Nicole’s first ballet recital was fantastic. She did really well and was overwhelmed with all the attention. As her family, we were deemed the best family in the world for giving flowers. With Jamma in town for the big occasion, Nicole was so excited to be on the big stage.
See for yourself…
Tonight is Nicole’s dress rehearsal for her ballet recital.
Watching her learn ballet has been amazing! She has just flourished with her teacher and loves every minute of dancing. So nice to find an activity that she loves and excels in.
A couple of weeks ago, I sat through a quick run through of the recital and just saw all Nicole’s hard work come to fruition. Hard to explain, but it was one of those moments when it all made sense. She was elated. And, as her parent, I couldn’t have been more pleased.
So tonight, Rachel and I will sit and watch the rehearsal with the goofy grins reserved for only the sappiest of parenting movies as we prepare ourselves for this weekend’s big show.
A few months ago my wife heavily drugged me and begun a line of questions that has drastically impacted my entire family’s life the last week or so.
See, one unspecified evening a few months ago, my wife apparently asked me about her mother coming for a visit. Great! A few days with grandma (a.k.a. Jamma) would be fantastic. The kids could play with her. See the kids in their “activities”. Sounds like a winning idea! Apparently though I agreed to 20 days with Jamma. (Ok, it was really was my idea, but for the sake of this post I’m sticking with the drugged idea. Much better story.)
Well… we are at day 9 of the 20 day visit today and… well… you might think things would be starting to unravel around here, but, honestly, the visit is going really well – which probably means she is ready to shoot me. But, from my perspective the visit is going much smoother than I was prepared for (i.e. I’ve only drunk half a bottle of wine and haven’t even needed the other 3 cases yet). The hardest part has been getting the kids to bed with all 4 of them crammed into one bedroom, but we knew that was going to have some issues. (That reminds me… I need to pick up some more duct tape at Home Depot.)
Jamma has seen a little swimming (with the swim team and in the backyard), ballet, soccer, guitar playing, chickens, and countless other “things”. She is enjoying watching the kids and the kids love having her there. All parties appear to be happy. Who’d have thunk it?
Yesterday morning, I noticed something odd when looking into the backyard. Apparently some of our neighbors are very excited about the chickens’ arrival.
Rachel participated in this year’s MS150. She changed teams this year and rode with the Sewell Lexus team and had a great time. Sunday was the day she took to the course and did a great job.
Feels great to help raise money for a cure for MS. At the end of the ride, Rachel was able to visit with just one of the folks that this ride seeks to benefit. Putting a name and a face on the disease really drives home the importance of helping out.
Last week we played with our cousins at the zoo! Big fun was had by all parties and the monorail was a big hit.
This *$&(*&#%^)(* chicken coop has taken twice as much money and time as we expected. BUT, we love the way that it is turning out. We have thought about adding a shelf as well that would house their nest boxes (where they lay their eggs). It has been fun planning and building the coop to be honest, but much more work than we thought.
We also have continued our efforts to tame the birds by hand feeding them. The kids love these little peeps.
The Ritchie kiddos had a great Easter this year.
Our Easter season began with an Easter egg hunt with some neighbor friends at a local park. The kids had a blast!
Then on Easter morning we went to a sunrise service. The kids released white balloons to start the service. The kids had a great time and then searched for more candy-filled eggs after the service.
Yep… April 2nd and the kids are already in the pool. The weather this year has been crazy! It was snowing just a couple of weekends ago.
These chicks grow really fast! We are a little over a week into their little lives and they are clearly planning some type of take over. They eat more than the us! They poop far more than we do! And, they are doubling in size almost every other day.
Everyone seems healthy and happy in the brooder. Pretty easy to keep as well. We are trying to feed them out of our hands to further domestic them, but they are still a little nervous about us. Can’t imagine why the tiny creatures are terrified of four little kids trying to hold them like Lennie Small would.
