Daddy Daughter Dance

So, our stake held a Daddy-Daughter dance yesterday for Activity Girls-aged girls and their Dads or Grandpas or Home Teachers, etc.  Since Kaitlyn met the necessary age requirements, and I met the necessary dad requirement, we were ready to rock!

As in every good dance, Kaitlyn told me what I needed to wear so that we appropriately matched, as much as possible.  The Activity Girls made cute little matching, teal-colored hair roses, so we found my most teal-like shirt, took a mandatory pre-dance photo, and then hopped in the car for our pre-dance Daddy-Daughter dinner at Panera with some of the others dads and daughters from the stake that we knew were going to be there.

At Panera, we split a "You Pick 2" that Kaitlyn had selected and that I finished while chatting about CCAR scenarios, the positives and negatives of using excess cash for stock buy backs in public companies, and the level of preparation for Sacrament Meeting speaking engagements.  And, that was just what the girls wanted to talk about!  (Well...maybe it was the dads having that conversation.  I'm not sure.)

Once we got there, we did our very best to dance to the "stomp left two times" song, some song about a "party in the USA" requiring "nodding your head like 'yeah'", and shaking some stuff off (I assume snow).

Then, they busted out the limbo stick.  Which I tried.  And, I'm sure the back ache that I'm feeling today is completed unrelated.  They didn't make us sign any waivers before attempting it, so I'm out of luck there.

Kaitlyn managed to start some very important trends while we were there: the conga line, the circle where people take turns dancing from one side to the other, and the DWTS spinning/twirling thingy from one side to the other (see photo below).

In all, we had a great time and it was inspiring to see the dads do anything (including dance like idiots--at least that's how it was in my case) to make sure their daughters were happy.

Dads.  Daughters.  Dancing.  Who knew?

A Saturday With The Little Girls

While Ali went to a Weddington Middle School baseball game, and Megan took Kaitlyn and Max shoe and shorts shopping, I got to go with the "littles" to the elementary school playground.

(I think the gimbal came through again on this footage.)

Post #5.

Here.  I posted something else!  Does this count as a post?  Does it actually have to have meaningful content or an actual update about the family?  Does it have to completely (and accurately) reflect some sort of family history or event that we want documented forever and always?  What is the minimum acceptable hurdle for a post to count?  Could it be word count (because I'm starting to ramble pretty good here and this could really turn into something).

Seriously, here are some things you can (probably) look forward to this year on the blog:

• Since we went to Disney in January, I'm sure I have at least 3 or 5 good posts about those days (including photos).  So, look for that sometime this year. 
• Ali was on the middle school basketball team and wrapped up her season in 2016 (although it started in 2015).  So, that's something right there.
• Kaitlyn and Maxwell are doing gymnastics, and Kate is doing Activity Girls while Max does Cub Scouts.  So, I think there might be some good stuff there too.
• Ava is learning to play the violin, so could there be some sort of Lindsey Sterling (not to be confused with Scott Sterling) music video lip-sync thingy in the works?  Could be.
• Olivia is the cutest little speaker (and singer) at her age.  I think there could be some good material there too.

So, go ahead and comment and let me know your thoughts.  Videos, good?  Still with photos better?  Long, rambling posts just taking up space trying to get credit for a post to try to close the gap to the number of blog posts planned by this point in the year, good?

Ali's Music Video

Admittedly, I'm not off to the perfect start to the blogging, as I had originally intended.  Still, something is better than nothing--unless that "something" is being awakened at 5:00AM this morning by Olivia who couldn't find her white blanket (pronounced "blain-tee") which was actually just under her other blanket--in which case "nothing" is definitely better than "something."  But, I digress.

After discovering (with Kaitlyn) that I could make the kids test subjects in practice music videos of all kinds, and discovering that they actually liked it too (I can't tell you how many people Kaitlyn has wanted to show her video to), I thought it would be worthwhile to give Alison a chance to shine, after observing her reaction to Kaitlyn's video production.

Our kids are becoming wonderful multi-instrumentalists, this gave Ali a good chance to show off some of her skills (although as I type this I realize that we didn't get any good ukulele shots here).

Any who, here's Ali doing her best Taylor Swift impression.  She rocks!

(For all of about 7 minutes of shooting and 30 minutes of editing, that wasn't too shabby, I don't think.)

What's that tremendous improvement in camera stability in this video vs. Kate's, you ask?  That's the latest toy I'm rather excited about--my Lanparte HHG-01 gimbal.  My new secret weapon in video-making.

(4 down.  48 to go.)

Kaitlyn's Fight Song

Yesterday, we had the goal of spending some quality time with each of the kids doing something that they wanted.  Olivia and I put together some puzzles (pronounced "puzz-o").  Ava and I did something, probably.  Max and I had some epic light saber battles and played Killer Bunnies.  We went and watched Alison play some assist-heavy John Stockton-like church ball. 

And, then Kaitlyn and I played a game where we say a song and see how many notes in a row of the melody we can play on piano by ear.  She's pretty good.  She wins more than I expect her to.

Yesterday, that game morphed a little into "figure out the chords to the song" and we chose "Fight Song" to figure out.  After a few minutes we had the main chord progression down and were having some fun jamming on it.  Then, I had to step away to for a moment address something with one of the other children.  When I came back, I found that Kaitlyn had started recording herself playing and singing it on my phone.

