Dancing and Jamming our Weekends Away

It’s hard believe another week has come and gone.  Days are smashing together and it feels as if the hours in each day are decreasing leaving not enough time to accomplish all that I want.  Whether that’s on the front of time to do family or personal activities, or time to work on laundry and house work.  I keep telling myself, next week will be better.  Next week will be a slower week and then I can catch up.  But no.  2016 is moving at the speed of light while I’m falling off the train, attempting to get my feet back on before I’m ran over.  Here’s to that happening!

Moments like, smiles like, people like this make all the
craziness and hyper speed frustration of this year worthwhile!

Anywho…  between all the chaos that is life the Nutt House managed to have quite the week last week.  I was fortunate enough to teach Kara’s group for preschool though we had a tricky letter for our weekly focus – the letter X.  To help with this, one day we enjoyed some xylophone activities and the next we focused on x-rays, complete with the girls making an x-ray of their own hand. 

X is for x-ray

Kaden had fun at this My Gym class this past week.  There was another boy in the class that clearly wanted to be friends with Kaden.  This boy would follow Kaden around, play with him, try to sit by him, and even make the noises Kaden made.  As long as it was open/free play time Kaden was perfectly okay with this little boy being near him.  However, when play time was done, so was Kaden.  I’d watch as each time they’d sit down with this young boy sitting next to Kaden that Kaden would start scooting away, at times making noises of annoyance as he scooted away.  This boy, innocently would mimic Kaden – scooting down too and parroting the same noises Kaden had made.  It took each water break and any other chance I could grab to explain to Kaden that this young boy just wanted to be friends.  Each time, my attempts seemed to be greeted with deaf ears.  That is until the last time, when class was all but over, then Kaden seemed to warm up to the idea of a new friend.  Hopefully, this will be the start to something positive, though we’ll have to see what this week’s class brings.  Kaden did enjoy playing with their Mymo dolls.  They strapped the monkey named Mymo to their feet and hands and moved around with the dolls/puppets attached to them.  I'm afraid to ask Kaden too much about this, as I think it would start his gears turning that he'd like one of his own!

Kaden with his new buddy

Kaden and his Mymo

End of class cheer, "We are Awesome!"
Yes, yes you are!!

Our week though, seemed to focus on preparing for and participating in Kara’s dance competition.  Bless this little dancers heart.  The entire week she was fighting a fever that just wouldn’t leave her body.  In fact, we are still fighting the fever at this time, having spent the day at the doctors, being tested and all that jazz, but anyway, I was worried enough about her that she almost missed her tumbling class Tuesday and she did miss swimming on Wednesday just so her body could try to recover.  Sadly, it didn’t, and that seemed to reflect in her performance Friday afternoon as she performed her solo.  With great nerves that flutter back to my stomach just thinking of her solo we got her ready to go and Friday early afternoon we headed to the dance studio where she ran through her dance a few time.  She did so well at the studio that her teacher even commented that Kara had a perfect run through and was ready.  Well, 4:24 came, the time for Kara’s solo.  With butterflies in my stomach I anxiously watched as she nailed the first part of her routine, even nailing her bridge kick over trick that has been recently added and is a more advanced and challenging “trick” for her to do.  She has worked on this kick over for 2 months and I almost burst with pride when she nailed her kick over.  Up to this point the routine was all but flawless (a look back at the video showed a couple toes not pointed and eyes not looking at the judges but that is all we could find.  Her timing was perfect, her steps were perfect…)  I’m not sure what happened at that point – if the excitement of completing the kick over got to her, if her fever sucker punched her, if having watched a friend from class forget part of her routine jostled her or what, but after her kick over Kara seemed to fall apart.  For her next sequence, she forgot what way to go, ended up with her back to the judges and audience and for a bit forgot what to do.  I am so proud of her though, she didn’t give up, she didn’t get too jostled and run off stage like I would have liked to do.  No, not our little Nutt.  She kept on going, trying to figure out what to do next until the music ended and the dance was over.  With saddened hearts, we knew she wasn’t going to walk away with the Double Platinum (highest possible award) for the night.  She did though, walk away with a Double Gold (as did 2 out of the other 3 girls from the studio for their solos).  Considering how the last part of the dance went, we were all pleased, including Kara who was happy to have won something.  Knowing how rotten she was feeling and everything else combined – Kara did what we always want her to do – she did her best, she had fun and she did not give up.  This Nutt House could not have been any prouder of her than we were. 

