Christmas Recital

What a great night we had going to Mikayla's dance recital. I adore this picture, she is so happy and loves to dance.

Here come the girls :) The little girls (prek and kinder) in the front and the back two rows are the 1st and 2nd graders.

They all did their tap warm ups together, then broke out into their own groups

I LOVE this!!

Waving to the crowd.

Next was their ballet routine :)

I love her expression in this picture.

Darn picture came in sideways but here she was doing her solo bow and blowing kisses to the audience.

Seriously, this was so much fun, I was taping my feet right along with the girls.... it was all to Christmas music which is really fun and very mood inspiring.

Here is a little video I took.

Baby goes for a ride!

For Mikayla's birthday she received this totally incredibly amazingly awesome baby doll carrier for her bike!! OH MY GOSH, this child is beside herself with joy that she can now take her babies for a bike ride!

Here is my disheveled kiddo sporting her baby's new ride!



And they're off!!

Giving kisses to baby. (notice baby's sweater LOL that was Mikayla's sweater from when she was teeny).

Oh and an outfit disclaimer...the only thing I had to do with her outfit was the black leggings that she still had on from church....she picked out the rest ;). Oh and another disclaimer...we're working on the training wheel thing.... personally, I'm ok with her using them till she's 20.... ;) and yes we reallize that she's also outgrowing this bike (*sigh*) so we do know that her knees almost touch the handle bars (seat can't go higher and neither can the bars) but it's too late to add it to the Christmas list...she'll just have to wait awhile :)

Whew...what a fun (busy) weekend!

Our Saturday morning started bright and early and Mikayla got to go to a high school near our house to have a dance clinic with their drill team. She had a BLAST!! It started at 8:30 - 2:00 complete with a mini recital for the parents. Here she is with the other Kinder-1st graders.


Their first song was to a song from the Little Mermaid.

The second song was something about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas - totally cute!

Gathering together for their bow.

This is the only video I took, I was enjoying the dances so much I just forgot to video...oops, but I did capture this :)

Then we had a few hours before we went down to the Christmas boat parade. It was so much fun. Mikayla was on serious joy overload. She was so tired but couldn't settle herself :)
There were some really neat boats!

The parade was going on and she was dancing to her own drummer! Quite literally - dancing/marching/rehearsing.... you name it, she was doing it. I LOVE it, I love watching her imagination in process.

Here are two of my favoritest gals in the world!

A little dinner.....and she CRASHED!!! Granted I did keep her out too late but we really had a great day!! She slept all the way home and then I got her all tucked in bed for the night :)

I love the Christmas season - so many fun things to do!!!

It IS fun to look back.....

Here is a look back at our Santa encounters :) the first 2 are from the same year....two different tries....



Clearly - she's not having it!

She wouldn't go to him this in 2007 at all....so I had to See Santa too - he was so nice to pose this way with us.

The next year she did it ONLY because Grandma went with her (Santa totally offended Grandma too...he was getting fresh LOL)




The next year, 2009 we went and saw Santa at the North Pole in Colorado and also Santa came to her school...so she did pretty good - she refused to sit on his lap though.







So 2010 was when it really became magic to her!!! I LOVE and cherish making it so much fun for her.



and now 2011....she is in the full wonder of the season. She looks forward to all of the Santa stuff but she says that it's even more special because it's Jesus birthday!!



I love love love this time of year!!!

SANTA baby!!

My dad had noticed that there was a breakfast with Santa at the mall, the first day he was going to be there. So we thought we'd go see what it was all about. On the way, Mikayla and my dad drew a picture for Santa, and then she wrote on the back what she'd like to receive.



When we got there, sadly, there was no Santa....however, there was Mrs. Claus so Mikayla went to her and explained the picture (it was a picture of Santa, Mikayla and Rolo - he's the Elf that comes to our house to help Santa)

Mrs. Claus really took a long time with Mikayla. They had a really nice conversation.

Mrs. Claus looked up and saw my dad.... and called him over to be in the picture too. (oh and Mikayla wanted to be twins with her Papa that day too).

Then we learned a secret....the secret was that Santa was coming.... and he was going to lead a parade over to where he will be for the rest of the season....so we headed over to where he was going to be to get into line before everyone from the mall food court got there (and believe me, there were a TON of people there).... it turns out we were 2nd in line!!! It was awesome, because I know those poor people in the back of the line had to wait at least an hour to see him. (good thinking huh?)

Santa loved the picture she made for him, he suggested that she bring it home and put it out with his cookies, and he'll take it then (what a smart Santa...). She requested a new camera (direct quote from her "because her other one just doesn't hold a battery charge any more"), a guitar strap ("so she can walk around while playing"), and some new dress up clothes ("because she outgrew her other ones"). So there we have it!

Here they are :)

Then she met up with build-a-bear

and of course the chick-filet-a cow

We really had a good time!!

Our Little Lamb!

Mikayla's school play was last night and OHHHH what a great time we had. It was so fun but let me tell you...she was JACKED up...I don't think I've ever seen her so wound up... I mean like WOUND UP.... she couldn't talk - she had to shout, she couldn't walk - she had to run...when she couldn't run she had to hop and so on...wow! I was teasing her teacher saying, wow, she is wound up...she looked at me and whispered...well...they all have been wound up all month long. You'd never know it though, she really does a great job with the kiddos :)

There are four kinder classes at her school and all of them were lambs...so nearly 80 little lambs came out and sang three songs near the end of the program. All of the kids (K-5th grade) really did a great job. I did find myself singing one of the songs that she had been practicing at home... complete with hand motions LOL (yes, I'm one of those moms...hee hee). We really had a good time!!!

Here is Mikayla and her teacher.

Angles galore :) we all need our angels, the shepherds were lower down from the angels.

Mikayla is the 4th child from the left in the 2nd row...all you can see are her arms and folded hands LOL

I'm there in the background picking up my lamb after the show.

I really really enjoy these activities. I love it!!!!! Next program is her dance clinic on Saturday, I'm sure I'll have a bunch of pictures from it also. Then her dance recital is the week after that, so we have some serious entertainment coming up :)