Our Nutcracker tradition 2014

Good morning.  I am sitting in front of my Christmas tree sipping coffee and working on some blog posts.  My work has tripled lately but I cannot complain.  I have had this new office for 2 years now and was contemplating not renewing my lease as my rent was going up and business had recently slowed down. I also do a lot of public speaking and thought maybe I would just continue with that. Then, all of a sudden, work increased dramatically.  I felt as though God were sending me a message to keep doing what I am doing.  I really love my work but it leaves me with little time to keep up the blog.

 Kate took ballet starting at 2-ish (I know she had 6 recitals) and she loved it for a long time. This year she chose to stop ballet as it was getting too hard to do both gymnastics and ballet.  Gymnastics is her passion but she still loves the ballet and she still dances all around our house.

We started going to The Nutcracker when she was 5 and this was our 4th time.

Dave snapped this while I was looking for another lens and I just love it.  Although it looks posed, it wasn't.

{Kate's Dress/ Kate's shoes/ My Shirt/ My skirt is very old --similar }

Kate and I always have such a nice time together,  My favorite part is watching her face and listening to her "ooh and ahhh." She loves the music so much as well as the gorgeous costumes and the dancing.  The ballet is beautiful but I prefer to watch Kate!

You can pre-order snacks and drinks and have a table reserved at intermission and we usually do that. Kate always enjoys a sweet treat (cupcake or cookies).

Then we wander out to the lobby and there are often a few mice and soldiers to take photos with.





After the show, Kate and I go to the green room to meet a few performers.  Kate brings her Nutcracker book and they sign it for her.









A few weeks ago Kate said this to me...

Kate: Mama, You know I don't love the actual day of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas that much.  What I love the most is all the traditions and things we do around those holidays!

If you've been reading here long or you know me in real life, you know I am ALL ABOUT THE TRADITIONS!  So, it made my heart leap with joy that my daughter appreciates them as much as I do.  And by the way, my boys seem to love them too.  Will gets especially upset if we don't follow our annual traditions.  Last weekend, Kate and I went to another Christmas tradition here...The Teddy Bear Tea.  And today we are off to see the Rockettes and the Radio City Christmas Show..  So, come back soon for those photos.


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A complete brag post-katie ru part one!

I now it is not right to brag.  I know people often criticize bloggers for "humble bragging" (that's a real term now).  But honestly the whole point of my blog is to journal about my kids.  For me.  I am honored that others read it. Blogging is not my job.  I am not trying to change the world.  I see this blog as a love letter to my kids. When I am gone someday, I want them to look to this place to see how much I loved them.  And I want them to know just how awesome I think they are. Because they are each uniquely awesome.

BUT they are not perfect. We are not perfect. Dave and I fight sometimes.  We probably should spend more time together and less time reading/watching TV/on the computer.  We yell at our kids from time to time.  And they sass back too. We've had ups and downs, blue times and anxious times in our house.  I don't write about those times because those are not the things I want my kids to remember (and for their privacy too).  I don't want them to remember when I was too hard on them about grades or when I took my own exhaustion out on them or Dave or when I worried too much. I want them to know how proud I am of them as human beings.  So, that is mostly what I write about.  I am not "humble bragging" ---I am straight up bragging because I love my kids.

So, let me brag about Miss Katie Ru for a while....

I have so much to say.  First of all this has been a stellar year for her.  I am SO SO SO SO SO glad that we gave her an extra year of kindergarten. It has become so clear to me this year what a gift that was. She has grown so much in her confidence and her focus and her maturity.

This month Kate has had lots of opportunities to showcase her growth.  First, she had a violin recital.  I deliberately chose to just watch and listen instead of video it because I wanted to be really present and have her see my face and not the back of my phone.  This is Kate's 3rd year taking violin at school and she likes it and wants to continue.  She rarely practices (which is not good) but that is because she is so busy with other things. I am actually surprised that she has stuck with violin.  She works so hard training for gymnastics that I did not think she would want to continue violin but she does. She has a natural knack for music and I would not be surprised if she learns more instruments at some point.

This is a photo of Kate and her violin teacher just before the concert. 

 And I know these are terrible quality but Dave took these from far away with his phone.

Next up was Kate's ballet recital.  Oh my.  She takes my breath away when I see her dance.  I love watching.  This was a tough year for ballet.  Kate does ballet at gymnastics on Mondays and then her actual ballet class is on Tuesday (right after violin). Then she has gymnastics on Wednesday and Friday nights.  It was too much.  I know that.  It breaks my own parenting rules.  BUT she really loves all of them and she has a knack for them too. This year there were many weeks she did not want to go to ballet.  And eventually she told me she wanted to quit ballet after her recital.  I get it and I support her but I am sad too. She loves to dance but she simply wants more free time and gymnastics is her first love right now.

So, this was her 6th ballet recital and her last (for a while). And yes, there are tons of photos.

Had to do a silly face one!

Some of these are from dress rehearsal:)

Harry was kind enough to take video.  Kate comes on stage right after the young man.




A few I- phone snappies after the performance...

I was going to try to fit the father-daughter dance, a poetry reading at Rice University and end of year awards in this post too but I exhausted myself.  So they will be in part 2!!!

