My Little Punky

My Kayla is a very unique individual. She has her own sense of style. This was her outfit for school today. Everything is a different color. She has decided that she does not need to dress cute for school everyday. Her reasoning: "Why should I? We have to go there EVERY day." Little does she know I think she still looks pretty darn cute.

Piano Recital

We had a really busy weekend. Kayla had solo rehearsal, munchkin practice, 2 birthday parties, a dance rehearsal, a mother daughter luncheon (fundraiser), and a piano recital over the weekend. It was nuts. I got really frustrated at Kayla's piano teacher. The weekend was pretty much scheduled out to the minute, and then I found out she told us the wrong day for the recital. She sent a note home asking if Sunday would work with our schedule. Then I never heard anything else about it. I had Andy ask her about it when he picked Kayla up from her lesson on Wednesday. Thank goodness he asked. The recital was on Saturday...not Sunday. But it all worked out.




Kayla first played a duet with her teacher. Here is part of the song. About halfway through the song the memory card on my camera was full. While the other kids were playing I was frantically deleting things from my camera before her solo.




Kayla also got to play her solo. She did a good job. I was really proud of her.

I love the high 5 with her friend at the end.

Here is Kayla with my dad and Sue. My mom was also there, but she got away before I could get a picture of her and Kayla. Caroline was with us this year. She was well behaved, but not what I would call still.

This is Kayla's teacher. She is a beautiful pianist and a wonderful teacher. I really feel that Kayla has learned a lot and made good progress in the time she has been taking lessons.



There is a small reception after the performances with cookies and punch.

Kayla will continue piano during the month of May. She will go to Oklahoma City for the State Contest on the 15th. We will finish the month, and then most likely take the summer off. She will really enjoy the break.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

A while back Kayla's dance teacher sent out an email about an "opportunity". If she could get enough people together they could audition to be munchkins in the National Tour of The Wizard of Oz when it came to Tulsa. The auditions required that the kids already be part of a dance or choir group. They had to audition as a group of 12, and either the whole group made it or none of them did. I misunderstood the original email. I did not realize it was a group thing - as far as everyone in the group was either chosen or not chosen. So, being the good mom that I am, I did not even mention it to Kayla.

That night at dance her teacher asked me if Kayla was going to audition. And of course Kayla was standing right there. So our name was then put on the list. Once the teacher had 12 girls that wanted to audition they were signed up. They had to learn to sing Ding Dong the Witch is Dead. The girls stayed after class 2 times to practice. Keep in mind that they are a dance group, NOT a singing group. So to be brutally honest I did not think they stood a chance...at all. I was pretty sure there would be musical theater groups auditioning that stood a much better chance.

March 7 arrived. Audition day. The auditions were held in Tulsa during the Baby Fest. Can you imagine having a booth at that festival and having to listen to the same song for 4 hours? There were 11 groups that auditioned. The Munchkin Coordinator said that the only audition that had more groups was for a show at Madison Square Garden in New York! The process started with the entire group reviewing the song. Then group by group they took the stage to sing. Each group got to sing the song two times with no choreography. Then they taught the kids a little bit of the choreography that is actually in the show. This took forever. She taught the first four groups, the next four groups, and finally the last three groups. Then it was time for the real audition. One by one the groups went of stage to show what they had learned. They got to practice is once and then it was time for the audition that counted. Here is our group. Kayla is in the front row, 3rd from the left. The footage is terrible...I was not actually looking in the camera. I was more or less just holding it up.



The judges then took about 5 minutes to discuss it. Our girls huddled together while waiting for the results.

Then it was time for the big announcement...




Not the best footage but it gets the point across. It was so exciting!

So...what does this mean? The tour comes to Tulsa June 15-20. Their first rehearsal with the cast is on the day of the first show. Her teacher has been given video footage of what she needs to teach the kids. They are to be "performance ready" when they show up for opening day. They have already started practicing. They are in 4 scenes. Their names and a picture of them will be in the Play Bill. They will be on the big stage at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center with a professional cast. They get to come out and bow at the end of the show. They are in 8 shows (1 on Tuesday, 1 on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday, 1 on Friday, 2 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday). It will be exhausting but so much fun. There will most likely be local media events leading up to the show. It is such a big deal! The girls (and moms) are so excited.

I have more pictures that I wanted to post, but I can't get this to let me load them. If I get that worked out I will post the pictures later.

My Second Grader

It has taken me forever to do this post, but Kayla has also started school. Her first day as a second grader was on August 20th. We went to meet her teacher the day before school started. She was very excited to get the teacher she wanted, but she was upset that all of her friends are in different classes this year. Here she is with her teacher, Ms. Conway (love her!)

She seems like she is going to be a wonderful teacher. She is young, has a lot of energy and is very personable. She is in charge of the AR program at the school. I think Kayla is really going to be pushed on her reading this year. This is the teacher Kayla told me she wanted last year. She told me that when Ms. Conway had bus duty in the mornings she always said "Hi cutie". Kayla took that to mean that Ms. Conway wanted her in her class! I think this will be a good match.

Kind of far away, but here is Kayla at her desk.

