Recital/Bridal Shower Weekend

 My parents and Katie came up the other weekend for recital and Jenifer's shower.  I haven't talked about Jenifer that much but she's my best friend since Kindergarten.  (Hi Jen!)  I mean, my best friend other then my mom and Katie.  (Hi Mom and Katie!)  Anyway, Jenifer and I went to UF together and then we both  (coincidently) ended up moving to Tallahassee around the same time.  She is getting married in July and I'm her matron of honor!!!  I was pretty excited (and still am) until I realized that I would have to make a speech in front of a whole lot of people.  My mom said that I wouldn't have a problem writing the speech, it's the public speeking part that would be difficult.  Great, thanks for the vote of confidence, mom!  ;)  Back to Jenifer.  She just moved to Crawfordville, which is exciting, especially since the house that she is renting has a bad ass swing set in the back yard.  And it's exciting because what are the chances that Jenifer was going to move to Crawfordville?  I mean, seriously.  Who do you know, other than me, that just up and moved to Crawfordville?  No one.  Exactly.

See?  It really is a pretty bad ass swing set.  And that was Alexa's first time on a big girl swing!!!  She was obviously thrilled.  Can't you tell by the look on her face?  OK, back to recital weekend.  Nick met Alexa and I at dress rehearsal and the stage is now Lexi's new favorite place to be.  Every time she saw me, she asked "back?".  Meaning, 'Mommy, will you please take me backstage with you so that I can watch the dancers?!'.  (Wow, she sure is polite!)  Apparently, even during the actual recital she liked watching the dances and was really good.  Or so my parents, Katie and Jenifer say. 

 Me and my Lexi Lynn after the show.  Can we all please notice how light her hair is getting?!  Maybe she will have some red in her hair after all.  That would make my mom happy because you know, those red heads are going to become extinct.

 Baye and Alexa checking out the stage.

 We had our first missing baby scare.  Well, it would have been a scare had we realized Rachel was gone before we saw her sitting on the lost and found table.

 Bath time after the recital.

 We had Jen's shower at my house on Sunday.  Do you like her sash?  Mom and I made it.  You can't tell from the picture but it says 'Future Mrs. Fortenberry'.  How jealous are you? 

 Jenifer, myself and our moms before the shower.

 We had a lot of fun, played games, typical shower stuff.  (Although, I think our games were pretty awesome!)  The reason why I put this picture up is to illustrate Alexa's need to act like a fool when surrounded by strangers.  She felt it necessary to throw herself around, roll on the floor, arch her back, etc.  All in a happy, kind of drunk looking way.   Which, I know is much better then her acting like a screaming, crying crazy, but still strange.  It makes me very worried for what's going to happen at Jenifer's wedding where Alexa will be a flower girl and expected to walk down the aisle.  Maybe she'll roll down the aisle.  Or dance down the aisle.  She can do summersaults now...I can totally see her summersaulting down the aisle. 

Oh yes, and somebody (named Alexa) is obcessed with Abby Cadabby which means that somebody else (named Janeth) feels the need to buy Abby socks, a wand and an Abby potty book.  Which Alexa loved, of course.  I'm really enjoying the crossed ankles while sitting on the toilet but not so much the sickled feet.  We are going to have to work on that.

Jacksonville

 We went to Jacksonville this past weekend for a dance competition.  It was the first one of the season which, I'm not gonna lie, was a little bit scary.  Especially since a lot of the girls have never competed before.  There were some pretty good studios there, plus it only lasted one day from 9am to 8pm, which for a dance competition is short.  The girls did really well, too.  The soloists both got Golds, the little girls' group got a Gold (I think they did as well if not better then some of the older groups, but at competition my opinion doesn't count) and all of the older groups got Platinums.  My large group got 1st overall and my small group got 2nd overall!  Woo hoo!  Plus the other dances that I did with the other teachers got 1st place Line, 3rd and 5th place small group!  I know that means just about nothing to most people, but just take my word for it...they did really good.

This is my large group.

