Dance Dance Revolution!

For those of you who don't know what Dance, Dance, Revolution is, let me enlighten you...

The kids have a Playstation (Video Game console) and Dance, Dance Revolution is one of the games that you can play. It has a mat that you play the game with where on the screen there will be arrows that come up and you have to hit the corresponding arrow on your mat. There are different levels ranging from Beginner, to Basic, to Difficult, to Expert, and finally Challenge. She has moved on to the Basic level, which doesn't sound like much, but when you see her going, you can see that there are a lot of moves in a short period of time. This past little while, Melissa has been trying to get an A on one particular song (which isn't even in English, but it's hard and she likes it) and here is her attempt:

The amazing thing is, there are times where she will kind of stumble, but she is so focused, she gets right back into it, and hardly misses a beat!

And here is the finish...

The reason for the reaction?

You need a score of at least and 8,100,000 to get an A. And her score was 8,056,871. That is the difference between five perfects as opposed to greats. Yeah, that stinks...

{side note: I videoed this because I thought for sure she was going to get her A that time and I thought it would be fun to capture the victory. Although, her just barely missing it was a great reaction too. She did actually get an A the very next day, I just didn't get it on the video. Now, she is on to Difficult, and THAT is just plain crazy!}

Daddy's little Dude...

Jayden really likes his Daddy... Whenever Steve is out working in the yard or in the garage or the basement, or you name it, and Jayden wants to be there working too. On Saturday I was doing the breakfast dishes and I looked out the window to see this... Jayden working with his Dad. What was too bad is when I looked out Steve was actually smoothing the dirt around the tree with his hands, and Jayden was laying there in the grass right next to him doing the exact same thing. By the time I ran and got the camera though, they had moved on to doing other things. Too cute!

Catching up!

I am warning you now, this is kind of going to be a long post... There is always so much going on in the last month of school, and I was trying to post things one at a time so that it wasn't so long, or so hodge podge, but life is flying by too quickly, that I felt like I had to hurry and post them all together so that I don't get so far behind. So if you are up to it, here is what we've been doing...

First off was field day at the school. I only got pictures of Melissa at the field day because Spencer's group was in the afternoon and I was off with Jenna for her preschool graduation. Jenna, Jayden and I went over to school for the last hour of the field day. When we got there, Melissa looked like this... And that was after going down the water slide! That's right, the water slide! Jenna went down it, and I tried to get a video of it, but only caught the end because I thought that I had pushed the button, but didn't and then when I realized it, she was pretty much done and didn't want to go down again.

Sorry it is sideways, but I don't know how to fix that!

It was really an AMAZING activity. The ladies that planned and executed the event did a great job, and the kids had a lot of fun. There were all sorts of relays for the kids, as well as, water games, snow cones, dancing (where they taught the kids different line/group dances), balloon rockets...

And of course, my favorite, the dunking booth!

And this is what she looked like afterwards! They warned the kids to bring a change of clothes, which Melissa did, all except the shoes, so we ran home afterwards, and brought her back a dry pair of shoes. I asked a lot of the kids what their favorite parts were, and while most liked either the waterslide or the dunking booth, they all said the rest was still real fun.

Jayden and Jenna were also happy to be able just to play on the school playground.

They don't get to do that very often, and it is a real treat when they do. Jenna is already calling herself a kindergardener! And she looks the part!

At one point Jenna heard the "Macarena" song going, so she stopped to show me what she had learned at preschool.

Which leads me to the next part of our day and why we didn't get pictures of Spencer at field day. It was also Jenna's preschool graduation. And I have to say, it was a very well put together program. It just went from one part to the next. It was quick and very entertaining! When the kids arrived at the graduation, they gave each of the kids a flower necklace and had them sit in the front row. Jenna told me beforehand that she was sitting inbetween her two boyfriends. I love that at that age, boys that you play with are your boyfriends plain and simple.

Next they did a little program of some songs that they learned at preschool. This first one is called the "Hello" song and this is the very end... Get down Jenna!

Following that, they did this song about being in Pre-K:

Followed by the friend song {Which isn't exciting, but it is Jenna's favorite song, so I thought that I would include it}.

Following that they did the "Macarena" and since I pretty much already posted it, I just got a little bit of it to add here.

Following the program, they had each of the kids go across the stage where they said something nice about each kid and gave them their "diploma".

If you can't quite catch what they are saying, it says that Jenna is Miss Organization. She is always cleaning up the toys in class "just so". Making sure that all of the cups and dishes get back to where they go and in the proper way. They have told me this before. The funny thing about it is at home I have a hard time getting her to clean up. But at least I now know she knows how.

This is Jenna with her friend Grace from next door. They had a slideshow at the end, and there were several pictures of Jenna and Grace playing together. They are such cute little friends. Jenna also told me that she kind of cried during the slideshow. So I guess she unfortunately got my Dad's emotions like the rest of us!

As we head out the door, we got a picture of Jenna with her teachers. And starting in the back from right to left it is Miss Mary, Miss Jenny, Miss Katie, Jenna and Mr. Taylor. They were great people for Jenna in preschool. There wasn't ever a day when Jenna said she didn't want to go. She absolutely loved it!

The Dance Recital 2009

This years Spring Dance Recital for Jenna and Melissa was a lot of fun! I think now that Jayden is getting older, and will mostly just sit and watch, it makes it easier to just sit and enjoy the show. I didn't get any close-up shots of Melissa, she had to be there early and then my camera battery was completely dead by the time we left. However, here is Jenna in her cute costume. And of course with her cute make-up and hair! {Which is one of her favorite things about the recital, that and they get a trophy at the end.}

Like I said, for the most part, Jayden was happy to sit and watch...

I know that alot of these dances you've already seen from the competitions, but I figured for posterity sake, I would include Melissa's dances here in the order that they appeared in the program. They started off with the show tune, which was titled "So you think you can dance" and was just a hodge-podge of different types of dances that the different competition groups did, and this was Melissa's group Hip Hop routine:

Jenna's first number was "Under the Sea". She is the last one in the line on the right. And like I said, Jayden was good most of the time, this just happens to not be it!

So here is a better look!

This is Melissa's Jazz number "Whine up" like I said, I've posted it before so I kept it kind of short:

Here is Melissa's Lyrical number:

This was Jenna's secong number called "Miracles" she is the third one from the left this time:

And the last number for the evening was Melissa's "Get Your Head in the Game"

Spencer's Class Program

Spencer's first grade class did an end of the year program showing off all the stuff they learned this year. And it turned out to be your typical first grade program. The kids go up to the microphone and you can't understand a single word they are saying, they go through ALL sorts of random stuff and they sing songs, (some a little louder than others). And you as the parent just sit and giggle through the entire thing because they do the funniest things. And if I were a better photographer with a quick finger I could have gotten it all! But here are the highlights: Spencer got to hold the sign for the KN song. They did three of the classes favorite phonics songs they learned this year and Spencer held up a picture of a knight. {Melany do you remember singing the A is for A-choo song in kindergarten? That's what it made me think of!}

Then there was Spencer's speaking part, above is the first part and below is the second half (thanks to my camera's ability to only catch 30 seconds at a time). The poem he is doing is Shel Silverstein's poem "Smart".

This was just a funny song that they were singing... I love how at one point Spencer points at his face to smile and then he realizes that is just his teacher telling the class to smile.

And finally to finish it off, this was the last song and I thought the dancing they did was quite funny! The song is about a space worm FYI.

Good job Spencer!