This year Kate took ballet from teacher Grace, and jazz from me. Teacher Grace is one of my young women from church who trained at Oregon Ballet Theater. She was a wonderful teacher for Kate to learn the basics from. Kate knew exactly what to do at their showcase right down to the way you hold your hands. I still remember learning how to hold my hands as a 6 year old, so it was so fun for me to watch Kate go through the same process this year.
Kate with Teacher Grace and sister's Claire and Lilly, who assisted Grace. We love the Newsom girls!
This is Kate's Kinder Jazz class and the girls I was able to teach this year. They were such a fun, energetic group of girls. They danced to "Rockin Robin" and were the cutest little birds in the concert. I gave a special part to Kate where she ran from the corner and cartwheeled her way back into formation. The crowd loved it and she loved the attention. It was my consolation for putting her in the second line instead of front and center. She does me proud and I love that I get to teach her. I could spend hours teaching these girls!
At the end of the concert they always do a grand finale to celebrate the end of another year. This is a little snippet. Although she won't admit it and appears to be a bit shy at first, you can tell she loves to be on stage.
The Angels baseball season came and went in a flash. Zach improved a lot from last year. His understanding of plays, batting, and catching the ball seemed to really come together this year. He had the same coaches as he did last year, but practically had a new group of boys to play with as many kids either started Lacross or stopped playing baseball all together. Zach played a lot at short stop and second base and rotated in and out of other positions. He also had a chance to pitch a few innings. He loves baseball! And we love watching him play, especially after he makes a great hit and gets on base. The look of accomplishment is always fun to see.
Grandma and Grandpa were headed west to go on an Alaskan cruise and made a pit stop before and after to see us. And for once we didn't have a game to be at, so we took advantage and spent the day showing them Multnomah Falls. It was a gorgeous day! Ryan was a trooper too! I think having his first taste of soft serve was well deserved. Afterward we headed back to Portland and let the kids ride a few rides at the Rose Festival Fun Center and ended up at the Old Spaghetti Factory on the waterfront for dinner. Its days like this that I hope my kids don't forget.
It's amazing what babies learn in such a short amount of time. And to think that two months ago I laid awake in my bed wondering if we would make it to this point. I think I worry too much! Ryan has discovered many talents at 4 months old such as rolling, drooling, and laughing. He has graduated onto bigger and better things like his bouncy thingy, whatever it's called, and has even tried some food, which I need to remember to get picture of. So far he has tasted squash and sweet potatoes, so the sour face hasn't been seen yet. He is much more interactive now and the kids love playing with him, or should I say love fighting over him.
Let's pretend that Spring Break was just last week, forget that I might be a little behind in my updates, and be proud of us for getting out of town with three kids...our new normal. Growing up I never went anywhere for Spring Break. I am not complaining but I have memories of not doing anything and our goal this year was to break that tradition! Although Justin had to work we managed to squeeze in a short day trip to the beach and a weekend in Seattle.
Luckily Aunt Marnae had similar memories to mine and scheduled the beach house for her family over spring break. So we dropped our "to do" list and invited ourselves down for the day to play with her, Brian and the boys. The weather was unusually warm and sunny. I think we were blessed because this was Ryan's first trip away from home and my first outing longer than three hours since having Ryan. The kids had a great day swimming with their cousins and trying out the skate park, which was a first for them.
Justin scheduled a CE course up in Seattle so towards the end of the week the kids and I tagged along with him. We attempted Pike's Market which was fun but busy, especially for a stroller. Our next stop was the American Girl doll store to pierce Kate's Kit doll's ears. Did you get that? After Kit's ears were complete, Kate just couldn't wait to get her ears pierced, so off we went to Claire's in the mall. We ended our short little vacay with a yummy Maggiano's dinner and swimming back at our hotel.
So there you have it! Life does exist after three. We survived Ryan's first road trip and Kate getting her ears pierced. Success if you ask me.
Kate started a tumbling class this fall with her cousin Brooke and loves it! Her teacher, Jackie, is super strict and expects a lot out of her students and has helped Kate accomplish a lot in such a short amount of time. At the beginning of the year Kate could barely do a cartwheel, and now she is doing bridge walk overs all by herself! She isn't playing sports just yet so when she gets to perform the few times out the year she just loves the attention. She did so well in her showcase and we are so proud of her, and of course think she is the cutest little gymnast on the earth.
Last year Zach "showboated" a lot, dribbling the ball between his legs and hardly making a pass to his teammates, so we decided to play Zach up a level this year to give him a challenge and maybe humble him a little. I think it worked! He didn't have time to even think about trying out any of the tricks he watches on TV. His team struggled at first to find a rhythm and passing to one another was not their strong suit, as everyone likes to be the team hero. But by the end they learned to work together. He had a lot of fun and that's what is more important at this stage and had a couple really great baskets like the one filmed below.
When you are in the day to day of it all 2 months seems like forever, but when the actual 2 month mark comes around, it feels like I just had him. Besides resisting nap time most days we have a very happy boy on our hands. He has started to smile and coo and has jumped from 6lbs. 11oz. to 11lbs. 2oz. To date he has had three nights with a 5 hour stretch. Most nights he wakes up about twice but usually goes right back down We aren't even going to talk about his day routine because there isn't one. Although I would love for him to establish one, a morning nap is all that is beginning to routinely occur between 8:30 and 10 am. So far it lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I like the 2 hours...just saying.
We blessed Ryan the same weekend Zach got baptized. We figured it would be better to do them both in the same weekend while Grandma and Grandpa Marostica were here. Crazy busy? Yes! Especially with Kate getting the flu and me having strep throat on top of it all. But definitely worth it! Thank goodness Grandma and Grandpa were here to take care of us...we needed it! And my parents and family here picked up my slack with hosting everyone at their house and providing the yummy brunch after the blessing.
Ryan was as sweet as could be. I had just barely got him to sleep when it was time for Justin to take him up. Being the light sleeper that he is, we were all nervous that he would wake up and cry through the entire thing, but he was such a champ and stayed asleep. Justin gave him a wonderful blessing and both he and Zach bore their testimonies during the meeting. I am so lucky to be a mom and have this little family of mine. It was a "count my blessings" kind of weekend.