And this is all the competition girls in their 'Boot Scootin' costumes.  Cute costumes, right?  I can not even begin to explain the controversy that those things caused.  We are not dressing them to go to church, we are dressing them to compete as dancers.  I just hope that all the parents noticed some of the costumes that the other studios had because this is just how it is.  Everyone looked cute, there was no flab or cellulite hanging out, they looked classy and awesome.

Oh yeah, and Nick and Alexa came with me to Jacksonville.  Let me just tell you how crazy it was to get Hot Stuff to sleep on Friday night.  We drove there after Nick got out of work, so we got to the hotel right around her bed time.  We set up the pack-n-play, put on PJs, read our books, tried to put her down and then the screaming began.  I understand that it was a strange room and she was scared so we didn't get irritated.  Plus, she is usually great at bedtime.  We put her in her crib and if she cries, it's only for a few seconds before she puts herself to sleep.  Well, in that hotel room, she just couldn't handle herself.  Let's just say that, finally, at 9:00 she was asleep in the bed with me.  We eventually moved her over to the pack-n-play and she slept most of the night in there (minus one more hour in the bed because she was woken up by the crazy drunk lady across the hall).  Her lack of good sleep on Friday night plus a crappy nap on Saturday led to her asking to go to bed on Saturday night.  We got back to the hotel after competition and she walked up to the pack-n-play and pointed to it.  When I asked her if she wanted to go to bed she said yes and then fell asleep immediately when I put her in.

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Jacksonville Zoo.  It was raining on and off and we left around 2 to drive home but got to see a lot of animals and I think Alexa had fun.  Although I'm not too sure seeing that she had her Disney face on.  She loved the birds (of course) and had to point all of them out like a little crazy.

This bird was especially creeper.  It was huge and it was obviously not scared of people which made me obviously more scared of it.  The guy on the side of this picture actually touched it and the bird didn't move!  Creeper bird.  Alexa thought it was awesome but when we walked passed it (as far to the other side of the bridge as we could) I told it to go away and leave my baby alone.  Seriously.  I tried to take a picture of it, you know, for documentation purposes, but it turned it's ugly head away from me.  Nasty creature.  We walked by another aviary but I told Nick that I couldn't handle it again.

Instead we looked at elephants and giraffes and other animals that are kept in enclosed areas where they can't potentially attack my child.  We walked through the Florida exhibit, more for educational purposes then anything else.  That area of the zoo is like a small collection of my least favorite things.  We looked at alligators (Alexa did the Gator chomp, which I was very proud of, but I still despise those horrible animals), deer (those are OK), snakes, wolves, and bald eagles.  There was a black bear but he was hiding (just beyond our field of vision, I'm sure.  Sneaky.).  As we walked through, Nick pointed out all the cool things about the animals and I explained what to do if you ever saw one.  For example, if you ever see a snake, put your hands in the air and run away.  Of course I had to demonstrate this which caused Alexa to laugh and Nick to roll his eyes.  I'm not sure that they realized how serious I was being.  (The hands go in the air to prevent the snake from biting them.  We are assuming in this scenario that Alexa would have shoes on so her toes are more protected.  What?  When you see what happens to a kid with a snake bite then you can come talk to me about how crazy I am!)  Anyway, that part of the zoo was kind of stressful.  But the rest of it was pretty awesome.  We are going to have to go back another time because we weren't able to do about half of it (due to the rain and having to drive home).

Ballet Blues

I need help getting out of a rut.  It's about dance, I'm not motivated at all.  Not motivated.  Not inspired.  Not being creative.  Nothing.  Everyone knows that I teach dance classes as my second job and everyone knows how much I love doing it. I'm constantly thinking about new things to do and choreographing in my head.  Any time I hear a good song I try to do a combo in class or something like that.  Actually, at this time most years I'm already thinking about and getting ideas of what I want to do for the following season.  This year, I have nothing.  It's been like this since August when we started but for some reason, lately, it's gotten worse.  I'm not even really excited about the dances that are completed (and I usually love my dances).  Plus, it was super hard for me to choreograph anything this year, which has never been the case.  I don't know what it is.  I'm not even excited to go to the studio at all.  And I'm trying not to have a bad attitude in class but I feel like sometimes I just can't help it...especially when the girls act like they don't want to be there either.  I've tried watching old videos and even watching videos online of competitions and stuff but it just makes me think that their choreography is better then anything I could do which just makes me that much more frustrated.  Oh well, I suppose I'm done complaining.  I guess I'll just have to get over it and suck it up.

