Recital 2013

Yesterday was year number three for this little dancer to participate in recital and she would have gotten on stage alot more if they would have let her, the girl loves to perform! 

 

 

Jazz this year was performed to Throw Your Hands Up and it was a cute little number.  The girls struggled with the choreography a bit, but after 3 additional practices they did wonderful.

Emma's ballet class danced to Keep On Dancing and it was beautiful.  Emma had a very special lead part in this dance that made me cry my eyes out during recital, I was so PROUD of her on stage.

This girl loved her Jazz class this year and all the shaking they got to do (ha ha).  She grew so much as a dancer and the light officially went off and she started saying how much she truly loved and enjoyed dancing.  I believe she has always really like dance, but this year she has loved it and can be found leaping and doing pirouettes all over the house.

 

Emma Caroline, you are one beautiful little girl on the inside and out!  We are so PROUD of you, your love for life and your ability to tell a story on stage. 

 

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean

Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens

Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I HOPE YOU DANCE

Happy SIXTH Birthday Emma

Happy SIXTH Birthday to the most amazing little girl we know and love.  Words can not begin to describe the overwhelming proudness we feel to call you our daughter.  

You are simply amazing, loving, precious, outgoing, have a servant's heart, Jesus junkie, swimmer, school lovin', devoted to family, graceful dancer, animal infatuated, friend to all, hysterical, compassionate, giving, dreamer, best big sister, blessed, grateful, sweet cousin, affectionate, honest with your words, always happy, over achiever, wise beyond your years, beautiful on the inside and out, want to be involved in everything and a lover of life.  There is not a single thing we would change about your precious soul Emma Caroline and we pray daily that we are raising you to honor and serve God. 

Thank you so much for teaching us to be parents and for reminding us when we skip a beat, your boldness is admired and appreciated.

Today, you will dance in your 3rd recital, we will sing Happy Birthday to you while you blow out SIX candles on a cupcake, we will gather our bags and head to the airport for our family vacation.  You and your brother have no idea where we are headed, but it will be a week filled with fun, adventure and family time.  I am confident when we get to the airport and you read the state we are traveling to that you and your brother will scream with excitement, hug, jump up for joy and celebrate the way best friends do.

Emma Caroline, today is your day.  I hope you always know and feel the unconditional love we have for you in this life. What an amazing journey it has been the last six years and one that I am so incredibly thankful to be a part of with you. 

We are a team, we are family, we are The Frazier Four! We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays and life with you sweet girl. 

Happy 6th Birthday to you Emma Lou!

Emma's 6th Birthday Party

Yesterday we celebrated Emma's SIXTH birthday with 20 of her little friends and 3 cousins.  All of the kids had a blast and enjoyed the party. 

My kids love to challenge me when it comes to party themes and this year was no exception.  Emma decided in January when American Girl released the girl of the year Saige, that she would be having an American Girl Saige Art Party. 

Emma has become a great reader this year and we have read many large books together.  Saige is one of them and needless to say we learned more than we needed to know about Saige Copeland from Albuquerque.  Saige is a lover of art and her school lost the funding for its Art program, so she went on a campaign to save the program.  Of course she had the help of her Dad, whom was a Hot Air Balloon Pilot, her Mimi (an artist) and Picasso (her Mimi's horse that Saige loved).  From there, Emma's 6th birthday came to life.

 

We decided to have the party in the art lab at my high school and it was the perfect space and place.  Emma is a social butterfly and wanted to invite 40+ friends, but she was forced to narrow her list down this year to her favorite friends and a few cousins.

Each child got to paint a 16 x 24 canvas of a hot air balloon and they were all so creative.  My art teacher graciously walked the kids through an art lesson and the process.  I was so proud of how intently they listened.  

The goody buckets were paint cans filled with an art palette cookie, American Girl Magazine, candy, Saige bookmark and Icee pops.

The paint can up close and tag that said, "I hope you had a Sweet time at my party". 

Emma chose the cupcakes and colors for this party, it was a hodge podge but looked so cute mixed together.  The world of art is very colorful, so it was perfect.

We had this little table sat up as a colorful candy bar where the little artist filled their paint cans up at the end.

Colors, colors and more colors!  Believe it or not the kids were so neat and clean with their canvases.  Each of them were provided an apron to keep their clothes clean and I also came armed with Dreft stain spray.

The room was set up when they arrived and they were all so excited to be in a High School, it was cute.

This little cabinet was set up with Emma's AG Dolls, pennants, gift bags and pizza.

I can not believe that this little girl will be SIX years old in a few more days.  She is so super excited about going to 1st grade next year.

Another little display filled with cookies and American Girl catalogs for the little girls to take home.

Sweet Gracie and Hannah Claire have been Emma's special friends since she was 15 months old in MDO.  I hope these 3 always stay connected.

Ava and Delilah are Emma's sweet friends from the Dance studio.

Hannah Claire, you are a special little girl and Emma loves you as much as you love her. 

Ally was so excited to paint and did such a great job.

Emma's sweet little brother could hardly wait to get started and he did a great job.  Way to go Gavin, you kept us laughing (thinking he likes abstract art).

Lauren and Emma are in summer swim, dance and year around swim together.  They are the best of friends and are SUPER silly when they are together.

Our sweet cousin Peyton.  So glad they are here for the summer from Colorado and could join us.  Peyton has some talent when it comes to expressing herself with a paintbrush.

