Gymnastics Recital Practice

Maddie has been taking gymnastics for several months now and she enjoys it. She has still only gotten one star for her performance BUT she is slowly improving. It still kills Alex and I both that no matter how much we try to help her she can't do a cartwheel to save her life! :(

With their recital just around the corner, they have pretty much focused on practicing their routine. This week the moms (since there aren't any dads that come watch) were asked to come in and watch them run through their routine a couple of times. The girls are doing fairly well with it. Its a lot to remember at their age. I can't wait to see how it goes the night of in front of all those people on a big stage in their adorable little HOT PINK outfits!!!! I can't wait.

Here are a couple of pictures I got from their practice run through on Monday.

I think its funny that I caught Maddie like this in her roll.

Its so cute to watch the little girls shaking their booties in this part. Not sure how much the dads will like it though!!

Maddie always looks scared when its time for her partner to do her cartwheel over her.

Yet her partner doesn't even pay attention when Maddie does hers. LOL

The girls recital is in June so I'll be posting again soon with lots of cute little dressed up pictures!!! I can't wait to see how cute they are. :D

Kindergarten Registration

Its hard to believe tomorrow I have to register Maddie for kindergarten!!!! It seems like just yesterday she was our baby that cried all the time and we couldn't figure out why. Now, she is talking about wanting to go to kindergarten tomorrow not after summer. Part of me is sad, but a bigger part of me is super excited. She is looking forward to it and that makes me happy. We're starting a whole new phase and looking forward to it. :-)

Yesterday, however we weren't so excited. Maddie decided when Ashton got his kindergarten booster shot that she would go ahead and do hers since she could and they'd be "big" together. I thought, great, lets get this over with. Yeah, that wasn't really how it worked out. Maddie has feared even talking about the doctor every since for fear that meant another shot. :( So, I have put off her final shot until I absolutely had to do it because I didn't want to go through the hysteria that would occur when I told her she had to go and then actually taking her. Yesterday I had to finally bite the bullet and just do it. We were all good until we headed that way and the crying started. She said half way there that she was going to be big and afterwards we planned to go buy her a toy. That didn't last too long. She started crying immediately when we got called back and didn't make it through getting her temperature taken before she started throwing up! Yes, my child goes all out!!!! I couldn't help but laugh though because the minute she started throwing up Ashton said, "well, I guess that means no toy shopping!" LOL We will have to wait and see if her excitement continues all summer or will she change her mind about kindergarten before August gets here.

No More Training Wheels

Maddie decided today that she wanted to take a big step and ride without training wheels. So, while I was having some "mommy time" this afternoon, she learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Alex called and said that they had a surprise for me and I needed to call before I came home. When I arrived, Maddie came riding her bike out of the garage all by herself like a pro. She was sporting a BIG grin and I couldn't believe it!!!!

I am super proud of her for not being afraid. She had one small accident but Alex said she didn't cry long and got right back on her bike and took back off. Yay Maddie!!!!

Funny Pictures

Alex was playing around and made these pictures of the kids. :-)

I have no idea what happened, but Ashton has one eye hanging and he looks a little cross eyed. LOL
Maddie thought this was funy, so she just smiles away! Never too shy for a photo op.

We got a good laugh out of these and so I thought I'd share so everyone else could too!

Easter Photo Shoot

Alex and I love taking pictures of the kids. Here recently, we started using our tripod and the timer more to do some family shots. Alex had mentioned wanting to take pictures out by the barn at his parents' house, so we decided we'd do it on Easter since we were already going to be over there and dressed semi coordinating. I am pretty excited about how well they turned out and thought I'd share some. There were probably fifty or more that we took, but I just picked out some of the best ones to post. :-)Daddy and his girl.....

Ashton is struggling a little with smiling for the camera, so Alex resorted to making him laugh. Maddie, on the other side, always looks adorable in pictures. I rarely get a bad one of her.

Easter

Easter morning, the kids woke up at 6:15 wanting to come down and check out what the Easter bunny had left. They quickly tore through their baskets and took parts of it back upstairs to play with while I got ready for church and Alex laid back down.

I made them blueberry Easter egg muffins and Ashton told me I was the "best ever". :-)

Alex and I worked the preschool class at church. We had 30 kids in there and boy was it wild!! The kids were super excited and we had a jammed packed morning for them. We did a craft which turned in to their snack later, we made little Jesus' for them to take home, a lesson, prayer and then ended the morning with an egg hunt. Whew!!! It was busy, but we enjoyed it for sure.

We had lunch with Alex's parents, his brother, Clint and his girlfriend, Melissa and her sister. As soon as we finished eating, Maddie was dying to get started on the egg hunt. She was excited that Papa had hid the eggs and her and Ashton had already found the golden eggs hidden inside the house.

They wasted NO TIME getting started and within 10 minutes the hunt was over!!

He was all over the place.

Maddie was beat after all that running around!

After the festivites, we headed home. The kids played outside and Alex headed out for the Predators hockey game. Papa Monkey came over for dinner and some friends from church, Nick and Becky joined us. We had a nice dinner and then we all piled up in the living room and watched the hockey game. It was a nice Easter and we hope you all a fantastic Easter too!!!

Easter Weekend Baseball

After a week long break from baseball, Ashton's team was back on the field Saturday afternoon. We got there a little bit before the game, like normal, for Ashton to warm up with his team. After about 10 minutes, we find out that two of the games before us had gone into overtime and so they were currently running about an hour behind. WHAT?!?!? Ashton has an entire cheering section come to watch him and now we're on an hour delay. :(

The game finally got started and Ashton's team was first at bat. I thought this was a great picture of him hitting. I love the face!

This picture is for KK. Ashton is playing first base with his tongue hanging out of his mouth!!!! (This is such a Dillard thing!)

Ashton's close call at first base. Alex is still working on getting him to run HARD to first base and stop worrying about where the ball is at.

He was just too cute all hot and sweaty standing in the dugout!

Of course, I had to get a picture of the cheering sister too! Maddie is sweet when she tries to cheer Ashton on when he is batting. :-)