Zoe really loves to play jokes on the tooth fairy.
I didn't get a picture of the fake tooth she left under her pillow, and I should have because it was a good one. It was half a tictac, and she painted some of the broken end red to look like blood. Very convincing, but the tooth fairy was onto her. Zoe got back some fake money - it's coin rubbings glued onto washers. Good one! Zoe laughed all day at how funny her fake money is.
As a photographer I'm glad her other front tooth is coming in, because it looks so silly to have 1 1/2 teeth in front.
Mattie helped me with some headshots, I was setting up the light for a client. Pierce helped too but only made bad faces, no nice smiles.
One of the very best things about this summer is swim team! Last year was good, but this year is GREAT. This year Zoe has really stepped up her game and decided to be a REAL SWIMMER. Last summer she really wanted to be on swim team, but when it came right down to it and it was time to practice, she was usually too scared (or something) and didn't want to get in the water. This year she had to be very brave, but on the first day she hopped right in the water and started swimming. I think this picture was taken was the third day of swim. She was swimming in the far left lane by the wall, and right after I took this picture her coach asked her to MOVE UP TO THE MIDDLE LANE because she was easily swimming the whole distance without holding onto the wall. When he told her to move up, I think she grew a whole inch, she was so dang proud of herself. Here she is with her friends Olivia and Julia.
Here she is swimming freestyle. She has not mastered breathing to the side yet, but she's working on it (still). She needs to get her arms out of the water, it's tough.
SO HAPPY AND PROUD. We talk about it all the time. (By the way, yes, this is her competitive Hello Kitty swimsuit.)
Pierce is at the top of the 9-10 year old age group. He's been smoking past most of the other boys in the meets (we've had 2 so far). There are a couple of boys that are real competition and he's been having fun making sure he's in their heat so he can try to beat them.
Every day after swim, the kids' friends Julia and Dallin come home with us for a few minutes while their little brother has his swim lesson. The girls always take Kepler for a walk, then eat a popsicle. Zoe drew this picture on the pantry door/chalkboard, we love it. Kepler is getting so stiff and old, it's getting tough for her to get around, but it's worth it and she does still seem to enjoy going on a walk around the block. (Sometimes twice, both girls like to hold the leash once.)
We've also been doing some cooking. Here's Pierce peeling potatoes. He used to hate potatoes, it was a good joke of ours to tell him we'd go out to eat at Potato Palace. But now he loves them and he's making mashed potatoes all by himself here.
"Can I have a turn?" Of course Zoe wants to do it too.
Mattie and Pierce's teacher, Miss Gael, decided that it would be easier and quicker to do a puppet show this year than a full-size play.
They did a great production of Peter Pan, complete with homemade marionettes and music and a great set. We got to see 2 evening performances, and they also performed for the other classes at school for 2 days. We loved it!
I did video one segment - actually I meant to video the whole thing, but the battery ran out much faster than I thought it would. Sorry about that, Mattie and Pierce. So here are some pictures of the first evening, and I'll post the video that I have at the bottom of the page.
Mattie has agreed to be my guest blogger so she will describe the pictures. Thanks Mattie!
The set was designed so that the students' heads could be seen over the puppet stage. The Shadow performed before the story part of the play started.
Michael, John, Wendy, Mrs. Darling, and Nana in the nursery.
Mrs. Darling tells Mr. Darling about Peter.
Nana is put into the doghouse.
Peter sings, "I Gotta Crow" after Wendy sews on his shadow.
This is the scene when Wendy is shot by Tootles.
The Forgotten Girls discuss how to stop the Lost Boys from eating the pirates' poisoned cake.
This is John and Michael sitting in Tinkerbell's chair in the underground home.
Tinkerbell in the underground home
Wendy in the underground home
This is the setup for the scene in Peter and the Lost Boys' home.
The Lost Boys, Forgotten Girls, Wendy, John, and Michael are on the pirate ship after being captured by the pirates.
