Hey ya'll, how 'bout sashayin on over for a little square dancing?

If you came here looking for some more cute photos of our little Russian Princess or to just read about how she is doing, please come back in a couple of days. Lexi's "6 months" post is coming up on Tuesday.

Well, okay, here is just one from the baseball park this afternoon:

This post is mainly about Garrett, my multi-talented 9 year old son. My athletic, sports enthusiast, vocalist, and dancer with a heart of gold. Garrett and Preston arrived home from 4-H camp on Friday afternoon. They both had a blast, but were completely and totally worn out. Later that evening, Garrett had to go rehearse for his recital on Saturday. Then, he had to get up early Saturday morning and attend Nolan and Liam's ball game with us at 8:30 a.m. He was a real trooper through it all. But, I am most proud of Garrett for two things that happened at camp.

First, I sent the boys with a relatively small amount of spending money. I figured they get three square meals a day, plus Wednesday is free craft day, and they get a t-shirt, so there was no need to take a lot of money for buying a bunch of junk food snacks at the canteen everyday. This year, the camp introduced a new craft that's kind of like a build-a-bear. Garrett spent almost half his money (plus $2.00 from Preston) buying a bear to make for Lexi. He couldn't wait to surprise her with it as soon as he got home. She hugged it and wouldn't let go of it for the rest of the day. When Garrett saw how much she loves her new bear, he said it was worth every penny.

The other nice thing he did while at camp was help out a fellow camper in need. There was this kid from another county that Garrett didn't know who had all his money stolen. So Garrett voluntarily used his own money to buy him a large suicide. He also helped him report the thief to the camp counselors and recover all the stolen money. Garrett was awarded with Certificate of Service and received a service bead. How cool is that? Now, if I could only get him to be nicer to Nolan.

Okay, back to the title of this post:

Did you know that the Square Dance is Tennessee's state dance?

Here is a video from Garrett's recital last night. It was almost the last act of the evening so I was able to sneak down to the front row and get this footage. I was afraid to video any of his solos because (even though I bought the DVD) last year this Barney Fife security guard practically threatened to throw my mom and me in jail if I so much as took my camera out of my purse. Thankfully, he wasn't there this year. Being on the front row and looking up at the stage, the lights are really bright. You can't see anyone's face, but you should be able to quickly locate Garrett. He is the boy with the longest hair youngest boy.



And while we're on the subject of Garrett's performances, here is a song from his piano recital last weekend. He is playing "Mission Impossible" on the organ, but you can only see the tip top of his head (or maybe that is his instructor's head.) Anyway, there is nothing to see, but since I don't know how to do audio only, this video will have to suffice. Of course, now I going to have find time to give Preston equal billing and post his Star Wars song. It was really good too.






And finally, here is a 3 second video of Garrett's back flip off our diving board. It's never a dull moment around here. He actually did a back one and 1/2 right after I video-taped this one, but he pulled a muscle in his back and, therefore, is not allowed to do that anymore unless he is on a board that has a little spring in it.

Sooo okaaaaay, that was the wrong video. THAT was Liam learning to go down the water slide while Nolan loudly cheered him on from the top. But, since it took an incredibly long time for THAT video to upload, I can't bear to delete it. I'll just leave it here and go back to using youtube.

Now, THIS is Garrett's back flip: