Happy Easter

Well, here I am, middle of my six day weekend. Have spent most of it at the ballet studio while my girls attend holiday classes in preparation for the RAD exams in early June.

Jessica is happy as she has mastered some things in the dances that were giving her some difficulty. We knew this might be a problem due to changing studios - her old one had the exams in late July/early August so they hadn't really started in on the grade work meaning she was a bit behind the class at her new one, which had. Tamsin is just enjoying doing ballet classes. Preprimary is sooo cute, yet the basic building blocks are all covered.

Jessica has shown some lovely work over the last week at ballet - such a joy for a proud momma to see. I'm also proud of Tasmin's application to her work. I didn't put her in any classes last year as all she did was play around and not focus. I decided to wait until she started at school in the hope it would make a difference to her attitude, and it has. Possibly being in a pink leotard and pink net skirt has helped too!

Took the Penguins with me today instead of the Sudoku and actually put some stitches in. The ballet girls were quite fascinated.

Made it to an LNS yesterday. Kitted out three designs from various issues of Cross Stitcher and Quick&Easy, all in Anchor. Realised this morning that I had forgotten to pick up the missing DMC for the Balloons sampler, du uh. Oh, well - having to go again won't hurt, will it? Why is my credit card running away do you think??? LOL

There is a Stitch show coming up that I am planning to attend, so must save some budget for that :) My girls are happy to tag along, and my closest friend is coming with me too. Should be fun! I'm on annual leave for the first day of it, so will go then (girls still on school holidays), woohoo.

The new, bigger fridge arrived on schedule Thursday afternoon - what a difference! So easy to fit everything in now. And I cleaned the old one today, so it's all ready for a new home. Just need to get it into Trade&Exchange and hope we get a buyer.

Got to the optometrist last week as well. Slowly ticking things off my list, very satisfying. Took Tamsin along as her new entrant vision test had had a query on it. Glad I did. While her eyes are healthy with none of the stereo/squint issues that I've had, she does have a "vision reduction". No panic (or glasses) at this stage as school this year doesn't involve distance work, but the optometrist wants her back in 12 months to look into it further. Tamsin was so good for the optometrist, just like she was at the dentist. I've attached the photo of "model child at dentist". Why is this such a milestone for us, you ask? Cos her elder sister is sooo nervous of dentistry that what is normally a 20min appointment takes an hour with her. She is getting better thanks to a lot of effort on her part, and a lot of careful pre-explanation by Loy, our dentist (also an old family friend).

Last day for ballet tomorrow (just Tamsin's classes) and then Jessica will be off to Napier for a week long gymnastics training clinic. She is really looking forward to it. She went down for a similar weekend in February and had a fabulous time, so she's looking forward to seeing all the Napier coaches again. She also wants to work on the skills for the Level 4 routines, especially with competition season starting in May. Personally I can't see her being ready until June at the extreme earliest, and then it will clash with a cheer practice for Australia (the last one before leaving in fact!). This year was always going to be full of clashes until after the Australian comp, so no surprises there.

It will be interesting to see how we go with fitting in Tamsin starting gymnastics. Proud momma that I am, I hope she takes to it and also ends up competing. She's picked up some of it by osmosis from hanging around Jess for over 2 years, so we'll see. She can do a mean glide on bars, but has no idea about a cartwheel or handstand. Can be very funny to watch. Either way, it'll do wonders for her gross motor skills which is no bad thing.

Meanwhile, the pantry is now absolutely full of chocolate Easter eggs the girls have been given over the weekend. Just as well they do so much activity to work off all that sugar!