The fun the Nutt House enjoyed with Aunt Alicia carried over
into the first half of this past week, which made our week extra
memorable. The weather has been
remarkably pleasant the past couple of weeks which is not so common for Phoenix
in the month of May. The comfortable
temperatures brought the perfect opportunity for Kaden and me to take Aunt
Alicia to the zoo with us on Monday.
Kaden was excited to be in charge at the zoo; selecting which animals
were important enough for us to visit during the couple of hours, we had
available to spend at the zoo. While I
expected him to choose to view the cheetahs, some of his other choices were a surprise
to me. I anticipated that Kaden would
choose to spend more time at the farm and play areas but he gravitated instead
more toward the African animal areas. On
this visit to the zoo, we saw the giraffes, lions, hyenas, and the new rhinoceros
that we was excited to tell Kara all about.
The mandrill and baboon were on our way so we stopped to check them out
on our way to Kaden’s most favorite cheetahs before heading toward monkey
village. After a pop in to check out the
monkeys my own little monkey chose to head back toward the zebra instead of
heading up toward the orangutan as I again thought he would choose. After some time with the zebras, we checked
out the tigers and of course saved time for a carousel ride before wrapping up
our zoo visit and heading to pick Kara up from school.
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| Oh, how I love this little man! |
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| Stork stand! |
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| Checkin' out the new rhino |
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| Picking up monkey'n around skills from the monkeys themselves |
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| Photo by Kaden |
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Someone was excited to see the theme of the next traveling exhibit
Dinosaurs!!! Coming this fall |
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| Rooooaaaaarrrr |
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One of my most favorite pictures, ever!
So much love is shared right here |
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This goofball wanted this picture to include him
trying to pick the nose of the gorilla... ugh! |
Kaden was excited to celebrate his birthday at preschool on
Tuesday and proudly took Paw Patrol cupcakes in to share with the other kiddos
in his class. While he was excited to
share the cupcakes, I think he was really more excited to tell everyone about
his new car tracks and Legos. Sweet
little man, still, a week after his birthday, is trying to tell anyone who will
listen that he just turned 5 and all about what he got for his birthday. In smart mom fashion, after school Tuesday before
feeding Kaden lunch we journeyed out to Gilbert so Aunt Alicia could check out
Fluff It and Kaden could enjoy a unicorn s’more. Like I said, a smart mom move to give my kid
sugar on top of the sugar from his cupcake.
Oh well, birthdays and visits from Aunts don’t happen every day, right?
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| Attempting to eat all the cotton candy fluff in one bite |
After swim lessons on Tuesday we elected to surprise the
little Nutts with a trip to Makutus Island for FHE and Alicia’s last night with
us. The kiddos had a blast running all
around and where we went later in the day the place wasn’t busy which was a
bonus for me. While the kiddos had fun
running and exploring every nook and cranny, I believe it was the time that
Alicia climbed up and played with them that was their favorite… as it should
be.
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| My favorite little people |
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| Can you tell they were happy? |
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| These two love their Aunt |
Wednesday brought the end of Alicia’s visit. The Nutt House adored every minute we had
with her. The visit wasn’t necessarily
as fun as maybe I would have wanted it.
She spent the week living our lives; which meant crazy busy mornings,
helping me with volunteer duties at Kara’s school, observing various kid
activities and even attending Kaden’s CTR 4 primary class with him, but we
loved it – having her see and be a part of what makes the Nutt House so, well,
so Nutt-y.
Life didn’t stop with Alicia leaving though and Wednesday brought
Kaden’s second to last class at My Gym.
Where he is now taking Jiu Jitsu and he’s growing up it’s time for him
to move on from My Gym. Observing him at
class though I couldn’t help but reflect on how much he has grown and developed
from his time at My Gym. Kaden is more
coordinated and active than he was previously and has identified different ways
to release some of his excess energy.
Kaden has fallen in love with stork stands and will do one anywhere and
anytime he possibly can. I watched at
one point when Kaden was sitting in line waiting for his turn and reflected
back to even just 6 months ago, Kaden would be happily participating in class
but when time would come to sit on the rainbow line Kaden would sit off by
himself. Nothing would be wrong, just the
thought to sit with other children wouldn’t have crossed his mind. Wednesday Kaden was sitting in the middle of
the other children and not just that, but talking and playing with the others
as well. He’s grown so much, in fact,
when we left Jiu-Jitsu this afternoon he wouldn’t leave until he had gone up to
each of his friends to tell them goodbye.
The time Kaden has spent at My Gym has played a role in getting him
socially to this point. For that, all
that they have taught him and the kindness and love that they have shown to
Kaden I will forever be a fan of My Gym and hold the place and the staff in
high regards.
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| This simple moment warmed my heart so much |
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| Starfish! |
After a more relaxing day Thursday, it was time for our chaotic
weekend to begin. The weekend brought us
Kara’s final dance competition of the season.
The final time she would be performing her solo, “Take to the Sky” and
performing her group number, “Sing me to Sleep”. With so much finality to the weekend emotions
certainly ran high and Kara who was emotionally charged and tired after some
later nights with Aunt Alicia here found her performance affected. Nothing too major though as she still pulled
out a 2nd place overall, Elite Gold level performance on her
solo. For several reasons we have made
the decision to forgo a solo next year which made this final solo performance
somewhat more important and special to both Kara and myself. Kara loves dancing and is constantly dancing
or tumbling her way throughout the house.
