Nope-- no excuses, no reasons, just took me 3 months into the year to log in and actually write a post.
And can you believe it? Easter has already come and gone (a separate post on Easter weekend will follow this one)... which means that Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day have also already been here. Time seems to be just speeding on by.
Unfortunately I take most of my pictures on my phone. And in February I was having a ton of issues with my phone which caused them to have to "hard restart" my phone. This meant that I lost all that was on my phone that hadn't been backed up yet... and let me tell you-- since I don't "back up" anything, most of my pictures were lost so I had to start from square one.
In January, my brother in law and sister in law (why on earth don't I just call them my brother and sister-- that's what they are!!!!), welcomed the newest member into the Curtis Family. Miss Zeni Bea Curtis joined us on January 17, 2016 after giving her mom quite a labor experience to share for years to come. Good thing she is so cute otherwise they may have had to give her hard time back :) :) She is so beautiful and I am quite honored to be her Titi Michelle. It is moments like these that I wished we lived closer than 2 hours away. Damian, Abby, Ted, Myles and Mayci headed out to visit about 3 weeks after Zeni was born. Madison had a mandatory dance competition practice that day, so her and I headed out on February 27th to visit. Sadly, Luques was away so we weren't able to see him and one of my headlights had gone out the night before so we left WAAAAAAY earlier than I would have liked. But we had a great visit with both Karina and Zeni. I lost most of the pictures that I took but had Karina send me the few she had taken. I just love spending time with Karina. I tried to talk her into taking a nap, so she could get some rest while I kept an eye on Zeni, but was not successful - she assured me she was sleeping with the baby was and that she was fine. So we just hung out, played with Zeni, talked about everything, laughed ALOT, and I almost broke down in tears when we had to leave. I wish in general that Karina and I had more time with each other, and I really want to bond with my newest niece! ( I hope to post the pics of when Mayci and Myles met Zeni soon-- I have to have them resent to me.. same with the pics of Madison and Zeni- those all got erased)
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| Meeting Miss Zeni for the very first time |
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| Is she not cute? Look at that smile? Karina sent me this pic of Zeni with the Easter presents we picked out for her! So precious! |
The past 3 months of 2016 have been pretty busy for the kids.
Mayci is still dancing at Morlock School of dance and has begun taking karate once a week at a local studio. I must say, she has truly impressed me in karate. I am actually thinking of possibly NOT doing dance next year for her and having her focus more on karate, but we will see what life bring us. At her 3rd class she even earned an award for "Awesome Punches" And biased I may be, but she looks so darn adorable in her uniform :) And can you believe that in just 4 months, my last "baby" will be turning 5?!?1 Okay, that's it- I don't even want to talk about it anymore lol.
Myles is keeping extra busy with the 1st grade, piano lessons, and now he is also taking karate. This school year has been slightly more challenging for us with Myles. (Not with the actual curriculum, he is actually excelling in that area, aside from some extra work he needs to do in the subtraction area. Well, I have a conference this evening, so I will update on his progress in a later post.) In mid January, Myles was experiencing some bully drama, that was getting a bit carried away. I believe everything is all better now for him though as I have not heard any complaints recently. We have also found out that Myles needs glasses- he picked out a very mature pair, and we are currently waiting to receive them. Don't you worry (not that you were) - there will be lots of pictures posted as soon as he gets them.
Piano lessons seem to be going well for him also. He is also taking secondary lessons on the weekends per Damian's request, but I am not sure of the schedule. And karate-- so at first Myles was completely against joining karate. He had a very bad experience when we attempted 2 years ago and wouldn't even consider karate. Mayci, on the other hand, had been begging to join karate-- so when we went in for her first one on one session, the owner came and sat down with Myles and talked with him --- next thing you know, he is being scheduled for his first one on one. And I am so glad that he changed his mind. He is loving it. Unfortunately until he turns 7 at the end of the month, he is only able to go to one of the 2 classes each week because it coincided with his piano lessons. But as soon as he turns 7, he moves to a new class and the schedule works out perfectly. And super exciting is that he goes for his first belt test this Friday. -- Since this post is going up after the belt test- the pics are below!! Can't wait!! And in just 1 more month, my little man will be 7 years old! WOW!!
