{New ScHooL}

Yeah for new schools!!!

Here are some pictures inside the one in our backyard.

Library

Pit (that's what the kids call it)

Courtyard

Kindergarten Bathroom

(Bathroom for Little People according to Sam!)

Classroom

Hallway

Skylight

{sWeeT}

Being 16 just got a little sweeter for Keyan!

You should of seen his perma-grin!!!

{pRinCess AuRoRa}

Rory (Greg & Sarah's daughter) turned 5 years old.

She was so very excited!

I think her favorite gift was her Princess Aurora sunglasses.

{faCe ConTorTioNs}

Dance competitions are crazy. For the past several years Sam has been going to dance competitions. When I went to my first one I didn't know what to expect. Boy was I in for a rude awakening.

Parents think their daughters are in beauty pageants with makeup a mile thick (ok, not a mile, but you get the picture). Why do dance teachers, and parents for that matter, think that dance costumes need to be completely inappropriate and slutty? These are just little girls. I've had moms comment to me that they wished they hadn't taken their husbands, and others that said that they wanted to cover their teenage son's eyes... Or why they think it's appropriate for these girls to listen to music that is degrading to their soul, let alone dance to it.

*** This is where I'm so thankful that I live in good ol' Happy Valley! Where our dance teachers believe in having higher standards and wanting the girls to have a good self esteem. They choose nice costumes and appropriate music. ***

But I have to say that the part that drives me the most insane is the face contortions! If you'd like to see an otherwise beautiful girl make faces that look so painful or painfully disgusting go to a dance competition. I'm not sure what the dance instructors have in mind when they teach the girls to do this, since on some teams they all do it. The girls try to overly wink at the judges and move their mouths in long O shapes. It looks disgusting. Up until this past competition I was happy that no one on Sam's team made these faces, but now... there was one girl that was doing it...grrr...if Sammy starts to do it I might just pull her out of dance!!!