The first day of school was not the best time for taking pictures. We did get a few in before it started to pour. It was so dark outside. Here is my big second grader. Notice the waves in her hair. She rolled it the night before with her American Girl doll hair rollers. It was fixed really cute, but pretty much went flat the minute we went outside.

We normally walk to school on the first day with Libby and Mallory. The traffic is always so bad, and it is impossible to get back in our neighborhood from the school. Kayla and Caroline both had school that day, and they both start at 8:30. Even before I knew it was going to rain I knew we were not going to be able to walk. When Kayla found that out she said (very dramatically) "Everything about second grade is dissappointing!" She was still upset about her friends not being in her class. So this year I gave all of the girls a ride. Here they are in the van. We could not do our normal outside group shots. It was POURING by the time we picked them up.

We made it inside, and it was time for everyone to head to their classes.
Here is Kayla's class. Don't you just love her teacher's outfit?

I was so excited to pick her up. I love hearing about the first day of school. I only wish I could get Kayla to tell me something other than "It was good." I did get bits and pieces from her later on. She found a friend in her class to hang out with and she loves her teacher. To quote her she said "I like her. I love her. I want some more of her." (I think she may listen to the radio too much!)

It was a really fun day for her. Her cousins, Tyler and Shelby, were still here visiting from Houston. They did not start school until the next week. Kayla was so excited that they were both there to pick her up from school.

The Girls


We invaded Braum's for an afterschool treat. The noise level went way up the minute we entered the building. It was me, Kayla, Caroline, Brigi (Caroline's friend that comes home with us 2 days a week), Tyler, Shelby, Robyn, Libby and Mallory. They had a great time!

Kayla rode the bus the next day. There are 8 kids that catch the bus in front of our house this year. Here are some of the girls.
Second grade is off to a great start. Kayla is excited to be back. However, she is not so excited about having to do homework again.

Second grade already...I just can't believe how fast this has happened!

First Day of Swim Lessons

Yes, I know, these are terrible pictures. It is all I have. We were running a little late and things were very chaotic.

Today was the first day of swim lessons. Here are both girls before we went in. Caroline refused to look at me. Typical 3 year old behavior! Her lesson was first. When you go in the kids line up along a wall with their towel. Caroline got in line, but she had absolutely no clue what was going on. I tried explaining swim lessons to her. I am pretty sure she still thought that the two of us were going swimming. Here she is in line. Sorry for the blurry pic!

There were 3 girls and 2 boys. There were 3 teachers that I knew of, but Kayla told me there were 5. Anyway, Caroline would have been fine if it were not for her sister. Kayla kept going up to her and asking "Are you ok? Are you scared?" I got really frustrated because Caroline did not know there was a reason to be scared. So she kept getting out of line and coming over to me, whimpering but not crying. I just put her back in line. She went right in with the teacher when it was time to go. Parents do not get to watch until the last lesson.

It was a long 45 minute wait for me. I wanted to know what they were doing. When Caroline came out she had a blank expression on her face. Here was the descriptive and informative conversation that took place:

Mom: "Caroline, how were swim lessons?"
Caroline: "Good."
Mom: "What did you do?"
Carolne: "I swimmed"

That was about it. She did tell me that she blew bubbles. She told me she did not put her head under the water, but her entire head was soaked when she came out. A friend said "Maybe SHE did not put her head under..." The true test will be what happens tomorrow when it is time to go back.

Not to leave Kayla out, she said her lessons went well. She said only 2 kids got to play in the deep end during free-play and she was one of them. That made her day. That is about all I was able to get out of her.

Dance Rehearsal - Caroline's Birthday - Dance Recital

The last weekend in May was a crazy busy weekend for us. Friday night I went and helped my friend Jennifer with her dance recital. Saturday morning was rehearsal day for Kayla. We started her makeup at 8 am. Then it was off to the auditorium to wait.
Then we got to do some more waiting in the dressing room. This makes for a really long day.

Ballet

Tap

Kayla always amazes me at recital. She is never nervous and she knows her dances. She is one of the few that can stay with the music and she is always smiling.

We finished up with rehearsal around 2:00. That gave us a little time to relax before we started all over again at 4:30. Saturday night was Recital Night 1. Kayla was only in tumbling and gymnastics that night so we were not there very long.

Ready for Gymnastics

In the meantime it was Caroline's birthday. We managed to have a little celebration with cupcakes and a present. Thank you Dad and Sue for doing that for her.

There was a certain doll that Caroline really wanted. She drove me crazy every time she saw a commercial for it. "I want that swimming baby." That is what she got from her big sister.

Sunday morning we went to church and then at noon it was time to get ready again! It was Recital Night 2. She was in the opener, ballet, tap, and the finale. I think the whole show lasted about 3 hours that night. Kayla did a great job. She was really upset about making a small mistake in her tap dance. She has never messed up in recital before. I honestly don't know how she did as well as she did. The girl next to her in tap was very spastic. She was all over the place and kept running into Kayla. I am not sure how Kayla could concentrate on her own dancing, but she did a great job.

No recital is complete without flowers from daddy!

Good job, Kayla!