Madison- as per usual- keeps her self busy with dance and various school activities. That has remained the same as 2016 just rolls by. In February, she had the part of Young Nala in her school's production of The Lion King. The director also had her help out with some of the production's choreography, which was such a great honor to Madison. I think she did a great job during the play and if I can, I will try to post the small little video clip that I took opening night. And a special thanks goes out to Grandma Virginia, Aunt Lisa (who went to both performances), Mama, and PopUp for coming out to support her. Unfortunately Damian's gigs got in the way and didn't work with the performance nights so he had to miss out. PopUp did film it and gave us a copy so hopefully Damian will have some time to watch it. I sure think he would be proud!
Madison is currently her advisory classes student council representative and also takes the minutes during student council meetings. She has been invited to join the National Junior Honor Society -- I am not sure when we find out if she made it in or not, but I know she had to write essays, get teacher's recommendations, and fill out some forms, so only time will tell. This year for dance in addition to her group competition dances, and 2 solos (1 in modern and 1 in tap), Madison is also performing in a duo with one of her friends, Naijah. The first competition is scheduled for Sunday April 3rd and I cannot wait to see how they all do. I have only seen the solo number s so this should be very exciting.
We also heard from a talent agency that they were waiting for me to send in some paperwork and take care of getting headshots done so Madison could begin some work with them. They had also reached out to us in May of 2015, but life and time got away from me, so I never really followed up ( I know, I know, what kind of mother am I?) Earlier in March they met with Madison via Skype and now we are just waiting to hear back about the next step. She has received her child performer work permit from the state of NY already-- so when things start getting moving, I will be sure to keep all of you posted!!
And one of the biggest upcoming milestones for Miss Madison --- she will become a teenager in just 3 months-- A TEENAGER!! She is planning to have a party this year, but we did have to switch the planned day because one of Damian's cousins is going to be getting married on the original day that we had planned and we don't want to make family members have to choose. I did explain to her that we still may have to sacrifice many family members because they will have been partying the day before, but to not take it personal and she seems to understand :)
Hmmmm-- all this talk about all of these birthdays makes me think that I should probably start getting some planning done. I'll get to it, I swear!
Damian continuously stays busy with work, rehearsals, and gigs. And I, unfortunately, am still not nearly as involved in certain aspects of his career as I would like to be. Damian also keeps pretty occupied with helping out with his brothers' record label, Truth Revolution Records. I should probably step my game up and offer to help out. I have been saying that for years-----
I think Damian is really planning on working on his "studio" this spring/summer. I know he has a lot of plans in his head, just not sure if he is ready to start executing them or not. It will take a little bit of a financial investment, I imagine, so that may be what is holding him up.
Nothing of interest going on for me- what else is new- haha. I went to Disneyworld in the beginning January with a few friends to run in the Disney Half Marathon. Was an awesome experience, BUT I didn't do very well. My only goal was to finish completely and I did succeed in that. While I don't have any desire to run another half in the next year or so, I am thinking about planning to do one in 2019-2020. I have lots of time to change my mind though. I haven't been running quite as much as before, yet with the weather getting warmer, I should be starting that back up again. I have been taking an adult hip hop class yet again. But I think this will be my last year of that :( Time for me to move on to something else. In June, I will be starting school for what seems like the millionth time. But I just have to get my bachelor's degree. Not sure why this is so important to me, but it has just been eating away at my heart lately. I spoke with a counselor at Bay Path University and have started getting all of the details worked out. I will be taking the majority of my classes online, but am planning on doing my science course with labs on campus in Longmeadow, MA. I am excited to begin school again. I really did enjoy it each and every time I went. The last little bit of news for me, is that I have been on an official weight loss journey since January 17, 2016. I started Weight Watchers and try to fit in exercise when and where I can. I need to get better with the exercise though. To date I have lost a total of 21 pounds exactly... meaning that I am only 19 pounds away from my goal, which I would like to reach by the end of the summer. I won't go into specifics on this blog, but will be writing about it in detail on my other blog,
MakeUp Of Michelle. So if that area of my life interests you, feel free to pop on over there and check it out.
All in all- 2016 seems to be going well for the Negron/Curtis kids! Here's to that continuing for the next 9 months!!
