Natalina Ballerina

I know I told you guys that I had two blog-worthy posts from last weekend & only did one.  Well wouldn't you know that "life" got in the way of my blogging time!?!  Unfair! :)  But now I'm stealing a few moments to share with you my adorable little four year old in her first ever dance recital.  (Major mommy gushing to follow.  Consider yourself warned! ;)).

So those of you who have had the pleasure of meeting my little Natalie know how painfully shy she is.  Although you wouldn't know it to meet me now, she does actually get it from me lol.  I was the same way until I was about 6 or 7.  So coming up to recital time I was crazy worried about how she would react to being on the stage in front of a couple hundred of people.  Three days in a row.  (Panic!)  Dress rehersal was on Wednesday & thankfully her dance was the last one before intermission, so she had plenty of time to watch lots of other girls do it without losing their minds & ask me as many questions as she wanted.  By the time it was her turn, you would've thought she did it hundreds of times before!  Big smiles, remembered (most of) her steps (lol!), and didn't panic at all!  I was so proud of her!  And she managed to keep it up throughout all three days of her recital! :)

Of course I have a bazillion pictures!  Here are a few from when I got to be a backstage mom on Friday's show.  (And for the record, I am not now, nor will I ever be a "stage mom!"  Cringe!)  Also, for the record, even though I danced for 12 years of my life growing up & completely recognize that it's a necessary evil, it feels very very wrong to put makeup on your four year old.  Just sayin.' ;)

Passing the time.  Natalie shares my her iPad ;) playing Wreck It Ralph with her friends.  This took about 30 minutes of coaxing for her to talk to anybody!!

Clearly she got over it!  Being silly with her new friends! ;)

Her favorite teacher's aid Miss Lily



Miss Lily keeping the kiddos occupied backstage until it was their turn.  She taught them the dreaded "Baby Bumblebee" song... thank you sooooo much Miss Lily. :/ lol




She got up from the group to go sit next to her.  She loves Miss Lily!!



About to go on...



On stage!  Look at those big smiles! :)



By the end of the fourth day in a row the old antennae didn't cooperate so much lol.  But she's still cute! :)

Yay!  So fun!  And in case you'd like to see it, here's a video too.  If you can tell from the little bugs she's the third bug from the left in the front row... the one with the crooked antenna. ;)  It's a little fuzzy & we missed the first 20 seconds or so, but still adorable.  Plus the little girl who decided she was the star is rediculously funny! lol

When the end of the performance on Saturday came, Natalie asked me if she got to do it again tomorrow.  I said, "No Honey.  We're all done with dance until the Fall."  She got teary & replied, "But that's like 30 years!!!" lol  I love that she loves it.  I look forward to many more years of ballet recitals to come! :)

The Best Community EVER!

We had a lot going on this weekend in our little family of five.  All of which was totally blog-worthy.  And I couldn't decide which to blog first!  But since I did some mommy bragging in my last post, I decided to write some house stuff in my post for today (stay tuned for more on my little ballerina!)

So, you all are fully aware that we are restoring this historic house.  There are plenty of old houses in this town, but the one we've been working on is really really visible (It's on one of the main roads.  Everyone passes it.).  Plus it's been vacant for the last thirty years & in disrepair for much longer than that.  (Not to mention, it's just plain cool!)  From what everyone tells us, they've all been saddened to watch it fall apart over the years & have been so happy to see a family restoring it & make it a home again.

We've gotten to know the executive director of the local chamber of commerce over the last year & a half.  He owns the local book store & coffee shop & we stop in from time to time.  Every time we get a chance to talk he tells us how happy he is that we're helping to revitalize the city.  He says they talk about us a lot in their meetings & he uses us as an example: "If the G's can save that house, any house can be saved!" lol

Well this Saturday was the annual "Green Up Vermont Day."  Which is super awesome in & of itself.  The goal is to take pride & ownership of our beautiful state & clean it up: clean up trash, highway debris, plant flowers, weed your yards, lay down new mulch, that kind of stuff.  To make this day even bigger, Scott thought it would be a great idea to use this special weekend to start a revitalization project.  He was choosing some visible spots around town that could use a few special touches to make the town look nicer with just a little bit of effort & was amassing a group of volunteers to pull it off.  They painted over this ugly painted dragon on a brick wall from a Chinese restaurant that closed over five years ago, did a little landscaping at the vet's office, and oh yeah: PAINTED OUR HOUSE!!!

