Is there a doctor in the family?

WHY, YES THERE IS!
My aunt, Sherry, graduated from Ole Miss this spring with her Doctorate in Philosophy! She's always called me "Dr. Justice," I always knew she was going to be the doctor! We love you Gigi and we're so proud of you!

Congrats Grad!

Saturday, Caleb, my cousin, graduated from high school! While we were in Brazil, we headed down to Shelburn to help celebrate this exciting occasion! Caleb is the last grandchild to graduate for awhile...Jake trails behind by a few years! As soon as he gets the call, Caleb is headed to boot camp! He is going to serve our country and protect our freedom with the United States Marine Corp.! We're so proud of him!!!

My little family with the graduate!

We're proud of you, Caleb!
My daddy, Caleb, Brandon, and my Uncle Greg (Caleb and Brandon's daddy)! Some fine looking Justice men!

Future Star

Last week at the end of dance class, there was a short awards ceremony. The girls received awards for different things: Dancing Diva, Broadway Baby, etc.! Rylee received the Future Star Award!

Luckily, I had a camera. We had so much going on last Friday that I'm surprised it made it into my bag! Unfortunately, Rylee and I had a spat between gymnastics and dance, she refused to let me pull her hair back up after rolling around at gymnastics. Oh well!

We're very proud of Rylee and all her awards and accomplishments! We're going to have to start a special wall to display them all!

First and Last

Today was the official last day of school for the summer...and Rylee is now, officially, a Pre-Kindergartener! She is so excited and I am so excited for her! She's already talking about next fall and as I thought of it today, it will be here before we know it. The Pre-K classes start a whole week before the rest of the classes, so they start the last week of August...giving us ALMOST 3 months of summer break!

We have some goals we want to reach with Rylee over the summer. I have also picked up some books that will keep her knowledgeable of the stuff she learned this year, but also start learning some new things! However, the most important thing I want Rylee to learn over her first summer break, is to enjoy those few months between school years.

As a parent, you invision your children growing up, but DANG! It's happening so quickly!

PRE-KINDERGARTEN!!!

This is Rylee on her first day of preschool!
Rylee, today, her last day of preschool!

Look How Cute!

The girls and I were up and ready earlier than usual this morning - we had some time to snap some shots of the girls all dressed for the warm sunny weather!

Rylee and her bright blue eyes!

Rylee looks so grown up!

Macee hugging sissy - she did this all on her own!

Our sweet girls - they make me smile!

Sitting pretty outside in the warm morning sun!

Macee - check out her armbands! She's not only cute, but HILARIOUS!

Busy Bees End of Year Celebration (VIDEOS)

These are the videos from Rylee's class End of Year Celebration!

Super cute, but are kind of long...I didn't want to turn off the camera because they moved from one thing to another so fast at times and then others they didn't! So, you get to hear what Ms. Barb had to share with us parents as well as the kiddos sing!

I put all the videos into one blog! YAY!!!

Busy Bees End of Year Celebration!

Yesterday, Rylee's class had an End of Year Celebration! Their families were invited to come celebrate with them! We got to hear them sing some of their favorite songs and at the end we had cake!!! Ms. Barb also had a folder full of things they had done throughout the year along with a certificate of completion!

It truely is hard to believe that Rylee will be in Pre-K next year! In her basket of stuff to take home yesterday was a paper with all of her enrollment information on it...including her room number for Pre-K come fall! We usually walk out with Maddie (Rylee's friend mentioned numerously on her and by Rylee.) and they were so excited to see their room they will be in, TOGETHER, next year!

Rylee ready for her celebration!
Macee was dressed to party too!!!
We're still debating on Macee going to the Beginnings class in the fall...there are some days I'm all for it!

Our sweet girls! They both are growing up so fast!

All the Busy Bees!

Their cake we had to celebrate - Macee's favorite part of the party! (She only had 2 pieces!)

Macee waiting, patiently, for the party to begin!

The kids waiting for Ms. Barb to cut the cake!

Our Pre-Kindergartener!

Rylee with Ms. Lisa (another teacher in Ry's classroom), Reghan, and Ruby!

Rylee with Ms. Barb!

Ms. Barb is a great teacher and we've been so blessed to share our daughter with her this school year! Rylee has learned so much and has continually impressed us with her newly learned knowledge all year!

Performance Day Video Pt. 3 (AWARD)

This is a short video of Rylee receiving her trophy and ribbons at Performance Day!

Performance Day Video Pt. 2

This is the video of Rylee doing beam work!

Performance Day Video Pt. 1

This is a video of Rylee doing different tumble rolls off of the donut!

SUPERHERO Performance Day!

SIGS has their annual Performance Day on Saturday! Rylee participated in this Superhero theme extravaganza! We got to see her show off her skills she works on weekly in class!

(I apologize, some of the pics. are a bit blurry.)

