Crafty

The good: Keira loves working on arts and crafts.

The bad: She always raids (and messes up) her Mom's art supplies without asking first.

Monday Texts

I've been a bit delinquent with the blog lately, so let me start up again.

Iria sent me some cool text message pics today.

Here are the kids swimming with Claire and her family at their community pool.

And Katharine raiding her Mom's shoe closet.

Nationals Pictures, Galveston, TX July 9th - 13th, 2013

Here are a few different pictures of Katharine's solo from the Mid-America Showstopper Nationals in Galveston, TX:

The Russian - leap

Katharine earned a gold again at Nationals. The competition in her age category is tough, only 3 out of 15 ten year olds received a platinum, so Katharine hung right in there with the crowd. She emoted beautifully, even made one of the teens cry this time around. So proud of my dancer!

Arabesque

coming down from the tour jete

The girls from "Got That Something" where as sassy as always!

from left to right: Alaina, Emma J., Lily, Claire, Tara, Katharine, Katie and Carly

Our Mr. Postman tappers rocked the house again and earned a double platinum and a 2nd overall in their division:

from left to right: Cassie, Meredith, Katharine, Vivianne, Alaina, Lily and Mattie

from left to right: Katharine, Emma J., Meredith, Vivianne, Mattie, Cassie, Lily and Abbie

Nationals - Day 5

Sheena's Academy got a double platinum medal for their big group number, and everybody was in a celebratory mood at the group dinner that night.

Nationals - Days 3 and 4

It was a busy two days for Katharine and her teammates at Nationals.

They were all putting out great efforts, and bringing in some of their highest scores.

Katharine grabbed a Gold for her solo, placing fourth overall.

Their Trio got Platinum, and the 'Mr. Postman' tap number got Double Platinum. 

Some of the bigger group production numbers are scheduled for the weekend.

But despite all of the awards, Katharine couldn't stop talking about her time at the Rainforest Cafe more than anything else.

Nationals - Day 2

Katharine didn't dance on the first day, and Iria didn't take many pictures.

It is kind of like the calm before the storm.

Here are some nice and calm Galveston morning pics from the window (they are all renting and sharing a condo for a week).

Katharine at the dance hall, getting ready to cheer on some of her friends.

Lego Convention

I took the kids to a Lego convention last Sunday, where we saw a lot of great builds and where I was coaxed into buying them each a mini-figure whose heads/arms/legs/body will soon be put to use in their 'franken-figure' factory (except for Katharine, who actually keeps her Legos intact).

But creativity can be expressed in many ways, and this show had it's share of interesting mixing and matching going on.

Here are the kids, posed in front of their favorite exhibits.

Lennon loved the wall of mini-figures.

Lego Friends for Keira (yep, their blatant and somewhat sexist market grab for young girls worked on her).

Lukas loved this castle, mainly because Indiana Jones was scaling it.

Katharine dug this amazingly lush rendition of the Shire.

The huge beach landing build was my favorite.

Paper Dancers

Both Katharine and Claire were crafting up some dance group portraits before leaving on their trip.

Katharine's paper dolls and tags:

Claire's sketch:

Nationals - Day 1

Here are some pictures that Iria sent over to me from their first day of their Nationals trip.

This was around 1/4 of the luggage packed between all of the girls and Moms. They departed in two big SUV's, stuffed to the brim.

Road Trip silliness.

Lunch at Ruggles.

I hope Katharine ate a little more of her pizza- that place looked a bit expensive.

Entering Galveston. 

The competition runs from Wednesday morning through late Sunday night.

Iria and Katharine will not be back until Monday.

The girls visited the beach as the sun was going down.

And then proceeded to go into silly slumber party mode.

Looks fun so far!

Katharine and Maya

We hung out with Jeramy and Maya today, as she gets ready to embark on a month-long trip to Europe with her Mom next week.

We just booked our own family trip to Europe, from December 15 through January 11th. 

It is a pretty long trip, but when you have to buy seven intercontinental plane tickets you better make it worthwhile :)

Pictures courtesy of Jeramy's iphone.