Proud Little Tapper

The time of year has come again when I break out the curling iron, the panty hose, the sparkly eye shadow...but not for me! It was Hannah's dance recital. This year she chose tap over ballet or hip pop, and she is quite the tapper.



Her class danced to "Happy Birthday" to fill in the November month for the calendar themed recital. Apparently Thanksgiving doesn't have any good tap songs. She was very good on stage this year, only occasionally needing to look at the teacher in the front row.

You can always tell the after recital smile, she was very proud of all her hard work this year, and so are we.

Congratulations on a great year of dance Hannah!!!

Catchin Up

I think you all know that we are very busy people. And you can really tell that we're even busier than normal when we haven't posted in a month. But, we've been doing important and exciting things. We'll fill you in up to date.

Stacey celebrated her 29th birthday party at Gram and Pap's with all the food and presents that go along with it. (I really didn't mind not having to make my own birthday cake!) We also celebrated with Aunt Juls at her baby shower. We are SO excited to have a new baby in the family!

As soon as we got back it was activities again. Ben took part in a super hero's class at the Y that I helped with. We took a field trip to the fire station, Ben is tall enough on his own, this only exaggerates it more!

Not too later we (as in Thad and I) went to visit my dad. We made a quick stop at the Kennedy Space Center with Bev and Eric as our guides. We pretended to go the moon on a simulater, ate some "space dots" and called it a day.

It was like a little family reunion. Love ya mom and dad, and Julie too...!

We headed to the river to go on Wild Bill's Air Boat Rides to see some alligators and other wildlife. We sure did.

We ended our trip with a visit to Universal Studios Island of Adventure. We really wanted to check out the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but apparently so did the other zillion people in the park that day. We rode one coaster, looked around in the candy story, saw the two hour line to go in Hogwarts, and left. We spent more time in the rest of the park while beating the heat, 87 is TOO HOT for us northerners.

We are now home and getting ready for our spring schedule. Hannah has her dance recital coming up, Ben is starting T Ball, with daddy as his team coach, and Spring Break/Easter are on it's way!

A Monsterific Show

Ben and I went to Monster Jam. We got our tickets through the D.A.R.E. program which allowed us entry to the Party in the Pits a half hour before the general public. He was too shy to talk to any of the drivers, but we took some cool pictures before it got too crowded.

Here's my favorite, Avenger.


Those are some wide tires on War Wizard.


In addition to monster trucks, there were ATVs and mtocross bikes. In between rounds, the ATVs raced and the motocross team did tricks.


A half hour before the show started, Ben said the show was "Monsterific."


After the races, they started the freestyle competition. Those trucks can catch some crazy air! Ben got to see it from close up.


Ben finally picked a favorite about half way through the evening: Brutus, "because it has teeth."


I liked Brutus, too, but not because of the teeth. He did the best slap wheelies.


We both had tons of fun and stayed up way past bed time. I think this may become a yearly tradition.

Someone's getting older!

And it's not just me. Hannah is 7 now, although it seems she has been for awhile. She was definitely excited for this birthday, presents are a big deal these days, and she always loves the extra attention.

All those presents, oh my! Jefferson didn't quite understand they weren't for him, so Ben played guard and did a good job.

In her new bunk bed with her singing, hair glowing, Rapunzel. We made a lovely garden above her bed.

Cake #1, she decorated it herself, can you tell?!!!

Cake #2 which I decorated, can you tell?! This was for her friend party. They had a great time dressing up barbies for a fashion show and then eating this awesome barbie cake.

Thank you everyone for all the great gifts and cards, we appreciate everything and so glad Hannah is well-loved!