School's out for the Summer!

It is really hard to believe that today is Anna's last day of Kindergarten. The year went by so FAST!!! Anna has really blossomed this year. She is now reading chapter books (her favorites are June B. Jones and American Girl) all by herself. We find her reading when she wakes up in the morning, and when she goes to bed at night.

Aiden has a couple more days of his class, but he is going to go there for camp.. so not a big change there! He did have his "water day" at school yesterday to celebrate the end of year. He loved it.

So anyway, I wanted to do a 1st day of school, last day of school side by side comparison of Anna. She has really matured this year, but she's still our little Anna! :)


















Here's some other pictures to enjoy!

Aiden's water day, and then Aiden with all the GIRLS! He loves the Ladies! Haha!!















The kids were cuddling with Lucy the other day... so here's a picture of that cuddlefest!














We all attended Anna's "Kindergarten Picnic" yesterday, and the entire Kindergarten performed two songs. Yes, I cried! ugh! I can't get through anything without the sobfest. :) Anyway, look how beautiful Anna looked!



















Have a perfect day everyone!

Love, Holly

PLEASE VOTE!!!!!!

Hi Everyone!


I'm SO excited! My Kindermusik program was nominated for an award from Nickelodeon/GoCityKids! It's a part of Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect's First Annual Parents' Picks Awards. Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect (http://www.parentsconnect.com), the online resource for parenting advice and community, is allowing parents to pick the best of their local communities with the Parents' Picks Awards.

The ParentsConnect's First Annual Parents' Picks Awards will identify winners in 52 major U.S. cities. Categories include: best kids' museum; best toy store; best playground/park; best green space; and many more. Users can vote for nominees online at http://www.parentsconnect.com/parentspicks until June 30 to help determine which nominees are "top picks" in their city. We are in Orlando, FL, and up for the "Best Artsy Class" award! On July 15, the ParentsConnect.com site will publish the Parents' Picks winners and the winning venues' information will remain featured on the site for a year. All Parents' Picks businesses are nominated based on recommendations from ParentsConnect.com local city editors that live and work in the cities they cover, in conjunction with ParentsConnect users' feedback. Users' votes and rankings ultimately determine which venues are selected as winners in their respective categories.

YEY!!! So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE vote!!!

:) Love, Holly

Dog Park fun!

Today we took the dogs and kids to a new dog park. Well, it's was new to us anyway..

It was SO much fun! There was a huge amount of space for the dogs to run free, and a lake/beach where the dogs and kids could play and swim. We actually didn't plan to swim, so we were dressed a little oddly for that.. but we made do.

Here's Sagan wading in the water...













Beach fun!



























































What a fun day!!!!

Love, Holly

Professional pics to share!

I've been meaning to scan the following pictures in for the longest time and FINALLY did it! Enjoy!!!

Here's Aiden's 3 year portrait:

















Here's the hotel picture from our trip to the Nick Hotel















Here's the picture from our Day our with Thomas!

















The next two pictures of Aiden and I were taken by my friend Kristin Mizo in our Kindermusik class. Kristin takes pictures of all my studio classes each session. Isn't her work beautiful? I just loved these...






























This last one is Anna's Kindermusik for the Young Child: First Year picture. Anna learned how to play the Glockenspiel this year!


















Until next time....
Love, Hol

Our dancing girl!

Today was Anna's dance recital. She did an AMAZING job!!!!! I have a video from our camera and repeatedly tried to upload it to this blog, but it didn't work.. so Will is going to have fix it first. In the meantime, here are some pictures. Anna's Kindergarten teacher Miss Browne came to see Anna, which was just so sweet. We also had Grandma, Dori and Kayla watching too. After the recital, we all went to too-jays for lunch. We are so proud of our girl.

Here is Anna's official recital picture:

















Grandma brought some recital gifts..

















Here's Anna and Miss Browne!

















Here we all are at Too-jays. Miss Browne's boyfriend "Mr. Bob" joined us too!













Anna is already signed up for dance next year. She'll be taking tap and jazz along with most of her class from this year.

Another post coming after this one, with some long awaited pictures I've been meaning to share!

Love, Holly

Happy Mother's Day!

First, Happy Mother's Day to all those out there that are mommies (that includes mommies to dogs, cats, birds, fish and any other living thing that I can't think of at the moment!).

What a nice day it has been with my wonderful family! Today when I woke up Anna and Aiden came up and delivered cards to me, along with some carefully selected earrings that Anna picked out for me. She wanted them because she knew they matched a dress I just bought. She did really well!!! I wore them today along with the dress so that she knows how very much I love them. :)

Will gave me a beautiful silver and svarski crystal neckace that I LOVE and can't wait to wear, along with a gift certificate to shop at one of my favorite stores: Platos Closet! YEYYY!!! We got my mom her long awaited "Life is Good" shirt from Synergy!

We met up with my mom and Jerry at Hollywood Bistro for brunch. Dori and crew are in NY this year with Steve's family. We had a nice brunch and then headed over to swim at my mom's place. My mom, as a gift to me, let me "shop" in her Mary Kay stock!! Whew hew!!! That was AWESOME!!! :)

And now the pictures....

Here we are arriving for brunch!













Here is a KISS from me for all the wonderful Mommies out there!













Here is what I did on MY day! ahhhhh.....













Me and the kiddos in the jacuzzi!













and of course me and my mommy!














My mother's day festivities actually started with a Mother's Ice Cream social at Aiden's school, and then last Friday a Mother's day brunch in Anna's Kindergarten class. I took some video...

and here's a picture:














I definitely feel loved and appreciated! :)

So my Kindermusik Spring session is finally over. I just went over all the rosters and organized and we had 150 registrants this past session..which is completely baffling to me!!! So onward to Summer session which begins Mid-June. Will and I also have a new project we are cooking up! It's very exciting and I can't wait to announce it! In the meantime I must keep it hush hush (which if you know me is NOT an easy thing for me to do!)