Recital Weekend

So I was reading over my post from last night and I would like to apologize for the mean sarcasm. It was the end of a long shift and my filter was obviously off. To make up for it, here are some pictures of Alexa!!! My recital was last weekend so my parents and Katie came up to see it. These are some random pictures that my mom took.

Alexa picking at the nail in the windowsill. She's kind of obsessed with it.



Nick in the daddy dance. He's the one with the gold shirt on. (They were so funny...and good!!!)



Alexa and I with Hayley and Baye.



Alexa and I outside after the recital. She tried to eat my flowers. In her defense, they were very pretty.



She loves taking a bath and she drinks the water if you put it near her face. Every night we shoot the water at her from the side so she can "practice" drinking out of a water fountain. I can't wait to find a cleanish water fountain for her to try for real!



Minnie and her Grandpa having their special time together. The dogs love it when they come to visit, especially Minnie.



Alexa and Aunt Katie getting into trouble during the recital.



"What? I'm driving here!"

daddy dance video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xC8DnMYiRY

Dancing, Waving and Eating

I missed my Sunday or Monday blog post this week but I suppose Tuesday night is OK. Our recital was this weekend so my parents and Katie came up to see my dances and (more importantly) to see Nick in the daddy dance. My dances looked pretty good. It's interesting to see the difference between girls who perform all the time (competitions, etc) and girls who perform once a year in the recital. You could tell that the girls up here are completely scared being up on stage. Especially the older ones. They all did a good job, though. The daddy dance was fantastic, as usual. I find it hilarious that they are already planning and giving Hayley suggestions for next year. They all teased Nick for being their "super star" but let me tell you, most of those guys could really dance! Someone put the dance on youtube so I'm going to have to find it and try to link it to this page.

Alexa's new thing this week is waving. She is probably going to be super confused because we wave bye bye but we also wave hello. So I'm sure she has no idea what it means. She hasn't figured out that she has to turn her hand around so she waves at herself. It's kind of cute. :) We're still working on clapping hands and next we are going to start blowing kisses.

Did I talk about her eating last week? She is eating some finger foods like those puff things and yogurt bites but other than that I have no idea what to feed her. Obviously she is still eating her baby food but she goes through at least two tubs of those gerber things per meal. My friend at work told me that I can just give her tiny pieces of whatever we're eating but it still makes me nervous. I know I'm going to mess up and have another incident like with the penut butter! I have no problem with any form of baby care other then what to feed them. It confuses the hell out of me. I've tried to look online and in books and stuff but everything is super vauge. Not only that, everything has relatively conflicting advice. Some places say they should eat what we eat, some places say only baby food. It's all very confusing. I need an Alexa meal plan. That would be perfect. Anyone want to jump on that?!?!