Mid week stretching

All ready to go!

These little divas were ready to hit the stage

Mid kickover

Pixie dust flying
*Her song is "Greater Treasure Than a Friend" from
the Tinkerbell movie

Saturday morning came and with it, the day of her group performance with the other girls from her class.  Knowing how the fever Kara has been fighting will sneak up out of nowhere and just knock her out we preemptively gave Kara some medicine to fight off the fever for Friday morning so that we wouldn’t have a repeat of Friday afternoon.  That coupled with the experience of being back on stage the night before, having her friends around her, everything…  It all seemed to just work out and the girls did an amazing job on their dance!  So good that as a group they not only won the Double Platinum award (again, the highest award possible) but they also placed in the Top 10 performances for all group dances ages 8 and under – placing 6^th!  As moms, we screamed so loudly with pride you would have thought they won first place.  We were so pleased and proud of our girls and all their hard work!  Kara was beaming with happiness at having done so well.  It was the boost of confidence this tiny dancer needed.  She fought off her ever elusive fever while we were at the dance competition, but as soon as we were in the car headed home her fever started creeping back and by the time we were home she was ready for some momma cuddles, some medicine and bed. 

Their dance was called "Gossip Girls" and consisted of a song
called "Lips are Movin" with a small mash up of another song
as the end

End of dance sass

Every time we think we should pull her from dance and try something new
we see how much she loves it and just don't have the heart (or desire)
to make her change activities

Just chillin' before awards

Double Platinum!!!

These girls are #1!!!

 This tenacious little girl isn’t stopping with this competition.  Just today she was commenting how now that she has done a solo, as she put it, “I guess now I need to do a solo and more dances with a couple of my friends” oy vey!  These Nutt-y parents are not ready for this!

Attending a dance competition is not Kaden’s first idea of a fun time.  Luckily, Friday he was given some tablet time and Saturday as soon as his sister was done dancing and we’d snuck out for a family lunch Kaden knew his fun time was about to begin.  Where Kara and I had attended Disney on Ice a couple weeks ago, Saturday was Kaden and Brent’s fun time – with a trip to Monster Jam!  Kaden has been so excited for this event!  We’ve watched Youtube videos, hyped up each Monster Jam billboard that we’ve seen and spoken with Aunt Allison who is a huge Monster Jam fan.  Kaden was just pleased as punch for his time.  Based on the pictures and reports given to me both he and Brent had a blast!  The two went early so they could have time down on the track to view the trucks, meet the drivers, etc.  Then, with protective ear covers on, because as Kaden put it, “the trucks were really loud!” they enjoyed Monster Jam.  Kaden picked out Gravedigger as his favorite truck, because he liked the colors of Gravedigger.  Fortunately for Kaden, Gravedigger was also the winner of the night.  Though the night kept Kaden up late, he was up fairly early the next morning and as soon as I asked him how Monster Jam went, he lit up like a firecracker on the 4^th of July eager to share every detail.  He has played with his new Gravedigger monster truck for two straight days now.  And, for a little boy that rarely sticks with one toy or activity for too long, the fact this is still what he wants to play with speaks volumes as to the amount of fun he had at Monster Jam.  Based on his reaction, daddy-son time and Monster Jam is something that will definitely be happening again!

He looks way too comfortable on that!

Love these Nutt-y men!

Gee, does it look like they had fun?!?

Now, with this week having already started, the Nutt House continues this fast paced journey which is 2016.  Right now, we are preparing for the Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet tomorrow evening and our thoughts and prayers are focused on Kara and whatever is causing her to continue to have her fever.  Here’s to hoping that with next week’s entry I am able to report what caused the fever and that it has left our home and lives!  This Nutt House has too much livin’ to do to be stuck with a fever plaguing our home!