Dance Recital

Grace had her dance recital this weekend. She did a fantastic job and I kinda think she had a great time too! I wanted to share a few pics.


This first one is of her jazz number. It was "Madagascar Moves" and she was a giraffe. It was her favorite. It was cute and looked really fun for the kids!

The next picture is from her tap dance. It was "Family Vacation" and they just wore swimsuits and coverups. It was cute too.

Her last dance was her ballet and it was by far my favorite. They all looked so pretty and graceful. It was called "Heaven is the Face of a Little Girl".

And of course, every dancer deserves a bouquet of flowers after the show!

Can you guess who in our family chose orange and white flowers? I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count!

Critters

We like critters around here. We have several. Not as many as I'd like but still, quite a few. If I had my way we'd add chickens, rabbits, and maybe baby goats. Whitney doesn't share my opinion. Probably because he doesn't want to take care of any more and he assumes he'd be the one to do that. I have the best of intention and the kids and I pretty well take care of what we have but he's right. He'd probably be the one gathering eggs, feeding goats and cleaning rabbit cages. So we are happy with the critters we do have...mostly.


This is Coco. She's my baby. We got her at 6 weeks and she literally believes I'm her mommy. Whitney reminds me that my parents gave her TO THE KIDS for Christmas a couple of years ago.





We currently have eight of these adorable things running around. Two mama cats had kittens within days of each other. These kittens don't seem know which cat is their mother and the mama cats don't seem to mind. It's like a kitty commune. We love having outdoor cats for a reason. We'll get to that later.






Of course, here's Chuckie. Chuckie and Buddy are still alive and well. The kids have also added a third frog to the mix and that's Chuck. Colin is not very original with names it seems.

This is one of the butterflies we raised from caterpillars. It was so fun! I'll have a blog about that whole experience soon.

As you can see, we have cute and cuddly critters, critters that are green and slimy, and flying critters. We like them. The kids learn responsibility and it's just plain fun!

We have them for other reasons than just fun. For example, we got an outside cat shortly after moving into our house five years ago. After seeing a large snake in the driveway we decided a cat was a good idea. Of course the cats have multiplied a bit but we don't mind. We like them. And we've only seen 2 live snakes in the yard in five years. Until today. Grace almost stepped on THIS!

Seems to be about 1 foot and a half long. Whitney just about shot it's head off. Then Colin beat it with an ax handle. Seriously, he did. Whitney says is a copperhead. I sincerely hope he's wrong and that it's just a rat snake. But I'm sure he's not.

This tells us maybe the big cats don't need that second big bowl of food every evening. They need to use their God-given instincts and HUNT and KILL things like SNAKES!


Just sayin'.

Now THIS is summer vacation!

We finished school today. Yippee! Our first homeschooling year is complete and it was great though we are happy to have summer vacay! Well, complete except for grades, filing, and other record-keeping....I guess it's not summer break for me just yet!

I have a few things to blog about our school year...a field trip and the butterflies we raised but today...today was about the beginning of summer vacation in the Chastain house!

Grace had an extra dance practice tonight so that meant a late dinner. While she and her Dad were gone I made dinner and thought I'd make a special dessert to celebrate. I had been talking to Mom and she told me how great a recipe for Chocolate Cobbler had turned out. Yes, a recipe for THE Chocolate Cobbler from Cracker Barrel. I found the recipe here.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/desserts/chocolate-cobbler/

I was a bit skeptical but Mom said it was THE one. I had everything on hand and it looked easy. Plus, my kids LOVE anything chocolate so I gave it a try.

First you melt butter in a casserole dish. Butter is good, very good!

Second, you spoon your batter over the melted butter but do not stir!!!

Yes, this picture is of chocolate batter sitting in melted butter. Is anything wrong with that? I think not! Please tell me nothing is wrong with this!

Third, sprinkle sugar and cocoa over the batter/butter. I won't tell you that this step calls for a full cup of sugar and we won't mention the 3/4 cup that's already in the batter.

You're welcome.

Don't stir it!

Last, pour 1 1/2 cups of boiling water over dish of butter/batter/sugar. What? Water? That just seemed odd to me. But, I followed the directions. Oh, don't stir it!

And THIS heavenly thing is what came out of the oven. Remember the water? The sugar/cocoa? Well that together makes this delicious, rich fudge sauce. Serve it with vanilla ice cream and, oh my! It was good.

But the kids, they were hesitant to try it. They weren't sure. Chocolate, fudge sauce, and ice cream?? That can't be good. They fought it. We forced them to eat it. They kicked. They screamed. They hated every bite.

(Anyone who knows my kids knows that I'm just kidding.)

As I was spooning out his dessert Colin said "Now THIS is summer vacation!" That statement and their pure joy about such a simple thing....that's a great part of being Mom!

Happy summer vacation to all of you!