The crocodile eats Captain Hook.
The Lost Boys and Forgotten Girls are adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Darling.
These pictures are from the bow at the end of the play. This is Pierce with Michael.
This is Mattie with Wendy.
And this is the very end, when Peter takes a bow.
Here are the puppets hanging up backstage:
Mrs. Darling
John
Captain Hook
Smee
Mary, a Forgotten Girl
Another Forgotten Girl
Starkey, the pirate Mattie played
Mr. Darling
Wendy
Peter
Mattie and Pierce really wanted me to video their second performance (the first one I was supposed to be taking stills for their teacher). So I got the gigantic memory card cleared off, charged the battery, thinking I'd use our smaller camera, which is usually better for video anyway. Wrong choice! The battery only lasted a little while, sadly. So here is the first part of Peter Pan, before the camera clicked off.
And here is a short bit a little while later, when I thought I might be able to squeeze a tiny bit more battery out. Sort of.
Overall, we loved the performances! Great job to Mattie and Pierce. Pierce started the year telling their teacher that he would never perform in play, and he ended up acting two parts, Michael and a lost boy (there were 22 puppets and only 11 kids) and even had a short singing solo. Mattie played Wendy, a big part, and one of the pirates (so cute). Their music was a lot of fun, the lines were delivered smoothly and the dialogue was witty. Their teacher took the play from the book Peter Pan, not the Disney movie, so it was a little different, but still very recognizable and just a lot of fun. Great job!
It's Zoe's last ballet recital! Well, who knows, maybe she will take ballet again someday. But her teacher, Miss Nicole, is going off to college in the fall. So we are going to be done with her ballet class, which Zoe has been faithfully attending for a couple of years now. (And that is okay, because Zoe has PLENTY of things to keep her busy! And honestly I see her more as athletic than graceful.)
Her recital had a princess theme, and their costumes were really cute. Oh, and their hair was supposed to be curled - I tried to do ringlets but it turned out just curly instead. She was deeply disappointed that it wasn't in ringlets, her favorite. But she loves getting dressed up soooooooo much and really especially loves to dance on the stage! So she was excited. (Dancing on the stage is by far her favorite part of ballet lessons - not so much the dancing, for her it's all about the STAGE.)
I took a couple of class pictures for them. Such pretty girls! (The older girl is Nicole's younger sister, who also likes to dance, she's just older than the rest of the class.)
And then, I made a terrible mistake! I thought I'd videoed the first dance that Zoe was in, which was her very favorite, to the tune of the snowman song from Frozen, which is her favorite song also. But I got it wrong, no video, ugh. I did get the second dance, which she didn't like nearly as well, but here it is anyway:
And a picture of Zoe on stage after it was over. Great job Zoe!
One of the things we love about the kids' school is the great dramatic performances they do at the end of the year! Mattie and Pierce performed several parts in a puppet show version of Peter Pan, complete with marionettes that they made themselves. It was awesome! And... when I tried to video it, the camera ran right out of battery. I will still post what I got later on. But this post is about Zoe's class play! It was entitled "Snow Gael and the Seven Reframers and the Three Little Pigs".
First of all, you need to know that Gael is the principal and founder of Family School. (Snow Gael is just the fairy tale version, played by Tiffany, of Real Gael.) Second - the kids use "reframers" to approach problems. There are 16 different reframers to help you ask smart questions and think about things differently as you expand your learning, including comparing, abstracting, defining, and Zoe's reframer (in the play) of utility (what is it used for?).
