Fall Show at The Little Gym, Part 2

Finally, the long awaited finale of Elizabeth's gymnastics/dance class!  I posted the gymnastics part already.  First, they tap dance!  Dad is thankful that she doesn't wear these shoes at home!

Their tap dance to "Weather Man":



Then they switched to their ballet shoes.  And this was Elizabeth's favorite part of the whole class!  First they did their ballet solo.

Then they all finished out the song together.



Next they performed "Hawaiian Rainbow"

 (she's got that move down!)

And finally, all the girls received a medal for completing the class!

Fall Show at The Little Gym, Part 1

Boy, I am behind!  We have a new baby and Elizabeth turned 4 and I have had very little computer time in the last 2 weeks!  Yesterday was Elizabeth's Fall Show for her gymnastics/dance class at The Little Gym.  It was just us and Grandpa able to attend, so here are some pictures/videos for all the other family that missed it.

First, the girls were introduced:



Then they did some noodle activities:

Then, she did some rolls before her high bar routine.  She's a bit afraid of heights, so this is an accomplishment for her to even do this much!

Finally in the gym side, she got to show her balance beam routine.  She had a little trouble getting on the beam in the first place because her skirt is so big!

Stay tuned for the dance part of the Fall Show...

Brave Girls on Dance Day

I believe Elizabeth had her bravest day yet in the gymnastics room at The Little Gym!  Look!  Her feet are off the ground!

 And she's in mid-air!

 Looks like two of the girls are following the instructions.

 Not sure why EB had to be snuggled up to her friend 

while she tried to tie her shoes.

 Linking together to make a chain...

 and the train moving across the room.

Every day they do a "solo performance" at the end of class.

 

 Then the daredevil girl climbed all the way to the top

of the play place...

and I had to go in and get her!

Today's Busy Day

Looking at my calendar for the week, it seemed that today - Monday, of all days - would be my hump day!  We started out with Elizabeth's dance class in the morning and David's first night of Cub Scouts this evening.

Dad was working today, so David had to go with us to dance.  I was afraid of how that would turn out, so I asked Grandpa to come along for back-up.  Turns out we lost some of the little ballerinas from her class (and school back in session took out the siblings), so the waiting room wasn't as crowded as it was last week.  Plus having the novelty of Grandpa falling asleep & waking up every few minutes, David handled the hour pretty well.  It was lunch where he didn't handle himself so well.

Elizabeth enjoyed another day of class and I remembered to take a picture while they were doing their gymnastics, but didn't get any dance pictures this week.  There she is on the low balance beam with Miss Toya waiting at the bars.

She was scared to do the bars, though, even with Miss Toya's help.

While the girls napped back at home, we got a little school work done, including this interesting comparison of the sizes of the sun and Earth (the little blue dot!).

Cub Scouts turned out to be a flop.  He was just not able to handle the group setting, or peer interaction... at all.  We left early... both in tears.  From the book I quoted last time:

...having a child with ADHD places great stress on the parents, particularly mothers.

(and surely pregnancy hormones and missing my Momma doesn't help either.)  I've also started reading another book, on defiant behavior, while I'm still finishing the book on ADHD:

Your child acts this way because he doesn't know how else to handle his difficult thoughts and feelings.

And that's mostly a reminder to myself, but still no excuse for horrible behavior.  We're just trying to figure out what's wrong with him and how we can help him.  It's very hard for me to remain patient and keep my own self-control when he's attacking me.  We've made counseling appointments to get some help.

Back to School!

Seems like most of our home school friends started back to school a few weeks ago or today.  We actually started out slowly a few weeks ago also.  David is a first grader!  We started off with just a morning block for school and as we're able to increase his attention span, we'll add the afternoon block of subjects.

So far, David has memorized one new Bible verse,completed  chapter one in our astronomy book and started the notebook, made a "What is history" pocket, and done lots of review/practice in his weakest point - handwriting.

Astronaut David is part of his astronomy notebook!  Below is David's definition of ancient in his history pocket.

I find that having him write things that are interesting to him holds his attention much better than having him just practice-write the same letter over & over.

The devotional book we're using, Leading Little Ones to God, has been right on target to answer some of the questions David has been curious about (like why we can't see God).  We've also make it through 2 chapter books (Charlotte's Web and Mr. Popper's Penguins) and 3 other smaller books, reading aloud together.  Lots of Lego work helps him maintain focus, and build his hand strength and creativity.

I think we're going to have to make a trip to the library soon and our first field trip to the Science & History Museum is in the works.  We're going to take in a show at the planetarium while we're there.

Elizabeth has been right along side, doing her "school work" that she loves so much.  Today, she also started her dance class at The Little Gym.  She absolutely loved it!

Here they are twirling:

Rebekah has to be contained during our school block.  She's been the biggest challenge so far!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Back to School time!

Dancing again!

After the sonogram yesterday, we headed out in search of shoes!  Elizabeth is starting her little dance class on Monday and still needed some ballet shoes, and David has outgrown everything but his flip flops!  We made good use of the Payless BOGO sale!

Of course, when we got home, Elizabeth had to try on her ballet slippers again and try them out.  Prepare to be amazed by the cuteness....  : )

Shoes alone, would not have been appropriate - she had to put together an ensemble!  She's watching the Baby Ballet DVD that I got from Amazon using my Swagbucks!  : )

Hopefully these videos will work; I was having some problems uploading them...