Ballerina School

Daphne did another round of ballet this spring. Just 8 weeks again. When it comes to kid's activities, we like to dabble in stuff, explore, not take anything too seriously. I haven't read the Tiger Mom book, but I'm assuming I'm not one of those.

Last year we did Southwest Community Center, this year we tried Multnomah Art Center. I liked the idea of having live accompaniment, plus it's super inexpensive and you don't have to pay an out-of-district fee. The down side is that you can't go inside the studio to watch - you have to peek through a tiny little window. The last class, however, all the parents are invited to come in for class. So here are some pictures not taken through the tiny window.

Ok, this one is worth clicking to enlarge. They are pretending to be mice, and the expressions on their faces are sweet.
When a T family member shows any sign of grace or poise, you must take a picture.

Bringing us imaginary flowers

Taking a bow
Their teacher gave them each a rose (and a Tootsie Pop!) at the end of the "performance."


And where is James through all of this?
Poor kid. He's a good and dutiful little brother.

Grammy and and Aunt Julie came to watch too!!

Monday Art - Guest Artist

James doesn't draw very much. Honestly I think he may be a little intimidated by his sister. Anyway, he does love to cut and glue and sticker. It usually is an "airport" or a "rocket" or a "flag" or something like that.

The first time I saw him draw something that resembled a person was the other day at the doctor's office on the exam table paper.

Had to document that.

Service Project - Medical Teams International

This month we participated in our church's annual "The Church Has Left the Building"
service project. This was our third year. It's one of our favorite events each year because we love the opportunity to serve as a family. The first year we did yard work at a women's shelter, and last year we delivered flowers and cards at an assisted living center.

This year our small group worked on sorting medical supplies for Medical Teams International based in Tigard (time 3:15 in the video shows some local volunteer opportunities - that warehouse is in Tigard). Apparently they get bags of completely random medial supplies discarded for whatever reason from hospitals and clinics. Volunteers then sort and count these supplies by type, to be repackaged and used locally and internationally. It was the perfect project to do with the kids (and a great brain exercise for them as well!). And we didn't even have to "leave the building" - MTI brought the supplies to us!

The kids were troopers and actually both helped for most of the 3 hours we worked on it.

James carefully counting bandaids.

Not quite sure of the medical application of this but it's awesome and I want one.

Click here to see some of the other service projects the church participated in that day: www.lakegrovepres.org/TCHLTB.htm

(ok, it's a long video, so here are the points it switches to a new project: :37, 1:52, 4:36, 6:25, 8:05, 8:50, 10:14)

Monday Art - Daphne the Dancer

Yup.

Walk for Water

On April 30th our family (and my sweet friend Amanda) participated in our first Walk for Water. Here's what we did:

waterafrica.org/w4w/walk4water.html
(We may have taken a shortcut. But the kids did carry their own water.)

And here's why we did it:
http://waterafrica.org/About/whywater.html

And here are some pictures:

(buckets now filled)





And I'd encourage you to watch this video of the walk this year:

(Daphne and James are with the Mayor at 3:30)

And if you're up for a 5K on May 22nd for the same cause:
http://runningwater5k.org/

And, I'm done.

Monday Art - Recipe for Fruit Salad

Gotta love phonetic spelling. Makes a lot more sense than regular English about half the time anyway.

Monday Art - Sibs in Chairs

Favorite parts: the hairdos. the literalness of the "high" chair. little brother's E.T. head. huge hands for hugging.