In her leo and ready to go perform!
Bat Girl was there!

So was WonderWoman!

On the donut. They did different tumble rolls off of the donut and then shouted "GO SUPERHEROS!"

Doing some beam work.

Getting her trophy and ribbons!

GO RYLEE!!!

Rylee with her trophy, ribbons, and a prize!

By the end of the day, Rylee has gotten 2 trophies. One for the end of the soccer season and one for gymnastics!

A Sneak Peak...Recital Pics.

Rylee had recital pics. taken this past week. She got to wear her costume and wear some make-up! So, here is a sneak peak to what our lil' dancing diva will look like at her recital in June!

She was super excited about the make-up! Luckily, she's not asked to wear it since!
Rylee, with 2 of the other girls in her class, Avery and Maddie! Their really cheesin'!

WOO!

One thing I love about the age that Macee is at now, her words for things! I love how as their language develops they say what they think is correct. Of course, it's not, but that is what makes it so great!

You can usually figure out what she wants when she says certain things - there is still a lot of jibberish, but her vocabulary had broadened immensely with Macee-isms!

"WOO" is what she screams as she swings on her stomach! It's not "wee" it's "woo," which is so much better than "wee!"

She's a daredevil!
But she loves it!
WOOOOO!!!

Rylee's Mother's Day Gift

Rylee's class made Mother's Day gifts for us mommas! A handmade card, a bag with her handprint, and a coupon booklet! She was so proud of her gift and it was the best gift ever!

She couldn't wait for me to open it on Mother's Day, so she let me have it when we got home from preschool. It was a cleaning day in the Laritz house and the coupon book was filled with coupons to help me with the tasks! It was the one time I didn't have to put up a fight to get her to help me pick up the house!

Displaying her gift for her Momma!
She took this pic.! I'm telling you, she was PROUD!

Smile :)

Just thought I would share this!

Makes you smile huh?

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video Pt 6)

This is the final video!

Hope you've enjoyed seeing our lil' dancer in action!!!

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video Pt 5)

Out little bunnies getting their carrots!

Rylee can't always be seen - she is on the left side of Miss Heather :)

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video Pt 4)

Miss Heather, Rylee's dance teacher is quite great! I love how animated she is with the girls and how they all mimic her enthusiasm!

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video Pt 3)

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video Pt 2)

Dance Parent Observation Day (Video)

Awhile back I blogged about Ry's dance class having a Parent Observation Day. I promised I would get video up as soon as Marty got it uploaded...here they are!

(There are a few videos, I didn't think you'd want to see all the other girls. So, there will be a couple video blogs!)

Do You Wanna....

...buy some Yankee Candle goods from Rylee?

Performance Team is going to enable Rylee to do a lot of fun activities associate with dancing! Recitals, competition, parades, and parties...along with A LOT more dancing! Of course, it comes with a price - doesn't everything? To help defer the costs that will incur with this adventure, there is a Dance Boosters Club that has set up fundraisers and other events that dancers and parents can to do help earn money to pay towards costumes, competition fees, shoes, leos, and the many other things associated with dance!

First up, Yankee Candle! If you would like to purchase something from Rylee, here is the link to the Spring Fundraising Catalog:

http://yankeefundraising.com/html/includes/catalogs/SpringCatalogs.html

If you see anything that you would like or need, shoot me an email (abbylaritz@gmail.com)! Orders are due the week of May 25th!

Thanks all!

Singing in the Shower

She's a performer! Last night we got, on video, Rylee singing in the shower! It was too funny hearing her! We're not sure what the songs are, one is from our new Veggie Tales, but it's pee your pants hilarious!

Singing to Hally

This is the video from Hally's first birthday party of us singing Happy Birthday to her! She absolutely LOVED everyone singing TO HER! I hope you can see her facial expression thru the video - it's priceless!

(Oh, and pay no attention to the video title - Marty must have had a brain fart and put it as Haylee's birthday, not Hally's)

Our Lil' Starlet

YAY RYLEE!!! I got an email yesterday informing us that Rylee was chosen to be on the Starlets Performance Team thru DanceWorks! Classes start the week of June 15th! I can't decide who is more excited, her or me! I know she's excited cause she will be dancing more and will be with Miss Maddie, I'm excited because I know what this means for her - a chance to develop her dance and performance skills! CONGRATS RYLEE!!! WE LOVE YOU AND ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!!!

Rylee, Flower Girl Princess

Rylee was a flower girl in a wedding of a very close childhood friend, November 2007. Rylee was 3 at the time! This video is of the flower girls walking down the aisle - turn up your volume so that you can hear Rylee - hilarious and priceless!!!

Rylee's Derby Video

This is a clip of our lil' jockey, Rylee, and her horse, Charlee, in their Derby race last Thursday at preschool! Rylee won by default - the other racers had a false start!

GO RYLEE AND CHARLEE!!!