20 Weeks, It's a girl!!!!!

A lot has gone on in the past month. Katie graduated college, which meant another family trip to Disney World!!! Kim, Steve and the boys came up here to visit for a weekend. Amanda graduated high school and the Dance Explosion recital was last weekend. And...we found out that it's a girl!!!!!! It was all very exciting! Dr. Dixon took me (and Nick) to his office on a night where I was working and he was on call. At first he didn't sound too confident that she was a girl but after he looked at a few other things (which were all fine) he kept on going back to check and finally by the end of the ultrasound he said that definitely it's a girl. Now, this made me a little nervous about saying anything because what if he was wrong. I mean, it looked like a girl to me, but what do I know?! So we went to our official scheduled ultrasound with Dr. Willis last Thursday and he (and the ultrasound tech) said it was a girl too. That made me feel a lot better. I could not even imagine if they had found boy parts and we had already told everyone it was a girl!!! Josh (Nick's cousin) would have never let Nick live that down! I realize the next question asked is "do you have a name yet"? Well, I think we do. I'm just a little nervous to say that it is definitely the name. Nick really wants the middle name to be Lynn, for his mom. He won't actually say that but I know it's true. And I'm OK with that, I like Lynn as a middle name. As for first names...Nick likes more common names and I like more not so common names. We had a little list of ones that we both liked and we keep going back to Alexa. Now, I realize that there is a particular small red headed child that I did solos for named Alexa. But, I don't really care. I just really like the name. You can shorten it to Lexie (or even Alex if she wants), which is super cute. It's in the top 100 names for 2009 but it's number 65 or 70. So it's common enough (people with more common names are generally more successful in life) but not too common that there are going to be multiple Alexa's in her class in school. And while I know that it's the name of a dance girl...guess what? So were all the other names on the short list! Like Bailey, Katie and Leeza for example. Let's face it, with me being a dance teacher and Nick being a 5th grade teacher, there weren't many names that we haven't come across before. The only thing that I don't love about it is when you put the Alexa and the Lynn together. Say it fast. Alexa Lynn. It kind of mushes together weird. Hense, no final decision. Let me know what you think. Oh, and here's a 20 week picture. Still more butt than belly! (Glyniss wanted to be in the picture too!)

16 weeks and dance conventions

Well, today we are at 16 weeks. According to "His Boys Can Swim" our baby is about the size of a small stud finder, or if you want to go with the food thing, it's about the size of an avocado. I'm still not having many pregnancy symptoms, which I am definitely not complaining about! I'm still a bit more moody and emotional and I'm still pretty tired all the time but other than that, nothing. Not even a belly. Here's a picture of my belly today. Please excuse Nick's old shorts that I'm wearing...I just woke up a few hours ago and haven't made it to the shower yet. :)
While I will admit that my belly is noticeably larger then it was pre-pregnancy, it still looks nothing like a 16 week belly. It is also at what I feel is the annoying state of a pregnant belly where none of my jeans fit anymore (with the buttons done) but if I walked into a store to buy maternity jeans they would look at me like I'm crazy. Also, I can't do some things that I could do before. For example, we went to Jump, a dance convention, last weekend. I was pretty excited to take class from Doug Caldwell and Mandy Moore amongst others. When I was taking class I felt retarded because I couldn't do some things because I could feel my skin stretching. It's not like anything was pulling inside, I could just tell that my range of motion with my back was less and the skin on my abdomen wouldn't let me go as far back as I'm used to. It was no big deal in the student rooms but in the teachers room, where there are only 10-15 people dancing, I felt like saying "I'm pregnant people, I normally can do much better then this, I swear!" Oh well, I know it's not a big deal at all. I'm just saying that a little bit of a belly would have explained the situation. The rest of the convention was fun. It was great to watch real competition again. I still feel like the people up here have no appreciation or even an understanding of what I do... but I suppose that's a whole other blog entry.

Here's pictures of my two side kicks. Daisy and Minnie have been following me around nonstop for the past few weeks.

July Update

We've had a busy summer so far. I was in Orlando on my birthday to watch my south florida girls compete and take class at convention. Everyone was wonderful (as usual), lots of overall awards, a few scholarships and a few more girls who should have gotten scholarships! Katie, Janell and I had lots of fun hanging out, going to the pool and making some kick ass bracelets to sneak into convention (one of our best ideas EVER!!!). I drove back up to Tally the night of my birthday and that weekend Nick and I bought a truck because the lease on his car was up. It's a 2008, in really good condition and I like it because when we drove down to Hollywood the next weekend we didn't have to take my car! We went down for Lissette's wedding which was beautiful! I got to see one of my best friends get married (finally!) and brush up on my spanish at the same time...you really can't go wrong. We saw Harry Potter with the whole fam-damily (minus mom) while we were there. It was good, nothing compared to the book, but we were prepared for that. Anyway, the dogs handled the trip real well. They slept lined up down my back while I was sleeping in the back seat on the way down. If I wake up in time tomorrow I'm going to try to take pictures of them outside on my freshly mowed lawn (I think Nick has found his new talent!).