Happy Birthday to you Emma, so hard for me to believe that I had to push 6 candles down in that cake this year.  Seems like yesterday when we were helping you blow out your candles sweet girl.

Lily, Laney, Melinda and Stephanie all enjoyed their lesson and were such great students. These sweet girls are great friends to Emma.

Macey and Isabella are 2 of Emma's friends from Kindergarten this year.  We missed Kate and Ellie (her best friend at school this year) but hope to have a play date with them soon. I wish I could have gotten a picture of everyone, but we stayed busy helping everyone and refilling paint.

It was hard to get all the kiddos together at the end, but we managed to get this shot.  It was so fun to see how different everyone did their canvas and how cute they all turned out, they were so proud of their hard work. We were thankful for all of those who joined us and missed those that could not make it to celebrate with us.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to

remain an artist once we grow up.

~ Pablo Picasso

Gavin's Last Day of Pre K 3

Little man finished up his last day of school at MDO two weeks before Emma.  This little boy had the best year of school ever.  He was so loved by his teachers and they were wonderful with him and his personality.  Gavin will be returning to the same MDO program for PreK 4 this year and we are looking forward to watching him learn and get prepared for Kindergarten in 2014. 

 

 

Last Day of PreK 3, it was water day (big fun).  Gavin started the year as a three year old and ended at 4 years and 2 months old.

 

 

What a huge difference we saw in Gavin Thomas the last 9 months in PreK 3.  He is such a smart little guy and has an unbelievable imagination to go along with it.  We are so grateful for this amazing MDO program that fosters creativity, imagination, unit planning, hands on activities and individualized instruction 90% of the time he is there (the other 10% is discovery play).

Gavin Thomas, you were such a big boy this year and we are so PROUD of you and your accomplishments this year.  

Super Kids Day Kindergarten 2013

Kindergarten is just weeks away from coming to an end, but not until Super Kids Day!  Emma was so excited about this day, but was not looking forward to wearing a T-shirt and leaving her cowboy boots behind.

 

This child and her fashion desire drives me plum crazy some mornings.  She truly believes that tennis shoes and T-shirts are for BOYS and it is a fight to get her to wear either one.  She finally agreed when I told her I would put bows on the shirt and make it girly (her Daddy likes to remind me that I have created the monster!).

 

Emma's best buddy this school year was Ellie and we loved hearing a different story everyday about what they did at school.

 

 

The day was so organized, fun and offered so much for the kids to do.  They were required to have their cards stamped at 10 booths before getting a snow cone, great idea.

 

 

Emma, Ellie and Riley are always giving each other big hugs.  I am so glad that Emma's friends are as affectionate as she is and don't mind all the hand holding and hugs.

 

As a working Mom I am so thankful that I get to participate in all the extra things my kids are involved in at school. I have always had understanding Principals that just say, "Go" and because of that I did not miss a thing at Gavin or Emma's school this year.  Blessed!

 

A good old fashion sack race for Emma and Ellie.  These girls fell down in this sack a couple times and they would just roll around laughing on the ground.  Emma's teacher came up to me as she was playing football with the boys and said, "I love that she is such a girly girl, but she will get out here and sweat too.  She always loves to play sports with the boys, but she usually does it in her cowboy boots."

This little girl has had an amazing KINDERGARTEN year filled with so much learning, growth, school pride and friendships.  The entire experience has been a blessing this year!

Mother's Day 2013

Blessed Beyond Measure!

 

 

Amazing that I can wrap my arms around my entire world daily. God is good and I have more than I ever dreamed of in this life.

 

Swim Team Rookie Camp

Both of kids started rookie camp for summer swim team at the start of the week.  We had been prepping Gavin for a couple weeks in hopes that swim team would be a great experience for him.

 

Emma was not required to participate in rookie camp, but we let her so she could provide comfort to her brother and get some extra practice in since we were going to be at the pool.  She was a little Momma to Gavin all week, making sure he had his kickboard, goggles and got to the appropriate swim group. 

 

She was so encouraging to him and there were a few times I had to tell her he was fine and to just leave him alone (ha).  Gavin was so eager to get in the water and get started.  Day 1 did not go so well, but we just encouraged him to keep going back.

Rookie camp is designed for first time swim team kids, but it does not spend a large amount of time teaching kids to swim.  Here are all the non swimmers listening to the coaches telling them how the week would go.  Um, Gavin took his goggles off and was like, "uh not me!"

Day 2 was much better and he began kicking, going under water and moving his arms in a swimming motion.  I thought this was going to be the summer that we would be cheering both of our kiddos on poolside.

Gavin continued to work with Coach John and do what he was expected to do at rookie camp.  By day 4 something scared him and he had made up his mind that he was not going to participate any longer.  When this kid makes up his mind he is done, he is done and there is NOTHING that can convince him otherwise (not even ice cream).

By Day 5 all the kids were required to swim 25 yards (length of the pool) unassisted to be able to move onto swim team.  Gavin was not able to do it and honestly he wasn't even interested.  I am not one to force my kids to do anything, only to finish what they started so we were PROUD that he completed rookie camp.  Gavin loves the water, but he likes to play it safe. 

Our goal is to get him some private swim lessons with a swim coach before next season, so he can join his sister next summer on swim team.  Way to go Gavin, we are so proud of your for trying big boy. 

So many...

For all the things that are WRONG in this world...

 

There are so many things that are RIGHT!