I'm so excited also because Will and I are starting to think about our Vegas trip coming up in September for our 10th wedding anniversary. YEY!!!

Anna's dance recital is this coming Saturday. Her dance picture is precious. I actually have a lot of fun "professional" pictures that I want to share (from Nick Hotel, Thomas Day, Recital and Kindermusik), but they need to be scanned in...and we just got a new printer, so I have to figure that all out. I hope to do all that soon!

I hope this entry finds you well and happy. If you are reading, don't be a stranger. Leave me a comment or email me at hollyl@cfl.rr.com!

Have a perfect evening,
Holly

Mom's weekend and more!

We been having lots of fun lately! :) After Aiden's train day... life has been going by so fast. crazy fast! But here I am with some pictures to share...

Anna's school carnival was a couple weeks ago.. I got this cool picture of her on a pony!














Aiden and I met up with Dori and kids last week at Leu Gardens. It was a nice morning!














Will and I went out a week or so ago, and snapped these pics before we left.



















The next one was from Anna's perspective.















After a lot of working and craziness my annual mom's weekend came up. I went this past weekend with my girlfriends to the Ron Jon Resort in Port Canaveral. We had a blast.. and here's just a sample of the fun. :)

Here are the girls by the pool.















Here I am all dressed up for dinner. Next pic is in the lobby, and the last one is at dinner with our waiter Rado (who had to deal with 6 girls getting drunk and loud!!)















We had a blast!! This was our 5th mom's weekend and we had a GREAT time. It was by far the best one we've ever had.

This week is the last week of the Kindermusk spring session. I will have a 1 month break on teaching classes which I really need. There is still LOTS of work to be done in preparation for summer classes but it should be a bit more relaxed. Anna doesn't have much longer of Kindergarten which is baffling to me. The kids have been signed up for swim lessons and camp.. so summer is just around the corner! I can't believe that!!!!!!

Okay, MUST get some sleep tonight.. so going to bed.

Love, Holly

Day out with Aiden

Hi everyone! Long time no post. heehee..

So, last week I had the pleasure of spending the day with my amazing son Aiden when we went to A Day Out with Thomas (the tank engine). One of my Kindermusik mommies invited us along and I was actually available. I'm SOO glad we went!!

I had to drive us almost an hour away to a town called Tavares. There were tons of trains to play with, bounce house, entertainment, hay maze, tatoo station (temporary of course!!), ice cream and SO much more. We finished out our day with a ride on the train. Aiden was in 7th heaven. I was too just to see the HUGE smile on Aiden's face! Here are some pictures!

Here is Aiden as we arrived. He was VERY excited. Thomas is behind him

















Here is he playing at the train tables. He love it there. It was hard to convince him to move on to other things!!













Time for a Thomas temporary tatoo!













and some yummy ice cream!

















and.. the hay ball maze!













Here is Aiden walking with his friend Samantha (one of my kindermusik students!!)!













Here we are, riding in the train. Aiden absolutely loved being the train. He kept saying, "I'm riding Thomas!!" It was SO cute.













And of course we had to stop at the gift shop. Aiden picked this t-shirt!

















What a great day it was!

Love, Holly

Spring Break Happenings!

Well hello there!

Yes, I know, I've been SO bad about posting. Please forgive me, but just as we thought everyone was healthy again, ANNA got a VERY high fever, so back to the doctor we went AGAIN and she was diagnosed with Mono! I wasn't even aware a 6 year old could get mono, but apparently they can! It took a good week for her to feel better and we are just hoping it doesn't relapse since mono can come and go for a long time. We'll see...

Anyway, thankfully Anna started feeling better just before her Spring Break. I earned a 2 night stay at the Nickelodeon Hotel by doing Kindermusik there during their Noggin month last September. We decided use the pass this past week while I was off from Kindermusik and the kids were off from school. We had the BEST time! Here are some pictures: We took the kids to the Nick Hotel's character breakfast. We met Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick, Dora the Explorer, Diego, Little Bill (?) and Squidward.





Anna took this pictures of Will and I. I think it's good!














They have lives shows also! Here is a picture of the Dora and Boots show, and we also took the kids to the nighttime show which is run similar to the old Nickelodeon game shows like Double Dare. At the end, a kid got big time SLIMED!













We spent a TON of time at the pools. Lots of fun fountains, and slides. Anna was a little fish, Aiden a bit more cautious. They have a Nick Workshop where Anna did an art project.



































I really like this the next picture. It shows the large slide structure at the Lagoon Pool. See the big orange bucket at the top? At 4:45pm each day, anyone that wants to can stand underneath and get SLIMED! Good fun!!

















We did buy one of the hotel pics of all of us with Spongebob but I have to scan it in. We had such a great time this past week. It really felt like a vacation which we all needed DESPERATELY!!!
Now to negotiate another gig with the Nick Hotel, so we can do this again next year!

Before Spring Break but after Anna's mono fever broke, Anna had to dress up in her recital costume for pictures. I took this before we left. Doesn't she look absolutely precious???

















This weekend Will's parents are here visiting. We have kept so busy because I did a Kindermusik party today. Since it was at a park, everyone came along. I did my gig and the rest enjoyed the playground. Then this evening, Will had a video gig shooting a festival to be delivered to the local news stations. We just got back from that, and he is in the process of editing and then he is off to deliver tapes. Tomorrow should be calmer though today was fun!

I'll be back soon.
Love, Holly