Lucy's Dance Recital

It's recital weekend!  We had the dress rehearsal last night which was the only night we were allowed to take photos or video.  You'll notice that Lucy tries to sparkle and shine - Miss Beth, the studio owner, made announcements on the stage before the dress rehearsal began and one was about the best way to sparkle and shine like a star was to smile.  Lucy did her best, that's for sure.

The costumes look white in the video so here you can see the actual color.  Keep your eye on the 3rd girl from the left in the video :)




Lucy's Dance Recital 2013 from Kristin York on Vimeo.

 The video was of the dress rehearsal and the photos are from the first of two recital days.  With makeup, lots and lots of makeup.  She was thrilled.

 Lucy lined up with her class.

And the routine.

Finger Paint Blues

No, really and truly I don't love finger paint.

 Unfortunately, I know someone who does!

Jamie's Animals

Jamie's got such a great sense of humor.  This video is a little long, but I didn't want to cut out any of the adorable-ness here.



Jamie's Animals from Kristin York on Vimeo.

Happy Easter

Again, we kind of live for the holidays, marking the passage of time by how many days/weeks/months until the next time we can celebrate something.  It was especially exciting to have an early Easter this year as we didn't have to wait a long time after St. Patrick's day.  It was especially un-exciting this year as we had the stomach flu over the weekend of St. Patrick's day and again over the weekend of Easter.  It seems like we've lately had to start marking the passage of time by how many days/weeks until the next time I'm cleaning up sick.  I prefer holidays.

Anyway, we got it together enough to have a little bit of fun with the kids, even if no family dinner.  I don't think either Lucy or I even ate on Sunday!

Fun Easter bunny baskets.

On the egg hunt.  Lucy got practically all the eggs I hid - Jamie didn't really catch on to the fact that he was supposed to look for them until the last few eggs were in the yard. 

He mostly just played t-ball.

Eggs, those tricky eggs.  The green grass is peeking up here!

Lucy enjoyed some t-ball as well.  She hits kind of like her mother, tee and all.  I'm not keeping my fingers crossed for a softball scholarship to college here.

We also had lots of fun on the swing.

And Jamie was kind enough to work on cleaning up the last of the snow in our yard for me.  Just like Grandpa, he's always doing something.  Shoveling, mowing, raking, sweeping, vacuuming, hammering, etc.  I'm going to have to keep encouraging this one, maybe he'll build me a house.

Our egg tree has taken a bit of a beating this year, literally.  It went up pretty late and only after our behind neighbor had asked me if we were going to hang our eggs about 20 times.  I think she really must enjoy looking at the tree she asked so many times.  Jamie's favorite pastime is to beat the eggs with a stick/broom/shovel/etc and watch them wiggle around.  Most have cracked open and have had to be glued again.  I think when we bring the eggs down I'm going to get a couple of tennis balls and hang them from our tree to let him still beat something around.

Finally, our Easter fun video:

Easter 2013 from Kristin York on Vimeo.

Jamie's 2nd Birthday

What did we get the big boy this year?  A great big helping of rotovirus, or the like.  Poor kid got sick on his birthday, so all the pics and video here are coming off some vomiting and a fever that was as high as 103 when I picked him up at the babysitter.  Still willing to smile!

 Can you see the incredibly crooked haircut?  While Lucy entertained everyone with her tale of hairy crack woe, Jamie screamed as though he was being tortured.  I sat in the chair and held him on my lap while he cried "Help me!"

 This is the cake that Jamie picked out, butter chocolate cake (yum!) with purple frosting.  Lucy was thrilled.

 And yes, poor guy, I made him make his own birthday cake.

Our little party.  We had ripped through the presents in the package Grandma and Grandpa sent while skyping before we did cake and our presents.

  Someone needs to remind me to stop attempting to decorate cakes.

 Jamie was so happy that we were all singing to him.  He must have sang at Sherry's because as soon as I took out the candles he said "Wishes!"

 Cake cutting helpers.

 I've got to teach Eric how to work the camera.  I cropped this photo down to about half the size. 

 He loved the monkey backpack!

 And you can see who was the seasoned expert at opening presents.  Jamie's helper.

Finally, us singing happy birthday, Jamie opening some presents, and the first tries on his new swing, which is not the night of Jamie's birthday that we opened presents:



Jamie's Birthday from Kristin York on Vimeo.

The Gift

Thanks to Grandma for sending Jamie an awesome new tv seat for his birthday:

And some video of the kids acting silly, too:


Winter 2013 Kids from Kristin York on Vimeo.

I Love Lucy

I know that everyone thinks their kid is the smartest, cutest, funniest kid in the world ... but I know it for real.

Here's a recap of our weekend:

I took the kids for haircuts.  This was Lucy's first haircut, and she has been waiting for months to shorten her hair.  Poor kid, I kind of can't blame her because it is a beast to comb.  Hours of torture at the hands of mommy and a brush.  Eric desperately didn't want her to cut it and I (though feeling guilty about it) didn't either, as I had a feeling all her sweet curls would disappear.  I wanted to hang on to those as long as possible.

So, we get to the mall salon and Lucy hops right up into the chair and announces to everyone that this is her first haircut ever and do you want to know why she's getting her hair cut?  "Sometimes when I'm pooping" ... at this point every single person in the salon stopped what they were doing and looked at her ... "I tilt my head back and my hair gets stuck in my crack.  That's why I need a haircut."

She also pulled apart her lampshade, wrote her name on it and wore it on her head for a while.  I've got a picture in my mind of some party in the 1980s that's missing her here.

As well as spending a quiet afternoon watching Netflix on the ipad with her favorite unicorns, who also were required to wear headphones.

She seriously cracks me up.