Musicals and Roaches (NASTY!)

So I have two things to write about before I go to bed. The first being musicals. I watched "Singing in the Rain" last night and let me tell you it's FREAKING AWESOME!!! I don't know who wouldn't love that movie. Every song is wonderful, the dancing rocks, I can't say one bad thing about it. I've never seen it before so when I was looking for something to watch last night I figured why not?! Best decision of yesterday! I wish that in life, whenever we are put in a situation where it is necessary to break out into song and dance, the shoes we have on automatically turn into tap shoes and everyone around us knows the words to the song and choreography of what we are about to break out into. Because that is totally what happens in that movie and I love it! So since I was on this musicals kick I was kind of excited when the "Chorus Line" was on tonight. What a complete waste of two hours of my life! I don't like to watch movies again in general unless I really like them but I watched Chorus Line again anyway and it sucked. The dancing was for the most part bad (I know it's 80s choreography but, come on, this was ridiculous!) and I forgot how absurd the situation was. I have never been to a broadway audition, but I'm pretty sure they don't go like that. Oh well, I guess my point is that Singing in the Rain is amazing and you should see it.

The second part of my little blog thing is that when I was letting the dogs back inside earlier a bug flew inside. I was irritated but I figured I can't do anything about it once it got in. So a couple hours later I was watching tv and there was a NASTY ROACH on the wall! eww! I hate roaches! They are on my list of things that should be extinct (along with toads and alligators). And it was the size of the bug that flew in the house so that means it's a flying roach. So anyway, since Nick was out of town I knew that I had to kill it or I wouldn't be able to sleep so I tried to hit it on the wall and it disappeared under the tv stand. Then Daisey became a hunting dog. You don't even know. She stalked that thing. She started talking to it and then I started talking to it. I told it to come out into the light and that we weren't going to hurt it (hehehe) and it listened and I killed it with one of Nick's flip flops (because you know I wasn't going to get roach guts on my shoe!). It was intense...and probably very funny to watch me talking to a roach. At least I can go to bed now.

SYTYCD

So Brandi, Katie and I went to the So You Think You Can Dance tour Friday and let me tell you it was AWESOME! Oh yeah. First of all we had the best seats in the entire arena. I'm not kidding. There is not one other seat that I would have rather sat in. I just wish I could have gone through the entire show twice so that I could watch it once and the second time I could take pictures with mom's camera to document how freaking fandabulous our seats were. I took some pictures, but I only had my little camera with me (which is a wonderful camera, but it doesn't take the action pics like mom's big camera). After the show we waited outside and we got all the dancers to sign our shirts and take a picture with us. Katee showed us how to do that finger thing she does, I told Will how amazing he his. I told him that the pas de deux was my favorite dance and when he said that he was sorry they weren't able to do it on the tour I said "that's ok, I have it on my dvr...I know it". Yes that's right, he probably thinks I'm a crazy stalker. But not as much as Katie stalked Gev!!! She couldn't even speak to him the first time she saw him (although he did give her a full out hug) and then she ran to the other end of the line so she would be the last person he saw and he signed her hand. That is after she asked how old he is (22, same as her). Katie might have gotten a hug from Gev but I got a full out hug from Twitch!!!! So exciting! Anyway, here are some of the pictures from Friday night.

My mama is for Obama

I just really wanted to say that. But seriously, my parents and Raymond (and Ricky, of course) went to the Obama rally in south Florida which I assume is where this picture is from? Right mom? Regardless, I appreciate the representation of the dance teachers. I feel like we are generally an unheard population. But back to my mama being for Obama, I learned today that she is helping Ricky out (he works for Obama) by going around to people's houses to get them to vote. Pretty intense, huh? I felt it was blog worthy, well that and I liked the picture, and I wanted a reason to write that my mama is for Obama (had to get it in one last time!).

Some of my favorite dance pics of last year