Jacey's Kindergarten Graduation and Dance Recital

Okay, so after being a big slacker over the past few weeks I am finally posting an update! Things have been pretty busy around here lately so I will try to catch everyone up without boring you all too much.

The biggest news as of late is that Jacey finished up her first year of school this past Thursday. It is weird to think that our little girl is growing up so fast! I think that the whole school thing will really hit home next year when she is gone all day instead of just a few hours. Jacey had a fun week that started out on Monday with her kindergarten graduation program. She did great with her parts and afterwards we went out to dinner with her good friend and their family. Tuesday was her "Field Day" where the kids participated in various outdoor activities. On Wednesday they had a "pajama day" where the kids could (you guessed it!) wear their pajamas to school. Thursday was her last day of school and they had a little end-of-year party. Jacey brought home her journal that they worked on in class throughout the year and here is one of my favorite entries:

"Maddrs day is kumen up. I am gonig to get my mom sum flawrs
win mudrs day is kumen up!"

Here are some pictures of her graduation program and field day:

Jacey's spring dance recital was the Friday before her graduation and she did great there too! She definitely has the "performer" gene in her blood. Unfortunately Jon was out of town during that weekend so I left Brooklyn with a babysitter and went to see it by myself (I did get video of it so at least daddy could watch it later!) Jacey has given me a guilt trip many times in the past about not bringing her flowers for her dance recitals, so this time I repented and got her some roses. Below are yet more pics of Jacey:

After Jacey's recital we got Brooklyn and I took the girls to McDonald's for dinner--yum yum! Since Jon was still out of town, the next day the girls came with me to work at the bank for a few hours, and then we went to a little kids carnival in town afterwards. The kids had a great time there sliding down and jumping on the inflatables, and eating hot dogs and cotton candy. My "mom moment" of the weekend was when Brooklyn was jumping in the bounce house and refused to get out when her time was up. I sent Jacey in to get her out and Brooklyn kept getting away when Jacey would get her close to the front where I could reach her. With millions of kids and parents watching, I had to crawl through the tiny hole to get into the bounce house, and then crawl around it trying to grab Brooklyn as she shrieked and laughed and ran around like it was all fun and games. The crowning moment was when I finally got her out and all the parents and kids started clapping for me! It was a relief when Jon got home that night, ready to help me with the kids again.

Viva Las Vegas

Jon had a conference in Las Vegas last weekend, so we decided to tag along with him and make a mini-vacation out of it. Jon's colleague Scott was going down for the conference also, so him and Jon went down together early Thursday morning, and me and the girls went down later that afternoon with Scott's wife and their two boys.

We had a great time and the kids didn't want to leave! We went to Caesar's Palace to eat at our favorite restaurant (The Cheesecake Factory), and while we were there we showed the kids the cool aquariums and played around at FAO Schwartz. While the guys were at the conference, we took the kids to Bounce U (an indoor playzone with inflatable slides and bounce houses) and I took Jacey and Brooklyn swimming at the hotel pool. I think that swimming was their favorite part of the trip! They did great and didn't want to get out of the water. We also did a little shopping at the outlets and of course had to sneak in a couple of trips to In-N-Out for lunch!

The kids had such a good time that we definitely want to take them back sometime when we can have more family time together and see some of the sites that we didn't have time to see. The weather was also really nice while we were there--definitely a nice break from the cold and the wind!