Kate's Recital and the rest of Mother's Day

I hope I did not sound ungrateful in my last post.  I am thrilled that Kate dances and I love her recitals.  Mother's Day happened to be at the very end of about the most jam-packed 8 days in a row I've ever had!  I needed a Lord's day of rest.  And eventually I will get one;)

The kids gave me some sweet cards and homemade gifts on Mother's Day morning. Kate made me some cards and pictures and mother's day coupons.  Harry and Kate made me this for my desk....

Well, Harry made it but it was Kate's idea!  They are a good team.  It is a small twig and they burned Mom  and the ❤ into it with the sun and a magnifying glass!

And Will bought me the most thoughtful card.  He usually gets me a funny card but this year he told me that when he read this one, it said everything he felt about me.  I will always cherish it as it was a very adult sentiment about realizing how much a Mom does for their son to help them find their way in life.  This has been a challenging year and Will and I have become very close.


Some of these photos and video are from the dress rehearsal and some are from the actual performance. It is much easier to capture the dress rehearsal but I love to have some images of the performance too.

Kate was a little bit nervous for the dress rehearsal. The ballet teacher asked Kate to lead her class onto stage with a front walkover.  Their act was the acrobats (circus theme) and she was going to do a front walkover and cartwheel by herself on stage to open the dance.  They then changed it to a back walkover and cartwheel. Kate was a little afraid to be on stage alone for that part and a little afraid she would slip in her ballet slippers as she usually does gymnastics in bare feet.  BUT, it went so well in dress rehearsal that she was not nervous at all yesterday.

I just love to watch her dance because she glows up there on stage.  She might forget a step here or there but she looks SO happy and so graceful to me:)

Here she is doing her walkover.

Here are videos of the dress rehearsal and recital.  Even though they are not the best quality, I am so glad I have these. I was too "busy" in 2011 to upload the video right away of Kate's recital and now I think I lost them on my computer:(



720p from Kim S on Vimeo.





1080p from Kim S on Vimeo.




Kate starts out in the second row on the very end.



I know it is only my Mom and a couple close friends who want to see them but really I put them here so I can find them;)



After the show, we gave her some roses...

I love my tiny dancer.  This was Kate's 5th ballet recital!  Below is a picture of her first day of ballet.



January 2009
2.5 years old

On another note, I am going to be much more consistent in my blogging.  Three Peanuts is really important to me.  It is my life journal.  It is important to me because this is a record of the most important thing I do in life (after loving God)....love my family.  I love looking back and remembering all these special moments and I know one day this will be priceless to my children.

Stretch

This is kind of how I feel.  S T R E T C H E D.  I just do not have enough hours in the day.  Life is good.  It is just SO full.  I am still editing the rest of the Sugarbaby photos and will post them soon.  La crosse and ballet and water polo are all wrapping up this week and in the next few weeks so hopefully I will gain some more time in my days?! In the meantime, we have champs and playoffs and recitals to manage:)  Also, I was honored to be asked to be a mentor Mom to incoming freshmen families at Will's school and this month is crunch time with lots of fun welcoming calls and activities.  So, I think it will be a busy May.

I do miss the blog world though.

This is a quick picture I took of Kate as she was warming up yesterday.  This girl is so flexible and graceful.  I love watching her dance.


Be back soon.

What a weekend...

We had such a busy weekend!  We had dinner with friends on Friday night.  There was a Mom's orientation coffee/meeting for me at Will's new high school on Saturday morning.  I had to rush out of that early to get home and get Miss Kate all ready for her big recital.  Then it was off to her performance.  And then Saturday night was the Father-Daughter dance at school!  This was a first for Kate and Dave and it was SO sweet!  Finally, we had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday.

Let's start with the recital.  We were so rushed going from one thing to the next that I did not have time to get many photos .... but here it is (again since I did post rehearsal pics too)

Kate just loves the performance.  She has so much fun on stage.
The boys were very good sports about sitting through the performance. The good Lord knows Kate sat through enough sporting events for them!

{Kate is center stage, second row below}

Kate and some of her friends after the show.  A little boy in her class also brought her flowers:)

After the recital, Kate did a little resting and a little swimming and then it was off to the Father-Daughter Dance!

I totally let Kate pick her outfit for the dance.  She has worn this dress a lot but she loves it.  Her godmother, Aunt Stacy sent it to her and it is so beautiful.

Kate got her Daddy a boutonniere... she was so cute:)

And Dave gave Kate her first wrist corsage.  She was very excited!  She did not know about such things!

I will admit that Will and I went and peeked in the windows of the dance.  I just HAD to see Kate and Dave dancing.  Then, my good friend called me right at the end of the dance and said she was crashing and did I want to meet her there?  So, I popped in for a few minutes. It really was about the cutest thing I have ever seen.  Kate was having SO much fun!!!

 My friend took these photos...


Apparently, there was a dress-up "photo-booth" type thing (and Dave got cute photos on a strip but I have no idea where they are)

The big dip!

I look at these photos and I get all teary and emotional.  I really do.  My kids are so blessed to have Dave as their father.  He is incredible. I have never really blogged about it before but I have no relationship with my Dad.  He has not been a good father to me and he does not even know my children.  It is quite sad. I feel sorry for him because he is missing out on so much.  I cannot imagine not wanting to be a part of my children's or grandchildren's lives.  BUT,  I feel so incredibly blessed that my children have the world's most amazing Dad.  He is fun and loving (but strict too) and he doesn't miss anything with them.  He is so involved in all of the kids lives.


I will post about Mother's Day next:)

I hope you all had a GREAT Mother's Day!