What About Ben You Ask?

He's growing and climbing and getting into everything! A typical boy I guess. Oh, and eating everything in sight that he can get his hands on. He loves to be outside with a ball or bubbles. He likes to push himself with his legs on the tricycle. He seems to enjoy dancing and spinning in circles too. I guess he likes to mimic his big sister now.

Lexi's 1st Pet (& 2nd)

On the last day of school, one of the PreK 3 teachers offered Lexi the fish that she had in her classroom. We'd been thinking about getting a dog, but a fish seemed like a reasonable starting place for a first pet. Especially since it came with a bowl and plenty of food. It was a male betta named Lucy. Don't ask, we didn't name it. Lexi was so excited! That night Lexi talked to him and made me promise to check on him before I went to bed just like I do her. Friday morning when I got up she was talking to him again and showing him random items through the glass. About an hour later something just seemed wrong. I never had a fish and know nothing about them, but luckily Greg's mother used to breed fish and he also worked in a pet store when he was younger. I called him and he said Lucy might just be tired, but we both agreed that the water could be changed. Pretty soon Lucy started swimming around again and the kids and I were off to the pet store to buy water conditioner. Lexi also found a cute little plant for his bowl. We were gone about an hour and when we got home Lucy was dead. Lexi was devastated! She didn't want to tell Mrs. Gallaspy what had happened and insisted that we drive to the ocean and find a fish doctor. Very cute! By the time Greg got home we convinced her that we had to remove him from his bowl. She cried so much over a fish that she only had 15 hours! When she calmed down she promised that if we'd get her another fish that she wouldn't talk to it or even look at it. I told her that was a little extreme. So, on Saturday we headed back to the pet store and brought home another male betta, Widget. He has been happily swimming in his bowl ever since.

Preschool Class Picnic

Last Wednesday was Lexi's preschool class picnic and outdoor games. All the kids enjoyed blowing bubbles, drawing with chalk, playing hot potato, and the bean bag toss. After the games they ate a sack lunch from Chick-Fil-A. It was also hat and sunglasses day at school. Thursday night was their spring program and graduation ceremony for the Pre-K 4 classes. They sang a dozen or so songs representing each month of the year.

Getting ready to blow bubbles

The Girls.......Gracie, Lexi, Ava & Kenzie

Drawing with chalk

Playing hot potato

Picnic lunch

Dance Recital

What an exhausting weekend!

Lexi's ballet routine was to "Happy Working Song" from the movie Enchanted. She worn a yellow apron. Her tap routine was to "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book. She worn red shorts and monkey hat. So yes, the theme was Disney.

Friday - The fun began today when Lexi had two routine rehearsals about an hour apart. Of course by the second routine things were running behind, so we ended up being at the theatre almost four hours. Try that with a hungry and tired 20 month old who only wants to play on the huge staircases. I took a bag of entertainment and plenty of snacks, but all Ben wanted to do was play on all the stairs. If he hadn't been wearing his monkey leash things would have been much worse. I'm the line mom for the tap routine, meaning that I have to stay with the girls (3 & 4 year olds) once they are ready and then line them up and make them stay that way. Again, try that with a 20 month old, not fun at all. It was also nice to discover that the dressing rooms are upstairs (about 40+ of them) and I'm not suppose to be going up and down stairs very often on my bad knee. Much less carrying an extra 30 lbs.! After about 10 trips I was in pain and my knee was already swelling. A big thank you to Kim for helping out with Ben. We all barely survived and got home at the kid's bedtime.

Saturday - We had to be at the theatre at 7pm for dress rehearsal at 7:30pm. Thankfully my mom arrived in the early afternoon so Ben stayed home with her. Greg went with us so he could tape the dress rehearsal, because we're not allowed to tape or make pictures during the performance on Sunday. Not that that stopped anyone from doing it anyway! Lexi did great. She had no problems being on stage and having so many people watching. We left after her second routine to get home, because Ben started missing us at bedtime.

