Sophia the pony trainer!

 Sophia has been riding Pepper almost every day! She now rides him by herself VERY comfortably in our apple orchard and fairly comfortably down the road (with mom or dad close by!). She can get him to walk, stop, and turn by herself, and she slides off him by herself too. She also loves leading him EVERYWHERE (basically walks him like a dog!) and we have to keep an eye on her because she'll clip a leadrope to his halter, tie him up, and then leave... we're setting some boundaries. :) HERE IS A LINK FOR A QUICK VIDEO OF SOPHIA AND PEPPER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKsY8tE07uI&feature=youtu.be

 The girls crawling around this week! It's getting harder to snap photos of Kaia because as soon as I kneel down at her level she sprint-crawls to me!

I snapped this pic this morning of Travis and Kaia... I brought her into bed at 3:30 last night for nursing and when I woke up I realized that she had wiggled over to Travis. Traitor. :) See the flashlight on the nightstand? We are currently experiencing a bout of severe storms... last night the power was flickering as a storm with high wind and continuous lighting passed by. I am NOT a fan of listening to hail on our glass skylights! Looks like more headed our way tonight... summer has arrived!

4-H, Kaia's first pool visit, Bemidji and horsing around!

 Last Tuesday we went to our first Glyndon 4-H meeting. It's a cute little group! Ella is an 8 year old who gave a sewing demonstration.

 Then two other kids shared their show rabbits with the crew, and talked about bunny showing. There's a lot of work that goes into it! Sophia had a great time (especially running around with the blond girl in the above photo, a 5 year old named Lily)... she's looking forward to doing a home made bird feeder demonstration at this year's county fair, and showing Pepper in next year's fair!

 Last week I set aside our normal frantic evening schedule and carved time out for a park and pool visit with the girls. It ended up being a late night, but was totally worth it :)

 Kaia's first time at the pool!

 Sophia LOVED it!

 The water was a tad chilly :) (but it was a hot evening, so that was ok!)

 Kaia dipped her feet in, but mostly just played with Sophia's toys stash in the shade

 On Saturday we spent the day in the Bemidji! Sophia, DJ and Ava took the paddle boat for a spin...

 VERY serious piano player :)

 Babies! Hudson is 11 months, and Kaia is 8 months

 Kaia with her Aunt Laura and cousin Hudson

 A big crew went for a bike trip around the lake

 The bikers!

 The rest of us loaded the boat with good and headed across the lake to meet the bikers for grilling and swimming at the State park

 The three older cousins... getting too grown up :(

 Sophia's favorite toy: a cup of water for sneak-attacking!

Kaia pretty much missed the State Park excursion. Too much fresh air on the boat!

 The whole group!

 Kaia got in a few minutes of beach time before we headed back

 More paddle boating!

 Travis, Lindsey and I took a crew to the park nextdoor later in the afternoon for some more swimming and sand

 Kaia and Ava... Kaia loved the sand a little TOO much. She thought it was a yummy snack!

 The three youngest girl cousins in the tub!

 Yesterday Sophia decided to bust out the Halloween costumes... her ability to schlep a step stool around the house is starting to make things interesting!

 We ended the evening with a windy but beautiful jaunt down the road. Margie was very excited to be out, and was beautiful as always :)

 We took 1/3 of our menagerie down the road!

Margie running to greet Sunny in the pasture. Loving these long summer evenings! I noticed last night that we still had a little light at ELEVEN pm. And the birds woke me up with the first sunlight shortly after 5am!

Ballet Recital 2013!

This last weekend was 100% ballet busy-ness! Sophia's 2013 spring ballet session culminated in a big "gala" at a concert hall on the NDSU campus. Travis and I thought that this year's gala was superb. The costumes, choreography, schedule, lighting, music... everything was spot-on. Gasper's School of Dance seems to be attracting more and more pupils, and keeps getting better and better! I did take a (horrible) video of Sophia's performace... I was laughing and shaking the camera and ran out of memory right before Sophia's jete solo and the (adorable) end of the dance... boo. We will probably suck it up and buy the pro video this year! Also, the blog couldn't handle my little 2-minute video, so here is the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGIeZeZ1oE4&feature=youtu.be

Sophia took the performance really seriously and adhered to the practice routine almost to a fault... I was very proud of her!

 On Saturday Grandpa and Grandma stopped by with cousin Ava on their way to Bismarck. We had a nice little visit on the porch. Grandma brought Kaia a couple adorable pairs of shoes, but Kaia wasn't all that interested :)

 Sophia and Ava ran around together all over the place, and had a blast playing together! Kinda makes me wish my girls were 3 years apart instead of 4. :(

 Check out that farmer's tan ;)

 Ava's the best at posing! :D

The next morning we were up early, early to do Sophia's hair and makeup for her dress rehearsal...

 

 Her eyes are big to begin with... mascara is almost scary!

 Sophia and her friend Kilee hanging out in the dressing room

 Sophia and her friend, Larissa, from the Academy

 Sophia and her ballet "bestie," Hope.

 Trying out the big stage for the first time...

 Their dance ended with this super-cute "pose." The applause was deafening when they did this at the end of their recital!

 Recital time! Sophia and Hope hung out as general audience seating began.

 Then it was up to the dressing room to meet their class. Sophia got pretty nervous. She was a bit tearful in the dressing room... it was hard for me to leave her! But she really did a great job and was so happy after her recital; especially when she got to sit back in the audience and watch the gala with her grandparents. She also got flowers from her grandparents, and we celebrated with Tutti Frutti after we left. It was a late night last night!

Grandma with the 2 littlest granddaughters, Ava and Kaia. Next up: summer swimming lessons and 4-H, and then gymnastics in the fall!