spring recital

over memorial day weekend, miss e had her first dance recital!!! friday night was the dress rehearsal or what i thought could have been a scene from "dance moms." i've never seen that show and am pretty sure i never want to. all's i know was that it was crazytown and this momma needed a drink afterwards....and it was only the rehearsal, ha. all of the dancers (hundreds!!) had to wait "backstage" for their performance.  so miss e spent hours and hours in the back with her fellow dancers coloring, watching movies, snacking and playing.

 

her dance class....4-5 yr olds.

 

going on stage for their rehearsal....

 

she kept saying how nervous she was...

 

us "dance moms" got to watch from backstage at the rehearsal....e's the second one in.

 

saturday night we got as ready as we could at home and headed to the backstage area to drop miss e off....

 

elena with her friend, ella....

 

me and my tiny dancer....

 

daddy (and a few other daddys) went 2 1/2 hours early to score good seats...and only ended up with 4th row, despite being first in line "cuz they opened the side doors first!!"  ;)  add a 3 hour recital and daddy had been there a looooong time!

 

papa and bobbi also came to saturday night's performance...

 

21st performance....aka the BEST one!!!  our little e....

 

 

she did uber fabulous!

 

and more importantly, seemed to REALLY enjoy herself up there and the whole process...

 

 

after all the performance, all the dancers came on stage and took a final bow....

 

 

with papa and bobbi after the recital....

 

she seriously couldn't get enough of herself in make-up!  she LOVED it so much....

 

when i had done her make up earlier (they told us what we had to use) and i totally felt she resembled a beautiful clown....upon looking in the mirror for the first time, she replied "I AM GOING TO FREAK OUT!! I'M SO EXCITED I CAN'T STAND IT! I WISH THE RECITAL WAS RIGHT NOW!!" i seriously have no clue how she actually came from MY uterus....

 

sunday, we were off for the final matinee performance...

 

she was again, super excited....

 

elena with her friend, sadie....

 

THIS time, my girlfriend abbie scored us seats front and center!!!

 

elena spotted us about a 1/3 of the way through her dance....

 

"little ballet star" was their performance title...

 

their final bow of the weekend....e happened to be front and center....

 

we're so proud of her!!!

 

recital weekend is over....

 

me and my girl!

grandma and grandpa came to sunday's matinee....


here is a snippet of e's "little ballet star" dance...she saw us and waved, haha!

and a snippet of her final bow....



"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful." ~Agnes De Mille

wordFULL wednesday (phone pics)

it's been a month, but i chipped my tooth right before a jam packed social calendar weekend. saaaaweeeeet! it made for the 10th chip on that particular tooth. i'm holding out until the 13th time to finally break down and get the veneer. ;) (later this week i also woke up with double pink eye right before my race and got the stomach flu on mother's day. goooood times.)

pretty sure the "it's a hard knock life....for us!" is playing in the background....

standing tall little sissy!  i just want to bottle her personality and share it.  what an awesome world we would live in!

the sweetness is BURSTING out of her when she chooses for it to.  she did this all on her own, but needed help with one little thing.... i couldn't wait to see why she wanted to know how to spell 'especially' and oh boy, did i just love it.  definitely had to take a picture.

"mom, come see our new trick!!  mom!!!  you got see our trick!  mom!!!  you'll love our new trick!!"
trick = going down the slide side-by-side.  ;)  "girls, you are so right.  i LOVE your new trick!"

they were cuddled up watching cartoons and e started scratching ad's back.  of course she posed when i grabbed the camera.  just melts my heart to see them so sweet together.

this is what my kitchen table and floor look like all.the.time. if we are inside.  thinking we need a craft room yes?! or the scissors just need to magically disappear!!

elena's portrait of me on the treadmill.  i love that she thinks i'm so well-endowed.  i was wearing a sports bra.  ??  she has my pony tail and my headphones on in there.  and i love that there's an actual knee bent.

and adelyn's version of me on the treadmill....no, i was not wearing a thong.

miss adelyn crashed right before bath one night (about 5:30ish) ON the bathroom floor.  and in uncle t-bone's words, "she still looks like a hair model."

we sent this one to daddy while in michigan....love how they're splashing each other.  teehee.

this one too.  our beauties.

how fun they can be!!

i love no nap days.  sigh.

"Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself." ~Elbert Hubbard

michigan II

with our nails done we were ready to head back out, but not before some pictures of course...

 

i maybe look a little tired...pssh.

 

with uncle t-bone and katie...

 

we had a quick picnic...

 

and then headed back to the beack to watch the sunset...

 

and of course had a photoshoot...

 

 

 

 

the girls of course couldn't stay out of the water...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

then of course it was time for ice cream downtown...

 

elena got "two berry pie" and adelyn got "superman"...both because of the colors...

 

 

and a stroll through downtown...

 

then another night snuggled in together....i love how miss ad is looking at me. :)

 

 we had another fabulous breakfast.  uncle t-bone had been our short order cook all weekend and yesterday's breakfast was cake batter pancakes and today's was banana bread pancakes with eggs.  um - yes, please.

 

after our breakfast digested, we headed to "kid's corner"....

 

and it was truly just meant for kids....my my, we had to squeeze through all kinds of maze type twists and turns

 

and e loved this tire swing.  loved!

we had to get all in there with them cuz this park was huge and they would've been lost in a heartbeat.  i enjoyed when they were just on the swings.

 

 

they loved all the different things to check out....

 

 

 

 

tony or katie were usually following e and ad and i explored at her pace....oh how i love that crooked smile.

 

after some persuasion, ad got on the tire swing...

 

and loved it too....

 

after a few hours at the park - we had to say bye to south haven, MI and get back on the road for home...

 

we had lunch, cleaned up a bit, loaded up the van and said bye to uncle t-bone and katie (they were staying another night).  adelyn was out within about 5 miles and elena about 20 miles into our trip home.  and me - i was stoked for the ride home.  what?!  you know you've all taken this same picture of yourself. no, just me? well, cool then....

 

we hit sweet home illinois a few hours later....the girls did NOT sleep the whole way, but we truly had a perfect little getaway...

"There aren't enough days in the weekend."  ~Rod Schmidt