The play starts out with a little bit of a wait at the beginning, sorry about that, and obviously I'm too lazy to edit the video (which is not my strength). They have a cute and then a fun song. Matt and I were very impressed at how smoothly it all went and how confident the kids sounded. They are a really sweet little class. Most of the kids are in 2nd grade, 15 of them, and the other 4 are in first grade (Zoe is one of them). They are very nice and supportive and helpful and there's not one of them that I am sorry to have in Zoe's class. How many classes can you say that about? Another great thing is that her teacher, Miss Jennifer, is teaching the class again next year. It won't be just the same but most of the same kids will be back. I really really like Jennifer, and I feel like she gets Zoe very well, so I'm very happy about this. Also Zoe will definitely benefit from not having to get to know and trust another teacher - hopefully she will be brave and participate in class much earlier in the year this next school year.
Look at me, sharing more than just vacation pictures! The end of the school year has been so much fun for us. It was a bit of a blow to return from our fabulous vacation, and I still wish we could go back! But we've had a great end of year. One fun thing we did last weekend was to drive to Denver for a soccer tournament for Pierce's team.
We were so happy that Mom and Dad joined us in Cherry Hills to spend a little time together! Thanks so much to them. Also, Doug and Heather drove down to see us too! How nice is that??? Naturally I didn't take any pictures of the cool farm museum we went to in Littleton, or the fun hotel with the good breakfast ($20 a plate good, just ask Mom and Dad! Or maybe that was a stretch?). But I did take some soccer pictures so I'll just share what I have.
The boys played in the silver division and I think it was a great fit. They won the first game decisively. We saw the first yellow card ever in one of Pierce's games - a boy attacked Pierce from behind and knocked him down with a 2 handed push, and got yellow carded for it. Then on the penalty kick Pierce managed to score (not right from the kick but in the same play). Go Pierce! I didn't take any pictures of that game, in fact I'd forgotten that I'd lugged my big camera all the way there. So these pics are of the 2nd game.
The kids were soooooo happy to get to see Caitlyn, Hailey, and Miles! They are really darling little people and I loved seeing them too. As you've gathered I never did any kind of organized photography - this was just when Caitlyn happened to dance around in front of my lens. Love.
Watching the twins made me glad that we don't have 2 year old twins :) - but I love them! (I'm just glad to not have 2 year olds of my own right now. They are fast and they don't run in the same directions.) But Doug and Heather seem to have the situation well in hand - if they dared drive down to Denver just to watch a soccer game they must be doing great with their darling kids!
Here Pierce was laughing because we pushed up the cheering several notches. GO PIERCE!!!
On the drive home on Sunday (Pierce doesn't play in the Sunday games, so we went to church and then left town) we took a right at Walsenburg and drove to the Great Sand Dunes. The drive was very scenic (for awhile, then for awhile it looked like New Mexico, blah). The mountains were close and the fields were green. Our LDS friends the Symes came with us - Pierce's friend Dallin also plays on our team.
The Great Sand Dunes were super cool. We've been to White Sands three times so I guess I expected something similar, but aside from both being sand, they were nothing alike. These dunes are right up against the mountains, and there is a stream going past. We ate a picnic lunch and hiked around in the dunes a very little bit.
Gorgeous, right? The stream is seasonal so we were there at the right time. (Being from NM we know all about seasonal streams.) It was only a couple of inches deep so you just wade across, brrrrrrr. (It's snowmelt.)
It was pretty windy, and if you've ever been to the beach or dunes in a windstorm, you know that it's not the best place to be. I couldn't keep my camera out at all (sand is something I try to be careful about with my good camera) and I didn't even really want to hike around, so Ingrid and I took shelter behind a dune. Oh - these dunes are much higher than the ones at White Sands, I think I'm remembering that the highest one is 720 feet.
All was well, we were chatting about school and having a nice time (Dallin was admitted to Pierce and Mattie's school class for next year) - until we realized that the 3 little kids were nowhere to be seen. This prompted some racing through the sandy dunes, until Pierce discovered them back by the river. I had thought they'd joined Matt and Dain in their hike, but they'd gone back to play in the water, yikes.
All in all, an exciting and interesting drive home, and it only added maybe 90 minutes to the drive as we went home the Taos way, also making the tedious drive more interesting. A great weekend!
