kids.  Each new age is a new experience and is not better or worse than the last.  I love you to pieces Kadence and I'm so happy you are such a strong girl and have made the choice to live since you were born!