Recital

Last weekend was the girl's recital. Ellie danced (tap) to a Shirley Temple song "Baby take a bow" and Sophie danced "Shake a tail feather" (jazz) and "Orange colored sky) (tap). We got a babysitter so that we could actually watch the show and it was so cute. Poor baby sitter, Mathew cried the full 3 hours we were gone. Sophie and Ellie did such a good job at the recital--I was proud. After the show, Ellie told the babysitter that she just had her recital and she won.In a way it's true because she really did steal the show. There is something about Ellie's personality that is that captivating. She definitely has a mind of her own and it shows. I had dozens of people come up to me and tell me how absolutely darling Ellie was. Sophie did excellent--she truly puts her all into things and I'm so proud of her. I couldn't believe how brave the girls were to just go back stage with the teacher before the show. Other girls were crying, etc but these girls were just excited.

Sophie's been in a Kindergarten prep camp at the school so I signed up Ellie for swimming. I put her in level 2 mostly because that was the only class open, however, she really has never swam by herself without floaties. Then I told Matt we needed to get her ready for it so we we took the floaties off and she is a fish. She can swim half way across the pool--over or under water. In the shallower part of the pool, she can dive down and pick up rings by herself. After her second swim class, her teacher told me she thought Ellie should move down to level I because "the other kids felt comfortable putting their heads under water"--I just about fell over. I ended up just pulling Ellie out of the class because the water was freezing and Ellie didn't want to do anything. We have been going to the movies with Ellie's friend Summer on Wednesday mornings (see Ellie and Summer above). They are quite a pair.

We took the training wheels off of the girls bikes and have been giving that a try on the grass. There is this low hill that is perfect to give them the momentum to stay up.

Mathew's officially walking now. He's been taking more and more steps everyday but now he almost prefers it to crawling so I think it's official. It's odd that he is walking and not sleeping through the night. This week I decided to bite the bullet and work on sleep training. He was used to sleeping in our bed and nursing all night so I knew this was going to be a long process. On Monday night I was up all night with him. My goal was not to let him nurse all night. I did give him a bottle but it was a struggle just to get him not to nurse. Tuesday I switched from giving him a bottle with milk to a bottle with water. Last night (Wednesday) he slept from 9:30 to 4:00am!! That is a record! At 4am I didn't even give him water, I just rocked him and got him back to sleep. I've tried sleep training with him so many times and it's never worked. This time was so different, it's like he has matured so much. He never responded to patting before and now it totally works.

I've been working with Mathew on Patti-cake for a while and today he got it--it's so cute. The only problem is that whenever he wants attention he starts doing it and I can't resist but go play with him. I'm never going to get anything done. Today I broke down and went to buy a gate. It's one of those really long ones that you can arrange any way you want. I moved it about 5 times because he just gets into everything--I can't decide what is priority to keep him out of.

Sam and Sheila were in Phoenix a few weeks ago and spent the night on Friday night. They were going to babysit for us while we went to the temple. We got up in time to make the 6am session Saturday morning but as we were going out the door I couldn't find my recommend.