Ohmahgosh happy tears.  This group of about ten people, out of the goodness of their hearts, came to our house for 6 hours & started to paint our house for us.  For no other reason than because they wanted to help us out & believed in what we were doing.  Seriously!  I'm still in shock that that just happened.

Of course in 6 hours you can't get an entire two story house painted completely, but we got a HUGE start & you can already tell how pretty it's going to be when it's all done!!

Some of our happy helpers

Big Helper #1

 

Big Helper #2 (Mark was at his lacrosse game)

This is Scott :)

Half-way up the other wall, plus that white makes a huge difference!

Mathew getting the columns

Lots done!  (We still have more scraping to do before we can get that moulding.  That'll make a huge difference.)

Halfway painted house plus we got a few fruit trees planted (so before long we won't have to look at that parking lot so much!  Ha Ha!)

So despite running around like crazy people with lacrosse games, practices, and dance recitals, we got a good start on painting our house.  I can't even think of how to thank these people properly!  It was such an incredible thing they did for us.  THIS is what a community is supposed to be like.  THIS is the reason why we decided to raise our kids here & spend our life here.  These people are amazing & I hope they realize what a rare gem it is.  We can't wait to pay it forward! :) 

     

Lacrosse

Confession: I am an overprotective mom.  Shocking I know.  lol  So when my boys got old enough to start playing sports, I said "absolutely not" to football, "no way" to ice hockey.  I had terrible visions of broken teeth & traumatic brain injuries & wasn't even going to go there.  (I can blame my career on that one I guess).  So they play soccer & basketball & have fun with those things.  Relatively low contact, but they get some exercise & have some fun, right?  Fine.

So then we moved up to New England & the sporting possibilities are much more varied.  Many of which we have little to no experience with.  One of these was lacrosse.  I knew it was a Native American sport, & I knew that it tends to be kind of an ivy league thing.  The extent of my knowledge on it was that it was kind of like field hockey but you scooped up the ball in your little net.  So when the boys asked begged me to play Matt & I agreed to let them try it out.  They participated last year in what was called "skill building" for the third & fourth graders.  They learned how to play the game & how to "cradle" the ball & all that sort of stuff.  Again, relatively tame.

Now that Mark is in the fifth grade, he gets to play on a real team this year with games & a little travel.  Ok cool.  He really enjoyed it, so that's fine.  Or is it?  On the first day we met in the gym so they could get their padding & helmets.  Nearly every inch of my kid was getting equipped.  I was allowing him to play a game where he needed to be armed?!?!  What the hell am I letting him get into!?!  (Enter overdramatic mom moment).  This is a whole other level of game than the fun little skills he learned last year.  (Cringe!)

Fast forward to this weekend & he had his first game.  Oh.  My.  Goodness was it fun!  Yes, I fear that I will give myself an ulcer with all of the worrying I will do with my kid on that field (and Lord help me when Gavin joins in next year!) but it was actually a really entertaining game!  And even more entertaining was watching how much my son really got into it & had fun playing.  I'll be the first to admit that my kids are not exactly sports enthusiasts.  They'll play, but they're usually... well... polite players.  Almost as if they tell their opponent, "that's okay.  You can have the ball.  Here you go!" lol  I feel like a broken record sometimes when I tell my guys "It's okay to get into the game.  Act like you actually want that ball!"  It's frustrating.  But Mark & Lacrosse??  He was ALL into it.  I was watching my kid shove his way into the mix & go after that little ball with a vengeance, even though many of the kids on the other team were twice his size.  I was half thrilled & half terrified!!!  Here are a few pics (granted I took nearly 200, so you're welcome for paring them down! lol)

He's #46 right there in the middle.  Totally doesn't care that that kid is HUGE!

Sadly this is not illegal.

Totally going after that ball

Look at him shoving his way in there!!  That kid ended up knocking him down, & he just jumped back up like "whatevs!"

Go team!

 So anyway, proud momma moment.  They ended up losing the game, but I look forward to watching these boys get better & better throughout the season.  And I may need a valium prescription to cope with my overwhelming urge to scoop my kid up off that field & carry him home to safety! lol ;)

And just for fun, I took a few pictures of Natalie too (and Gavin the few times he let me) during the game.  It was a beautiful day & the two of them were having a blast rolling down the hill & racing together.  Too cute.