Fishin'

Last week I was talking to my friend Julie about taking Sara Kate fishing with her uncle and cousins, mainly because we went Memorial weekend last year and she has been talking about wanting to go again.  Except I didn't say 'fishING,' I said 'fishIN,' and she thought it was hysterical how my southern drawl came out.  I am a southern girl, born and raised, and some words come out way more southern sounding than others...apparently, FISHIN' is one of them.  HA!  Today after my parents left, Sara Kate and I loaded up and headed to Berryville.  She was beyond excited to one, see her cousins, mainly Hannah, and two, go FISHIN'!  We had this conversation in the car on the way there...

Sara Kate: Yea!  We're going fishing!

Me: Do you know what fishing is?  (just wondering if she really remembers)

Sara Kate: Yes!  It's when you go to the water and catch fish.

Me: How do you catch fish?

Sara Kate: With our hands.

Me: No silly.  With a pole.

Sara Kate: With a pole?  Oh yeah!  With a pole!  Hannah and I are going to put our faces in the water.

Me: You are?

Sara Kate: Oh wait, no.  We can't put our faces in the fish water.  The fishes might bite our noses and slap us with their tails.

Me:  laughing...

She cracks me up.

Pretty quickly after we got to Berryville, we headed to the river.  These kids were beyond excited.  And I can't help but laugh looking at these silly cheeses!

 I had one VERY excited little girl!

Most of Jason's family was there, his parents and sister and her husband and kids, and even my sweet friend Julie, who made fun of the way I said FISHIN', joined us with her adorable little pup!

The kids swam, even though the water was freezing!!  Kids don't care about that though, ha! And I use the term 'swam' loosely because the water was very shallow and they could all touch just fine, but they enjoyed floating and letting the current take them a little ways before walking back and doing it again (don't worry, there was plenty of supervision).

Me: Sara Kate, are you cold?

Sara Kate: No mommy.  *shaking and teeth chattering*

Then Uncle Jason, his mom, and Aunt Jenny broke out the fishing poles!  And a somebody caught their first fish of the year!  And she was SO excited!!  And it was adorable!!

 

She even wanted to hold it, which of course didn't last long because it squirmed right out of her hands.  But she did hold it!

All the kids took turns catching fish before we had to head out because rain was coming.  But we had a great day.  I love doing fun stuff like this with my big girl, and I loved hanging out with friends and family.  And I'm glad she got to expend some energy because I had a WILD child on my hands this morning! 

She had a great day and was exhausted this evening.  Early to bed...yea!!

Hope everyone had a great Memorial weekend!  We're so thankful for all the men and women who serve our country and allow us to live in this great, free land!

First Recital

My tiny dancer had her first dance recital today.  I'll go ahead and admit that I had TONS of anxiety going into today.  I have had several dreams that I would get her there late, that she wouldn't be dressed, that I forgot her hairpiece, and yesterday's dream included me dropping her off naked with wet hair and no make up.  Yep, I'm a mess.  But the main cause of my anxiety was the timing.  It was at 3:00 this afternoon, and they had to be there at 2:30.  Those times are right in the middle of nap time.  A situation with my child on no nap has the potential to be a disaster, but the stars aligned and today went off without a hitch.  I tried to get her to lay down for about 30 minutes before we had to start getting ready but all she wanted to do was read books.  So we read books.  Then we got ready.  Hair (I tried curling her hair yesterday just to see if I could do it and her hair will not hold curl...AT ALL!!), make up, costume...check!!  All ready to go and so so beautiful.

 

 

Sara Kate's class was in the Act 1, and let me tell you, they had this down to a science!!  Bring kids on stage, kids dance, move kids off stage, next group enters, and repeat.  In the dressing room the kids stayed with a 'room mom' until it was their time, then they went back to the dressing room until intermission when we could pick them up.  The room mom for Sara Kate's class was the sweetest...she brought them each a little canvas bag with 'dance' stenciled on it, and it had a coloring book, crayons, stickers, and markers in it.  And afterwards she had them each a granola bar and chocolate milk.  So sweet!!  Sara Kate's class danced to 'La Bamba' and as you can see from pictures they had maracas.  Another source of anxiety was they had NEVER practiced with the maracas!!  After talking with a couple other mom's we all shared that same anxiety, ha!  But the girls went on stage, they watched their teacher, they danced, and it was adorable. 

 

What is with the expression??  I don't even know!!  And there is no telling!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So proud of her.

 

Meme and Poppa had a surprise for her...some pretty roses.  She was so proud and loved her flowers!  She said, 'we have to put them in a BASE when we get home!'  Haha!

 

 

Before we left I had to get a picture of Sara Kate with her teacher, Miss Rebecca.  She loved Miss Rebecca this year and keeps saying she wants to be in her class again.

