Memorial Day at Smith Mountain Lake

(I set the date back on this post so that the next few posts show up on the approximate date they occured)

In our family, traditions often just happen. Once we do things once or twice, they all of a sudden have become a "tradition". One of our traditions is to go to Nancy's parents house at Smith Mountain Lake over Memorial Day. We don't make it as often as we like because its a 4 hour drive from home; so the extended Memorial Day weekend makes it easier. Its also right after Michael's birthday so we frequently use that weekend to celebrate Michael's birthday with Granny and Granddaddy. This weekend was no different.

Granny and Grandaddy gave Michael his first set of REAL Golf Clubs. To date, he has had toy and plastic golf clubs; but these are real clubs, just kid's sized. Michael spent a good part of the next days in the yard hitting "wiffle ball" golf balls. With a little practice and instruction, I think he will become QUITE GOOD. But then again, Michael seems to excel at most sports he plays.

Another favorite activity is going out on Granddaddy's boat. Emma got to enjoy this for the first time this year. And there was no turning back. Emma LOVED going out on the boat and didn't want anybody messing with her experience. She stood at the front of the boat with her hands on the railing and watched the water and let the air blow in her face. She really had a great time.


The kids also enjoy going in the water at the lake. Nancy didn't think it was going to be warm enough for swimming, but it turned out to be quite warm. Samantha was fortunate to be able to borrow a suit from some girls whose parents have a house two doors down; Michael, however, had to be convinced that it was ok to swim in his shorts (like a bathing suit is really any different). They had a great time swimming and playing in the water!!

We came home late Sunday night to avoid the traffic coming home on Monday. The kids enjoyed playing outside on this last day of the weekend. Emma LOVES to swing while Samantha and Michael are playing. It was still hot at our house on Monday, so we pulled out the sprinkler and let them run through it to cool off!!


It was a nice relaxing weekend!

Dance competition

This past weekend, Samantha's dance classes competed in the Starbound Dance Competition in Salisbury, MD. After her soccer game on Saturday, we packed up the car and drove 3 hours to Salisbury, checked into the hotel, and relaxed a little before heading over to the Salisbury Civic Center for the competition.

Their first dance was their ballet dance. It was called "Fool" and they earned a "Gold" score for their performance.



Their next dance was their jazz dance. The costumes for this dance were really great and the black jazz shoes (spray painted at the last minute the night before) fit the costume beautifully. The jazz dance was performed to Body Language and their earned a "Gold" score for their performance.



Their last dance was their tap dance, performed to "Ring My Bell". They earned High Gold for their performance and 5th place in the junior level overall for the entire competition - all performances from groups 12 and under. These costumes are neat because the girls were paired off by color and there were multiple colors on the floor!



After the competition was over and all of the awards were presented, we went back to the hotel. And then, in the small world category, I met a man at the hotel pool who happens to coach the Lacrosse team at a college in my hometown. His family lives not far from my parents. And, to top it off, his daughter takes dance from Lynn Hampton at the Ardell Stone School of Dance, where I studied dance for 11 years with her mother, Ardell Stone. I attended High School with Lynn. And, this man's wife was a former French teacher at Cave Spring High School, my alma mater, and chaperoned the French Club's Quebec trip I went on my Senior Year. She remembered me as soon as her husband mentioned my name - very small world.

The long wait is FINALLY over!!

We picked up our new car today. We have been waiting anxiously since the beginning of March when we decided that it was time to sell our 12-year-old Acura Legend and buy a new car. We decided on the Hybrid Camry due to the stop-and-go traffic Mike sits in to working - thinking that we can at least save on gas!!

When we decided to buy a Camry Hybrid, the cars hadn't even started rolling off the production line yet. They finally have, and after a couple of "false starts" on the delivery date, it finally arrived this morning.

We are quite excited - its been 5 years since we bought a new vehicle (the Town and Country minivan) and 12 years since a new sedan - so this is quite nice!!

Emma is too smart for her own good!

For a little background - Emma spends a lot of time in her playyard. It takes up about 1/3 of our family room, but its contained and has all of her toys so I don't have to worry about her getting hurt or roaming the house, and she loves to play in her yard.