In her free time she will turn on her music player and just start
dancing in the family room… dancing is what she loves and dreams of doing as a
career and she is good at it. The growth
and development as well as the lessons Kara has learned from her private
lessons and solo performances the past two years have been priceless. Kara is going to miss being on the stage by
herself, dancing her heart out and I am going to miss watching her, but the
break will be good. It will allow her to
have more time to explore other types of dance, to actually play and to just
relax… not to mention the time and decrease stress it will bring to me! I think though, we both hope that in a year
or two she will be able to pick back up with a solo performance. Who knows though, we’ll have to see. With Kara performing her solo mid-afternoon
we pulled her from school at lunchtime then spent the remainder of the day at
Higley Performing Arts Center with a quick break away after her performance and
before awards for dinner. After the
awards, which, by the way, surprised and blew me away when I heard how well she
did (she just wasn’t on her “A” game and had a pretty visible bobble so I was
anticipating a lower score for the dance) we headed on home quickly knowing we’d
be back bright and early the next morning for the group competition.
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| Warming Up |
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| Ready to take the stage |
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With her rock star teammates who
also had solo performances |
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| Watching and cheering on a teammate on stage |
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| Awards and medals |
Saturday morning Brent and Kaden headed out bright and early
to meet my dad in Kingman to pick up a pig we had slaughtered while Kara and I
prepared for our morning at dance. We efficiently
got ready so we would not feel rushed or stressed either at home or once we
arrived back at the performing arts center.
Equipped with the knowledge that there were just 3 dances, so roughly
8-9 minutes between the two dances Kara’s group were competing there was enough
stress weighing on the day as it was.
Once we arrived it was show time and without Ms. Carolyn for this final
day of competition us dance moms stepped up to quickly put the final touches on
our dancers and get them all warmed up before passing them off to Ms. Jeannine
to hit the stage for the first dance, their lyrical piece, “Sing Me to Sleep”. With the lack of time between the two dances,
we waiting backstage to watch the first performance and aid our girls in
preparing for the second. As soon as the
girls were off stage, I quickly grabbed Kara’s arm and we headed to the
dressing room for a quick costume and makeup change before handing her once
again off to Ms. Jeannine to perform their jazz dance, “Starships”. The girls weren’t even finished changing out
of their Starships costumes when we heard it was almost time for awards. This was not something I could watch backstage;
there would be too much going on. So,
with Kara once again passed off to Ms. Jeannine I headed toward the auditorium
to secure a seat for awards. What an
award show it was! We were pleasantly surprised
to hear the girls ended their season with a bang with Sing Me to Sleep earning
3rd place overall and Starships earning 1st place
overall! Talk about the perfect ending
to a wonderful season, especially when after this season the team will
change. Some girls are changing studios
to dance closer to their homes or are taking a break from dancing and those
that remain have all reached the age that next year they will join the studio’s
company dancers in a group loving called the mini-company. My tiny dancer will no longer be one of the itty-bitty
tiny dancers and I want to just bury my head in the sand with denial, but I can’t. So I work to embrace the change and move
forward fully supporting the dancing desires of Kara’s precious heart. Meanwhile, back to Saturday… with it just
being us girls we stopped off at Fluff It for a post competition s’more. The fact they had a pineapple upside cake s’more
was like the cherry on top of the s’more… perfection!
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| Heading into the last competition of the season |
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| 5 Sing Me to Sleep beauties |
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| The skills of these 5 amaze me! |
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| Starships is out of this world! |
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| Such sass in this number and from these girlies!! |
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| What a group and what a year! |
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| My most favorite dancer with a delish s'more |
Dancing may have been done for the day but there was plenty
of excitement left for the Nutt House.
After a much-needed nap for Kara and the arrival of the boys back home
Kaden and I took off for Star Wars days at Legoland Discovery Center. After having heard and seen so much about
this event last week at Legoland there was no getting out of going with
Kaden. Where we arrived later in the day,
many of the activities were wrapped up for the day. This only momentarily bummed Kaden out,
fortunately, he was surrounded by Legos and it took all of maybe one second before
he was off to build. I did tear him away
from his car building a few times, one when I saw Kylo Ren and Darth Vader
entering Legoland and the other when the Nexo Knight movie he had requested to
watch was about to start. Kaden didn’t
mind too much and when he heard we didn’t have too much time left at Legoland
after the movie he was good to move onto another activity after one or two
final trips down the car track with the car he’d carefully hidden in a corner
so it wouldn’t be taken while we were in watching the movie. When we call this place Kaden’s happy place
it is no exaggeration, he thrives at Legoland and it is invigorating just
watching him!
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Kaden was beyond elated to discover all the hidden
Star Wars items hidden throughout the miniland |
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| He LOVES the At-At |
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Please note the more sincere
smile for the picture with
Kylo-Ren vs. Yoda |
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| I dunno why, but he prefers the dark side |
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| Movie time! |
And, with that, our Saturday was over which brought us to a
beautiful Mother’s Day full of love and affection for this Nutt-y momma. A delish breakfast prepared by the family of
baked French toast. The most beautiful
rendition of “Love is Spoken Here” sung in Sacrament meeting with the children
singing the first verse and the men folk singing the second. After church, it was relaxing for me while
Brent made me lunch then later dinner.
Pasta carbonara… the man knows what I like! A perfect day, complete with a new Fitbit for
me to enjoy! I could not have asked for
much more out of Mother’s Day. My
favorite part of the day was when Kaden would sporadically burst into wishing
me a happy Mother’s Day in a singsong voice.
Kara was always there trying to help Brent, trying to express her love
through service, just as I would do. I
am beyond proud and grateful for the blessing of being the mother to Kara and
Kaden and to have Brent as my everything!
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