We finished our afternoon with a trip to get ice cream, which is something my parents and I would do every year after my recitals when I was growing up.

 

Overall we had a great first year of dance and Sara Kate said she's ready to dance more and do more recitals.  So I will enroll in more classes and see what the future holds for our little dancer!

Oh, and I do have the performance on video.  I might share it later this week. :-)

Red White Game

Sara Kate had a big day on Saturday.  She attended her first Razorback football game!!  She's been to a basketball game and we've been to the 'meet the team' events, but this was her first time to go watch the football team play.  I figure it will be a couple more years before she's ready to go to a REAL game, so for now, this is perfect!  The University of Arkansas held it's annual Red White game to end spring practice, along with Razorfest, which is a bunch of bouce houses, games, etc. for kids.  We got there late because of gymnastics and having to run a couple of errands, but we walked around Razorfest for a few minutes but the lines for what was left were too long.  So we headed into the stadium.  We sat on the east side, lower deck (usually we sit on the west side, upper deck), about the 10th row or so.  It was pretty cool to be so close!

 

Sara Kate loved watching the cheerleaders and was obsessed with making sure she knew where the mascots were...making sure they did NOT come into the stands!  And thankfully while we were there they didn't!!

 Coach Bielema walking the field before the game.

Once the game started, it was kind of hard to keep track of which quarterback was which, which kicker was which...since they are no contact players.  But it was still fun watching them play, even though it was just a team scrimmage.

All pictures were taken by Chris!!

 

 Sara Kate did really well watching everything and taking it all in.  She noticed little things, like the stadium lights were on.  She called the Hogs...even though it was at a time when we were NOT calling the Hogs.  She read off the letters as we did the H-O-G-S spell out.  She even busted out singing 'Jesus Loves the Little Children' at one point.  Haha! 

We left at half time...she was ready to go by then, asking for a snack and ready to go to the car.  As a treat we bought some cotton candy, her first time to try it.  She loved it and told my mom and dad all about it later that night.  I hope she had fun.  I'm glad we live in a college town and she gets to experience stuff like this.  

Before we left campus, we stopped by some very special letters and I got a picture of my little legacy!  LOVE! :-)

Oh, and here's my mommy fail of the day...I forgot sunscreen and Sara Kate ended up with pink little shoulders...not as bad as mommy's red shoulders and back...ouch!

One more thing.  Please pray for our state!  We had devastating tornadoes in central Arkansas last night, wiping out towns that were affected by other strong tornadoes just a couple of years ago.  Pray for all those that were affected.  Also pray for Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, which are in the path of the storms and the areas of those states that have already been affected.

Easter 2014

Happy Easter friends!!  He is Risen!!  We've had a great Easter, and it was an absolutely beautiful day.  We've had a low key day at home, just the 3 of us.  

My beautiful girl in her Easter dress.

 

We started the day with an excellent church service.  Ya'll, our church is AWESOME!!  Seriously!!  If you're local in NWA, come check out First Christian Church in Fayetteville.  You won't be disappointed!  Anyway, we had a great turn out in contemporary service, the bell choir played in traditional service, and today was my day to teach children's church during our traditional service.  This is what Sara Kate took away from the lesson:

"Baby Jesus is alive!  The good witch, I mean the angel, rolled the rock away from the tomb and Baby Jesus was gone.  He's alive!"

Melt this mama's heart!!

After church we had to come home to see if the Easter bunny had visited!  In our house, the Easter bunny comes while we're at church.  He fills Sara Kate's basket with goodies and hides the eggs we dyed on Saturday.  She was so excited to see what he left!  She actually said the Easter bunny is a big purple bunny and it's a girl.  Haha.  And let me preface the following pictures with Sara Kate and her tacky looking Easter basket by saying, her basket is mine from when I was a kid, which I love.  But the bow was looking kind of rough from years in the closet.  So I had my mom make a new bow for it last year but that bow got mega smashed in the closet (go figure) and I don't make bows!  So it just kind of looks blahh this year.  But Sara Kate doesn't care so it doesn't really matter.  The Easter bunny also leaves her basket outside the front door.

 

 

 

 

 

 The Easter bunny obviously shops at Target. :-)

 

 Ready to hunt for eggs!!

 

 

  There's a story behind this egg.  When I post our egg dyeing pictures, I'll explain!

 

 

 

Once all the eggs were found, we had one happy girl!

 Love her!

We've spent a relaxing afternoon at home, doing a whole lot of nothing except playing outside and playing with new toys.  Sara Kate made a "princess" (haha) with the new Play-Doh and painted a lovely picture of Ariel, which then ended up covered in spilt water.  Oh well.

We even cooked an Easter-ish meal of ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans, and I made deviled eggs.

Overall we had a great Easter and we are so thankful that we worship a risen Savior!  Hope everyone had a blessed Easter!  Happy Easter from our family to yours!