Anyway, we have two books of puzzles. She has managed to pull most of the pieces out of the books. Just this morning, I cleaned up her yard and took all of the puzzle pieces and the books and put them on the coffee table.

I put Emma in her yard after picking up Michael from school. As I am on the phone, I look over to watch her pushing the wall of her yard and walking towards the coffee table - she has figured out if she pushes hard enough, she can actually move her yard around the room - she has now moved it close enough to the coffee table to pick up the pieces of puzzle and throw them back into her yard.

Like I said - too smart for her own good!

Emma's favorite words!

There are three words that are sure to bring a smile to Emma's face every time she hears them. Her face lights up and she gets a big smile on her face and giggles:

- Samantha

- Michael

- Lunch!!

Piano and Party! That was our weekend!

We had a crazy weekend. It consisted of the kids piano recital on Friday night, a t-ball and a soccer game on Saturday (with t-ball team pictures squeezed in-between) and a birthday party for Michael in the afternoon.




The piano recital was nice. If you take out the uncomfortable church pews and the freezing cold temperature, it was really great. Samantha and Michael both did a great job. Each child went up when it was their turn and introduced themselves, told how long they had been playing and then introduced their songs. Everyone, that is, except Michael. Michael got shy when it was his turn to announce his name and songs, so finally the teacher announced it for him. He got flustered one time during his song, but recouped and then they were both perfect. Both of Samantha's songs were perfect too and she looked very beautiful in her new dress.




This is a photo of Samantha and Michael with their piano teacher, Miss Madeline!!









Then on Saturday we had Michael's birthday party. His actual birthday isn't until this coming weekend, but since we have an out-of-town dance competition, we celebrated with his friends this weekend. We rented a "jungle themed" moon bounce and had kids over for bouncing, hot dogs and cake!! It was quite rowdy with all of the kids bouncing in the moon bounce. They had a great time and we had perfect weather for the party!!

The curses of Spring!

I love Spring. Winter makes me depressed, so the warm weather, bright sun, green grass and trees, beautiful flowers - they all just wake me up and give me energy. But with all those wonderful things come the curses - the allergies. I can just LOOK at a bloom on a tree and my sinus pressure will increase. I have no idea what I'm allergic too - and a trip to the allergist last season was less than enlightening. But, the allergies have gotten me nontheless. I am on day 2 of the sinus headache that won't go away. Despite the antihistamine, decongestant, and pain killers. Nothing is working - even sleep didn't take it away. UGH!!

Is it too early to wish for summer and 90 degree weather - just so I don't have to suffer allergies!

How can we teach these girls to play soccer aggressively?

That's the question we ask ourselves each week watching Samantha's team play soccer. These are the nicest girls - they wouldn't possibly want to take a ball away from a friend, now would they?

Anyway, its funny to watch girls play soccer at the age when they are afraid of the ball.








Samantha's game today was great. They won 4-3 and it was a hard fought win. Samantha scored a goal and then had a penalty kick where she scored another goal!! So she contributed two goals to the team win. Its tough, though. Samantha would often get the ball and start taking it down the field, only to find that there is no one to pass the ball to, and several defenders from the other team coming at her. But she hung in there and the Screaming Eagles won their game!!

Emma's communication skills are growing

For a couple of months now, Emma has told us that she's tired by picking up her blanket and "handing" it to us so that we will take her to her bed. This morning, she was standing up in her play yard with blankie in hand and paci in mouth. I asked her if she was ready to go "night night" and she actually NODDED her head up and down telling me YES, she was most definitely ready to go take her nap. And she must really have been tired because I haven't heard a peep from her in the 20 minutes she's been up there. I wonder what she does all night to make her so tired in the morning?

The car is closer!!

I started making some calls today to Toyota dealerships to get an updated status report on the arrival on the 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid. Since my initial "data gathering" resulted in dates ranging from April to October, I figured I would receive the same variety of answers this round. The good news: I called a dealership out of town who says they expect the new Hybrid Camrys to come in NEXT WEEK. And, because its not in Northern Virginia, there aren't nearly as many people waiting for the car and we can possibly get one almost immediately!!

