First Day of Preschool

So the first or second week we moved to this neighborhood I was talking with one of the neighbor moms.  She informed me that they had a joy school group that was going to start in September and I could join if I was interested.  I was thrilled.  I was going to start something on my own with Hattie, but would rather her be in a group.  So we all take turns teaching.  It started out as a small group, but is going to have 6 or 7 girls and 1 boy.  I'm not sure, but right now I teach about once a month.  There are two months that I have off.  Because of the nature of this neighborhood, people are moving in and out often, so in January the numbers will change again.  But, she is making friends and I have 2 hours all to myself, until the baby comes, to do whatever I want to.  This has been the first week, and Hattie has loved it.  On the days we don't have preschool, I still work with her on the letter, number, shape, and color of the week.  Anyway, these are the pictures I took of her first day!

She has been watching The Wizard of Oz and insisted on bringing her buffalo which she was pretending was Toto.

I got her to put it down for a picture, but I didn't get her bangs out of her face.  She has great hair, but those dang bangs are at the annoying stage of growth right now.  They are too long to pull back into the braid, or ponytail, and too short to stay put behind her ear.  She doesn't care, but it bugs me.

Hattie's First Dance Class

So I finally enrolled Hattie into a dance class.  She was very excited when I told her.  Then we took her to get new ballet shoes, tights, and a leotard.  When she saw the store from the outside she couldn't wait to get out of the car.  She was not happy that it looked like I was going in before her and without her.  She was in heaven looking at all the outfits.

So the day finally came for her first day of class.  It took me a while to put her hair up in a bun.  She doesn't let me do her hair without a fight.  This studio isn't too strict about somethings.  Hair is one of them.  They say as long as it is out of your face it is fine, but I figure if she is going to continue she might as well get use to having it in a bun.  We had her put on her ballet shoes for these pictures before we left.   Then I had her take them off and put her street shoes on, and she did not like that at all.  I saw another girl with crocks and thought that was a good idea.  She just slips her ballet shoes into and out of the crocks.  We will have to look for a pair, because that will be way less hassle than having her change shoes.  I just want this pair to last for a while, a $17 while.  I know I could have gotten them less online, but the first time I wanted to go in and get her fitted so that I would have a better idea of what to order online the next time. I'm not comfortable with shopping online and even it's wrong when I get it, it's too much of a hassle for me to send it back.  But I suppose I will have to get use to it someday.  Especially if I don't want to pay $17 for ballet shoes that she will grow out of my next year.

She was very excited to go, and danced and posed for her Dad before we left.

They don't normally let parents stay, but they make an exception for first time students and the first day of class.  I decided not to stick around so that Hattie would not get use to it.  I showed up for the last 10-5 minutes of class.  She looked like she was obeying well, and having fun.  I think she inherited the Reeve athletic ability, and the Murset ballet gene.  She loves to dance!  I know I am partial, but it looked like she had decent form for her age. Legs relatively straight and toe pointed and not sickle. But I am not a dancer, so there.  I did take some video, but I'm not sure exactly how to post it.  I will have Kevin help me with that later.

This is her teacher Ms. Shellie.  All the teachers go by Ms. even though two of them are married and they are called by their first name.  I don't know if that is normal for dance studio's but it was new to me. Anyway, when we left Hattie kept saying that she loved her dance class and that she was a good dancer.  She's pretty humble, another inherited trait?  I don't know, but she's pretty confident in most things. She will have two dance recitals.  They do a nutcracker and a spring recital.  On the paper they handed out there was a Halloween one as well, but when I talked with the owner she didn't mention that the little girls were in that one.  I will have to ask next time we are there.

I'm glad that she is enjoying it and having fun.  It's fun to see her grow.  I'll try to get the video up soon.

Jabba the Hut Cake

Ok so the pictures are backwards, but oh well. (You'll have to read from the bottom up for them.) So for the Murset family get together this month of August, we celebrated my brother-in-law Mark's and my nephew Nathan's birthday.  They are both Star Wars fans and so I was trying to think of a fun cake to make for them.  Kevin suggested doing a Jabba the Hut cake, and I thought really?  So I figured why not, it would be fun.  So I hopped online and sure enough found others that had done the same.  So from those pictures I produced my own with the help of my good friend Ashley.

This is the finished product in all his mucusy glory.

The next day was the party and I decided that I would cover the whole thing with gel because it made it look shiny and mucusy and gross. Hattie Had a lot of fun spreading it around with the paint brush.

This is eventually what we ended up with.  We used white fondant and colored it with brown to make a flesh colored base.  Then I took green Color Mist and sprayed Jabba down.  Since it was a spray can I used different ways of spraying to get the splatters and green circles.  Then I took green gel and put mucus all over the creases and in his nose and one his head.  The gel on the head I spread around with a paint brush.  We used red fondant for the eyes and I stuck them on with gum paste.  I also made eye lids with the flesh colored fondant, and then a mouth with black.  Oh, I also put arms on with gum paste.  He looked pretty gross.

I started with stacking the cakes together to form a rough shape of Jabba.  I used 2 cake mixes and three differently shaped cake pans. Then if you can see in the background of this picture there are 3 cans of frosting.  I used all three to frost this puppy, or slug.  I used that much because my friend Ashley, who I asked to help me with the fondant, said that I would want a thick layer so that when they peeled the fondant off there would still be some frosting for flavor on the cake. My friend showed up later to help me with the fondant.  I have never tried that before, so I asked her for help.

I had fun with this cake.  I had a hard time with trying to be gross.  But it was a fun new experience.  Thanks so much Ashley for your help.

Shameless Plug

I'm at the BYU organ workshop this week.  I will be posting a recapitulation at the end of each day.  Check it out at: http://dasmusikblog.blogspot.com/

Lyrics according to Hattie

So Hattie has been signing this song for the last couple of days.  The lyrics first started out as this:

Row Row your boat, gently down the street
Merrily Merrily, like a pot of dream.

Then I sang it for her a couple of times to try to let her hear how it really goes and this is what we know have.

Row Row your boat, gently down the street
Merrily Merrily, like a but of dream.

Things to do with Pancakes.

If you are three, or just board, here are some amazing ideas to keep you busy that Hattie discovered with pancakes.  First of all you can eat them, but that is boring.  If you are really hungry keep one in each hand to eat.  Next, you can pile them all on your plate and make a tall tower with them.  If that's not exciting enough, you can put them on the ground and jump from one pancake to the other.

I don't have a picture to show you, because at the time I was a little mad when I realized what she was doing and didn't think that it would be funny later on.

So have fun with pancakes.

Baby Boy

Due October 16, 2011