Official Day 1 of the Reunion

We spent the morning at morning at home. The kids loved the projector in the basement. They watched lots movies and played lots of Wii on it. They also loved playing in the basement and outside. It was nice to be able to have the kids play downstairs and outside. It really didn't feel too crazy with the amount of people we had in our house.  After lunch almost everyone went to Lake Meridian to play at the playground and they played kickball. I stayed home with Coleman so he could nap since I knew he wouldn't be getting naps for the next 3 days. Hunter and Damon stayed too to watch a movie. That evening after dinner most of the women went to play volleyball at my old stake center (I play most Thursdays). It was really fun, and one of my favorite parts of the reunion :) It was nice having more than 4 or 5 people at volleyball. 

Preston, X, Ryan, Lincoln, Carson eating lunch.  

We moved the couch and chair into my sewing room so we could have more room for eating in the other room. Tyler, Grace, Shawnee, Darrin. 

Coleman. 

Isaac, Landon. 

The dining hall. 

Jordan and Kenzie found someone willing to push them on the swings! :) Grandma's are a lot of fun! 

Kenzie loving it. 

Rose, Candis, Anna, Lauren. 

Xavier 

Jack and Avery with Lila in the back. 

Grace and Tyler 

Avery, Jackson, Isaac 

Deveny and Shantel 

Doug was enjoying the view :) 

Playing kickball. I think Jordan is about to catch the ball. 

Tyler, Lila, Kenzie. 

Brooklyn and Isaac resting. 

Brooklyn pitching. 

Jordan and Grandma. 

 Darrin, Shawnee, Jason, Shantel

Tyler, Grace, Candis, Ryan, Deveny 

Eva

Jordan's Last Day of Preschool

Jordan loved preschool! And he loved his teacher :)

He kept telling me this wasn't his last day of preschool because the next day was his graduation :)

Mariners Game - the beginning of the the Dance Family Reunion 2013

We were in charge of organizing the Dance Family Reunion this year. We decided to have everyone come up here. We knew it was a little risky weather-wise to have it in June, but that was the best time for everyone. We ended up having pretty great weather for the most part. Jason's family had come on the Sunday before to be able to spend some more time seeing the area, Tyler's and Darrin's families came on Wednesday. We all went to a Mariners game that night. We bought tickets in the bleacher seats, but since my parents were there that night we were able to go sit down by them. Their section was really empty and the usher gave us permission. 

 Up in the bleacher seats.

In the lower seats. In the back: Tyler, Grace, Rose, Avery, Lila, Front: Hunter, Damon, Jackson, Carson.  

Back: Jason, Shantel, Shawnee, Daisy, Darrin

Front: Lauren, Kenzie, Me, Jordan, Landon 

My dad always buys his grandkids treats in the 5th inning. And he still did it with his grandkids' cousins :) He bought cotton candy for all those who wanted some. It was super nice of him! 

I think it's funny how Jackson's smiling in the background. 

Jordan only started liking cotton candy this year. 

Lila sat with Doug for a lot of the game. She was so good.  

It started raining near the end of the game and Kenzie tried to drink it before they closed the roof of the stadium.

Kenzie Writes and Last Day of School

A couple weeks ago Kenzie grabbed our boogie board (that the Kenyon's gave Jackson for his birthday:)) And wrote mom. She's been writing m's for a while and loves writing them (since her name starts with m) but she'd never wrote a word. I didn't even know she knew how to spell it. I'm still not quite sure how she figured it out. She saw the word mom later and didn't know what it said until she sounded it out. Maybe she just sounded it out... I don't know. I kind of like that it's the only word she can write because she likes writing it all the time now and it makes me feel special :)

Jack had his last day of school. We're excited for summer! 

Kenzie starts swimming lessons

On the boys' 2nd or 3rd day of swimming lessons their teacher  told me I should bring Kenzie the next week in her swimsuit. I didn't know how Kenzie would do. She's kind of stubborn and thought she might fight it if she didn't want to get in and she doesn't like water in her face. But I did bring her in her swim suit and prepped her all week for it so she was ready and excited.

Before class. 

Silly pictures:

 There was only 1 kid in the class before ours and so the teacher let them get it during playtime. Kenzie was a little nervous, but seemed to be having fun.

Kenzie going across for the first time. 

She was doing great and needed help only some of the time going across on her front. 

She was much more nervous going on her back. 

Diving in. She even did great jumping in and going under the water. It's actually helped with bath time. Now she doesn't cry when water gets on her eyes in the bath because she's so brave :)

Jordan getting ready to jump off the diving board. There were 2 other girls in the class that day. It was the only time there have been other kids. 

Kenzie's turn. She was so nervous. You can tell by looking at her face. 

But she did it and was so proud of herself. She had huge smile on her face after. 

She was so nervous going down the slide too.  

But she did it. And was excited again :)

After the lesson she came over to me so excited and I told her that I was proud of her. She responded "I'm proud of me to!"

She's had one more lesson since then and loves it. She's moved up a couple levels with the floats and was using 3 on her back and none on the front, which is the same as Jordan (although I think I'll try to take one off his next class, I think he could do it:), Jackson only has a half float on. In no time he'll be swimming without any :) 

This movie shows how scared and excited Kenzie was when she jumped off the diving board. I love her facial expressions! (It's shaky at the beginning but gets better after 10 or so seconds :))

More pictures...

 This was the last t-ball I went to... The next week was the Lakeland Hills garage sale so I had to miss their last game.

Jackson batting left handed. 

Jackson and Jordan playing 2nd and first base. 

The coach coaching Jordan on how to play first base. I thought it was a little risky to put him there, because he's not always good at paying attention, but he did great and paid attention the whole time. I guess he just needs some action to keep him focused. 

Amazingly, I found Jackson's lost Birdy. I found him in Coleman's snowsuit that was hanging in Coleman's closet. Jackson and I had both looked in Colie's closet a ton before, but I guess we didn't look in the snowsuit. Jackson was so excited to have him again and was even more happy that Birdy still makes sounds. 

Jackson got a new art book at a bookstore that was going out of business. The book has paper crafts, sewing crafts, knitting crafts and things like that. He decided to make a pirate stuffed animal. It showed him out to make the pattern and gave it step by step instructions to do it. He did most of it on his own. I helped him on the sewing a little. He was supposed to use just a needle and thread, but I didn't have the right kind of needle, so we just used my machine. It turned out pretty cute and love it. 

He calls him Pete. 

My newest favorite thing to sew is shorts for Kenzie. We had lots and lots of pants that are her size so I shortened them to make them shorts. So now she has lots of shorts. But she still mostly just wears skirts.

I love her cute shoes :) 

Coleman pulled the Elmo chair outside one day and sat in it to watch his siblings playing outside. 

The kids have become friends with the neighbor boys. They are 5 and 3. My kids like to stand on our deck and talk to the other boys when they're outside in their backyard.  This day the neighbor boys were squirting  my kids with their squirt guns. 

My kids were loving it and would try to run away from the water laughing.  A few days later we got them some water squirts so they could squirt the neighbors back.  It's fun having neighbors with little kids my kids' ages :)

Jackson had his end of the year party for school. He played badminton most of the time.