We are quite excited - we will be ready to drop almost everything to drive down there and purchase our new car. Can't wait!!

Opening Day!!

An event I remember fondly from many years of my childhood - Little League opening day. Michael started playing T-ball in the fall, but this is his first Spring season, so we were looking forward to his first official "Opening Day". As the team mom, I even painted a team banner for the team to display at games and at opening day (not the one here - I'll share photos of the banner later this week!)


















Prior to Opening Day, Michael had his first T-ball game of the season. His team is the New York Mets. Michael had a great time. He hits the ball really hard and runs hard to the bases. Fielding is a bit different as I believe he would rather socialize with his friends on the field instead of watching the other team bat. But, he's only 5 so we'll give him that.

The girl in this photo who is running to third base is actually his friend Lauryn from last year's preschool. He was very upset when he first learned he was playing her team - he didn't want to play his best friend's team!!




Saturday approaches and we look forward to Opening Day. But, it rained. It rained a lot. Not enough to cancel Opening Day, so Mike and Michael headed out to the festivities. Michael was only 1 of 2 kids from his team who came because of the rain - and not even the coach showed up. So, we were a litle disappointed that Opening Day festivities were soggy - Michael only stayed a little while before Mike decided it was time to leave. But, the season will continue with two games a week through the beginning of June!!

I have lost control!!

I am no longer in charge in this household. Its important for me to be in charge of schedules because they are quite busy and there is so much to do. But, apparantly, I am no longer in charge.

Emma has been in her bed for at least 45 minutes. She should be asleep. I have already done the obligatory "go back in and lay her down" that she has worked into her routine. Alas, its been another 15 minutes and I still hear her talking and laughing.

Guess what happens when Emma doesn't go to sleep during nap time - the rest of the day is nuts. She will either a) go to sleep and the sleep so long that that bedtime is messed up; or b) not go to sleep, resulting in a very tired baby about 5pm.

So, I go upstairs again to tell Emma that I am in charge and I command her to go to sleep!! Think it'll work?

I had to edit and add to this post - as I pushed the "Publish" button, I hear her actually KNOCKING on her wall because she knows I can hear it - is she 14 months or 14 years old?

Live and In Color!!

More proof that the internet has increased in power, and made it easier for the "layman" to do things. I can now host video for displaying here. Don't know how long it will stay hosted on the internet, so this will be a good experiment.

Here are Michael and Emma playing!!

Here Comes Peter Cottontail!

We had a nice Easter in the Stopper household this weekend.

We colored our eggs on Saturday afternoon, so that they would be ready for the Easter Bunny!! We had to make a quick trip to Target in the morning because I looked at the box of Paas that I actually remembered to purchase earlier in the week, only to discover that it only had THREE colors - who colors eggs with only 3 colors?

The Easter Bunny did indeed visit overnight. The kids each had an Easter basket full of candy, toys, and eggs. Each one got a DVD - Samantha got Narnia, Michael got Chicken Little and Emma got Wallace and Grommit. The kids then headed outside to look for the Easter eggs hidden by the Easter Bunny. They looked high and low and found eggs filled with jelly beans (and even a few had quarters inside!).

Easter morning was a little busier this year than in past years. We have begun visiting a new church and I wanted to make sure that the kids made it to Sunday School and church. Its a nice small Baptist church, currently meeting in an office park, but planning to build in the middle of South Riding. The church has about 25 members in the choir that presented a beautiful concert during the service.

After church, we went to a favorite destination - the Hyatt at Fair Lakes - for Easter brunch. It was done nicely with many stations and lots of food (and desserts) to choose from. We had a great meal and took some nice photos of the kids afterwards (but, alas, were unable to get a family shot).

We ended our day relaxing after such a huge meal and a busy weekend. Kids were ready to hit the sack and be ready to return to school on Monday!!

14 months old!