Sunday -We had to be at the theatre at 2pm for the 3pm performance. My mom came with us and Greg stayed home with Ben. I doubt he would've made it through the entire 2 hour and 20 minute performance. He got to take his afternoon nap and play alone with daddy. Lexi did great again. Another big thank you to Kim for helping with Lexi's bun. I'm glad she'd let someone do it. When we went to sit down to watch the rest of the performance I don't think Lexi moved except to say that's Miss Carli or Miss Amanda (her instructors). She was in awe, as were most of the little girls. The finale was a sacred dance routine that was touching and beautiful. One of those things you just have to see to understand.

So now Lexi is all geared up for dance next year. This summer she is taking tumbling and then in August she will take another Tap/Ballet combo class. Sorry my pictures are so far away. My mom actually got some up close, so I'll post them when I get them.

Pre-Recital Pose


Lexi is one in the middle with her arms up doing the routine.ddle with her arms up doing the routine.

Lexi and Addison waiting to go on stage.


Lexi is 3rd from the right.

Table Art

Next Thursday is Lexi's last day of school before summer starts. She wanted to draw both of her teachers a picture to remember her by on Tuesday after dinner. I let her get out all of her crayons, markers, scissors, paper, etc. to use while we were waiting on Ben to finish eating. I told her specifically to be very carefully with the markers and not write on the table. She said she would be careful. I sat down to look at a magazine for a few minutes, but not facing her. A few minutes later she walks over to show me that she had written her name on her hand and made polka dots all over her arms. I told her I hoped it would come off during her bath and got up to help her clean up. Then I saw the purple marker all over the table. I looked like she was trying to draw a scalloped edge on a marble-top table. It clearly was intentional. I wasn't like she could have accidentally drawn off the sheet of paper. After I asked her about 50 times why she did it, she said the paper wasn't long enough for what she was drawing. Needless to say, someone was in big trouble and I had about a two foot squiggly line of marker to try to remove. After about four cleaning products I finally was able to turn the purple into a light pink with rubbing alcohol. I'm hoping a Mr. Clean magic eraser will finish the job. So last night Lexi was talking to my mom and she was telling her about the pictures she drew for her teachers. I asked her if she was going to tell Meme about drawing on the table. She put the phone down and said, "I'm not going to tell Meme I did something bad."

Mother's Day

Lexi was so excited that she was getting to make me a present at school for Mother's Day. She came home from school on Thursday and ran to her room to hide it under the bed. She said that she was suppose to give it to me on Sunday and I was to open it in bed. She woke up at 6:30am! She literally camped out next to the bedroom door. By 7am Greg came in and asked if she could come in and give me the gift. The first thing was a white bag that had her hand print on it like flower petals and inside it was a framed picture of her outside next to the fountain at school. The second was a shoe box made to look like a bed. Inside the box was a muffin, an apple and a tea bag. She said I was suppose to eat breakfast in bed and not make a "family" breakfast (meaning daddy is home to eat with us) like I usually do on Sunday. I opened the muffin and she asked, "what kind is that anyway?" I told her it was banana nut. She said," Yum, that kind is my favorite!" I asked her if she wanted it and of course she nodded enthusiastically. So we sat in bed and she ate my muffin and ate the apple.

What else? Let's see...we bought a new television for our family room. We hung it on the wall on Saturday night. Our other one kept turning itself off and no one in our area would work on it. It went out on Thursday and the Geek Squad couldn't send a third-party contractor from Houston until tomorrow. So, we'll get it fixed if we can and then put it in another room or sell it.

Ben is up to all kinds of things lately. In one week, he started climbing on Lexi's bed, climbing and standing in his high chair, and turning chairs over to balance himself standing on the chair legs. I need to get pictures, but my first instinct is to get him down before he falls. If he falls from the high chair he's likely to hit tile or granite and I'm not interested in a trip to the emergency room.

I'm going to have to start writing little things down that happen during the week or posting more often, because I know there was something else I was going to blog about. My next entry should be about Lexi's dance recital and pictures. I hope!