I asked her if she wanted to try to make a real music video for a few minutes.  This is what we came up with:

(Take that 3rd blog post of 52!)

Happy Birthday to Kaitlyn!

Kaitlyn had a birthday, shout hurray.  We wanted to sing to her today.  She's one year older and wiser too.  Happy Birthday.  To.  You.  (To get the melody to the above stuck in your head, click here.)

Since we celebrate her birthday in December, we checked the weather to make sure we were planning appropriate activities for North Carolina:

Well, so much for the snowball fights, snowmen, snow chase and snow sculpting!  We opted for just opening some windows so we didn't have to turn on the air conditioning (which we did end up doing a couple of times in December anyway!).

Take 1:  December 22nd.

Kaitlyn invited a bunch of friends over for some (mostly) unstructured play.  It wasn't long before Megan observed that the party seemed like it was just going "OK".  In order to up the energy level, she suddenly brought out the huge surprise gift--a gymnastics mat--so that the girls could practice contorting themselves into every shape known to humankind.  But, unfortunately, that didn't seem to work.  Kaitlyn wasn't as excited as we had hoped.  Then, she threw up.

Party postponed!

Take 2:  December 26th.

With Christmas (and the flu) under her belt, Kaitlyn was ready to give it another shot.  She invited her same group of friends over and this time the energy was much better!

Kaitlyn (and Megan) had thoroughly prepared for the second attempt by going all over town to find the necessary accouterments for the goodie bags: nail polish, lip gloss, Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer, and, of course, candy.

When all of the girls arrived they made the most of their time together by watching the seasonally- and age-appropriate "Santa Clause" movie together and hanging out doing girly things and asking dad-type people to stay away.

Fortunately, I was able to attend the present opening and birthday cookie candle-blowing out portion of the activities.  Kaitlyn was incredibly sweet with each gift received and made sure she personally thanked each and every giver with a "Thanks!" and a side-hug.

She then had the lung capacity and saliva-control to blow out the candles and share the cake with everyone.

Since we were leaving for Indiana after her birthday, her requested birthday meal had to wait until we returned (and which, she noted, helped extend her birthday celebration to about 2 weeks from the first party attempt to the final birthday dinner).

The homemade macaroni and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, corn and asparagus were a fantastic choice!

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!  I can't believe you're only a year away from being in Young Women's!

We're Back...in Indiana...for a week...after Christmas

I didn't realize that my last post was in April of 2014!  So, I took a year-and-a-half off from blogging...that's what everyone does, what's the big deal?

The real reason I'm back is that for Christmas, I gave Megan a promise that I'd do 52 blog posts in 2016.  And, I know I have my doubters as to whether or not I will actually be able to deliver, so I thought I'd get the first one done before the first week is even out!  Booyah!

We spent Christmas at home and then, for some reason, thought it would be awesome to leave the 72 degree weather we were experiencing in Charlotte and drive 11 hours to cold, frigid Indiana.

Since we were with Megan's family, as soon as we got there (or the next day at least), we honored tradition and immediately went to a movie (Hotel Transylvania 2), but made sure we visited the $1 store beforehand to agonize (and cry) over the decision of which large box of candy to take.  ("We" mostly meaning "children 8 and under.")

Of course, most of the candy was probably gone by the time we actually reached the movie theater, so we made sure to get a huge bucket of popcorn to get us through--until the movie started.

Once the movie was over, Megan informed the children that they couldn't have anything else to eat for the day.  Then, we went to Chic-Fil-A where I gave in to letting Olivia trade in her book for ice cream so that the other children could complain about the injustice of not getting any.

Another great thing about being in Indiana was getting to see "baby Sawyer" for the first time.  Olivia thought it was fun to hold the baby and felt so big and grown up.

We also hung out with Grandma, and Peyton, and let Grandma read books about horses to us ("us" meaning "girls under 5").

Olivia also discovered a puzzle in the game closet and enlisted my help as well as the help of Ava and Grandpa.  I was pretty good at that 100 piecer!  Now, Olivia didn't quite have the same sense of accomplishment that I did and within about 10 seconds of completion had ruined the whole thing saying "Let's do it again!"

The last bloggable moment was decorating sugar cookies.  Now, this wasn't just your regular old, run-of-the-mill sugar decorating party.  Megan had pre-researched some designs on Pinterest and we gathered the kids together in the van before going into Jessica's house to put our hands in for a team cheer: "Mediocrity is mediocre!"  (Yes, we are incredible nerds, but we are proud of it, thank you very much.)

Ava did some cookies.

I poorly decorated some Christmas tree-shaped cookies and then did my best to distract any potential observers by decorating the plates too and turning it into an epic visual story of Christmas being saved by Superman.

Megan and Michael did their best to see if they could spend 3 hours decorating 2 cookies combined.  Actually, Megan did 6.

Grant and Ali created some Werewolf cookies (in honor of the many, many games of Ultimate Werewolf that we played) by spending 2 hours individually placing brown sprinkles on the frosting so they all lined up correctly like wolf hair. 

Then, we were so tired that the girls fell asleep on my lap (or face)--just like at home.

Other notable occurrences:

• Ava made chocolate silk pie with Grandpa
• Megan and I went out for a steak dinner with her parents and siblings and I mostly paid attention to them instead of watching the College Playoff bowl games
• Jessica's carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies

Happy New Year and I hope you look forward to a year's worth of blogs from yours truly!