Today, Emma turned 14 months old. The past two months, since her first birthday, have been exciting. She's not yet walking - which isn't unusual since Samantha didn't walk until around 16 months. But she is doing many things deliberately and is already showing how smart she is. For instance, we had chicken and Lipton noodles the other night. Emma had finished eating all of her noodles and still had some chicken left - yet she pointed her finger to the spot in the plate where her noodles were and asked for more!! Now let's be clear - in Emma speak - asking means screeching at the top of her lungs until she gets everyone's attention. She can also tell us when she's tired. She will be playing in her yard and she'll stand up and pick up her blanket to hand it to me - she's ready to go to bed!!

She's also testing her boundaries - she intentionally throws her pacifier out of her car seat and then yells for someone to get it. We are now telling her that she isn't getting it back because she did it on purpose - and she actually pouts! She knows a lot of words - but we know only a few. She can clearly say Mama and Dada, and we have interpreted her saying "Michael" and "Samantha". But there are other times that a string of sounds comes out of her mouth - and we know that she knows EXACTLY what she is saying - but we don't. We look forward to the time that we learn her language, or she learns ours.

This photo was taken today after Easter Brunch. I will share more about that tomorrow. Thanks to Aunt Emily for buying the pink dress with the beautiful pink smocking on the front from Brazil. We love it!!

Equal time

For no particular reason, I seem to have more to report on Samantha and Emma than I do for Michael. I'm sure its because Emma is a baby and things that happen are often "firsts". And I'm sure its because Samantha is involved with more things because she's older. And I'm sure its because things with Michael are normal right now, and we are very happy about that.





Michael is almost 6. One thing we learned about Michael when he was about 2 is that he is going to be good at sports. He has played soccer and is currently playing T-ball. He is quite good at both. He also can hit a golf ball so far that it travels the width of our backyard and often lands in the neighbor's yard. He can also throw a pretty good spiral with a football. With all of that talent, its tough to know which way to direct him to use that energy.

But his talent isn't limited to sports. He already reads very well and is becoming a great piano player. It seems that whatever he tries, he does it well!

And they keep on comin'

I was looking at Emma today and realized she has cut TWO MORE teeth - the two other incisors on the top. So, now she has SIX top teeth - and two bottom teeth. No wonder she's been fussy all week!! Who knew!

So that's what he did!

So Michael was arguing with me. I told him to go outside and he gave me a thousand reasons why he didn't want to. Its Spring Break and I want the kids to get as much outside time as they can, weather permitting. So, finally I said, "I don't care if you sit there and look at the sky - you are going outside".

So that's what he did.

I looked outside the window 10 minutes later and there was Michael, sitting on the bench on the deck, looking at the sky!!

Emma has molars!

Emma's teeth have come in in the most unusual way. She got her first two close together - both on the bottom. Then, after lots of tears and lots of pain, she cut her first upper one. It was quite a while before her second front upper tooth came up - it still isn't all that far out. So, that's FOUR.

But, she was especially fussy yesterday and so I figured I'd feel around to see if she had any teeth coming in - and her two 12 month molars on the top have BOTH come in. So, her fifth and sixth teeth AREN'T her other bottom front teeth, like most NORMAL children. They weren't her remaining two upper front teeth, again like most normal children - but her upper molars (not even her lower molars)

I don't have photos because trust me, she's not letting a camera get anywhere near that part of her mouth - you just have to take my word for it.

Its a ZOO in there!!

The 3rd grade at Samantha's school had their animal fair this week. Each student:

• Chose an animal
• Researched the animal and wrote a research paper
• Drew a food chain
• Wrote a poem about their animal
• Colored a map indicating where their animal lives
• Built a habitat out of a shoebox
• Made a clay statue of their animal; and
• Constructed a display board presenting all of this information.

Samantha chose the Koala. She researched her animal using her newly learned research techniques and wrote a compelling paper on the Koala. We constructed a habitat from a shoebox, covering it in blue and green paper and building trees out of pipecleaners - we even gave her clay Koala some friends made out of punched hearts. She put together her display board from all of the components she wrote at school and punched out and glued on die cuts to resemble a eucalyptus tree - the natural habitat of a Koala.

On the day of the Animal Fair, the 3rd grade presented 7 songs about animals, with dancing and speaking by some of the students. Then, all of the students presented their display boards and habitats in the cafeteria for all the parents to see.

Samantha was very proud of her board and her habitat. She received very high marks for all of her work.