Caitlin wanted to go ice skating for her birthday.
Penelope and Eustina had never been before but they all had such a good time.
After ice skating we came home and had Kondike bars. What doesn't everyone have that for their birthday candles? I swear that is what she wanted instead of cake!
A rare sweet moment from Alaina.
Later that night, we went to Nana's for a family party. We had pizza and more ice cream. Caitlin had a great birthday. She is very thankful to all the family who sent/gave money/gift cards for her gecko. She has plenty to get the gecko and set up his habitat. She is SO excited!!
Caitlin has wanted to do a drama camp for a little while. So this year, as her birthday present, we enrolled her in a local camp. She loved every minute of it and wants to do it again next year. After 5 days of learning acting, improve and how to audition, they performed their skits. It was pretty impressive what they could accomplish in so little time.
Alaina's first ever flip was not caught on camera. Rusty didn't tell her what he was doing because he knew she wouldn't want to do it. He was used to flipping Caitlin and over rotated. She went around 1.5 times and landed on her face. Alaina just swam up and said, "Hey why did you do that?"
I took off a little early from work last night and we all went swimming. Alaina didn't even wait for anyone else. She grabbed her new goggles and jumped in and immediately started swimming. I showed her how to do her arms and she took off. Here's a montage of some of the GoPro video we took. The last clip is her trying to do a handstand. That got better the more she tried it.
She had so many firsts last night!
She learned to do a flip, she tried a handstand, she dove for rings in the 3-4 foot, she did cannonballs and belly flops, she jumped in and swam to Rusty in the deep end. She tried everything we mentioned. She's now at the point she's dangerous. She thinks she can do it all. She was in the deep end and didn't want anyone to hold on to her. "Let me do it" was heard multiple times! It was amazing and terrifying!
On Saturday, I took the girls to the pool. It was finally warm enough to get in. I took Alaina's goggles, hoping I could get her to finally put her face in the water. She will do it in the tub but something about the pool scares her.
She wouldn't do it. She was scared. I totally understood the fear. Fear can cause you to miss out on a lot of things. It grows and grows if you are not careful. I tried to explain to her that I understood. That I had let that get in my way for a long time. But at 40, I learned to swim and actually liked it. But that all I had to do was decide I could do it. I told her that she had to decide that too. And immediately, she said, "OK. I'm going to do it!" Then she went to the kiddy pool, put on her goggles, and swam around. I was SHOCKED!! So for the next 30 minutes, I threw the rings in and she would do this.
I was so proud!! So then I tried to get her in the big pool. She was like, "I don't think so!" Something about it's size was overwhelming to her. So I told her again, "You can do it. You just have to decide that you can do it." And she said, "Alright. Let's try it."
And immediately, she could do this!
I'm not sure we ever taught her to do kick her legs and do her arms. This seemed instinctual. I was amazed. She did this for over an hour and couldn't get enough.
That night I went to Target and got her goggles that will cover her nose so she won't have to hold it. I can't wait to see how fast she is with both hands.
Later that night, I was telling her how proud I was of her, that she didn't let fear stop her. I asked her what made her decide to do it? She said, "I just wanted to make you happy." I told her she definitely did that!
Playing in the kiddy pool. Now sure what they were doing to Caitlin but she didn't seem to mind.
I have always loved the Disney movie Newsies. I remember seeing it in college in the theater on a date and having the music stuck in my head for days after.
Ever since they made it a broadway show, mom and I have been tracking it's progress. So when we found out it was coming to Nashville, we just had to go.
We did like the show. There were significant differences and I knew that going in. I didn't mind them but I did love the movie better. I felt like the person who played Jack did not have a big enough presence. You could barely pick him out in the group. And the new female reporter character (Katherine) seemed very snotty. I don't know if that was the way it was written or just the way she played it. Same with the character of Davey. In this version, he was so whiny. It really was annoying and hard to like him. But I did love Medda and little Les stole the show!
Horrible pre-show selfies!
And this is what you get when you ask a stranger to take your group picture!
