Pizza Box Surprise…

I couldn’t wait to share this very embarrassing story with all of you.  You see, when I got home this evening, I was greeted by Dayton’s pizza box from his entire school year.  They store all of their “important” tokens and best artwork in them through out the year so that they we can save them for years to come ;)  As I rummaged through Date’s, a family picture that we were asked to send to school at the beginning of the  year caught my eye.  It was attached to a yellow apple that I hadn’t seen.  When I flipped it over this is what I found:

In case you can’t read the pic, here is what it says:

Dayton’s Family

Dad – My dad is Brandon and he is 4 years old.  He likes the color yellow.  He eats steak and drinks beer.  he plays golf and plays Star War toys with me.

Mom – My mom’s name is Jenna and she is 13 years old.  She likes the color yellow.  She eats sweet cake and drinks wine.  She sleeps in the red room.

Mally – My sister is 14 years old.  She likes baby food and baby crackers.  She plays with baby toys and poopoos in her pants.

I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry after I read it.  I’m sure Mrs. Connie and Mrs. Lena thought we were a real great family after Dayton shared all of these “facts” with them.  I question every statement on here – so crazy!

I couldn’t resist sharing.  This one will stay in his pizza box and with us for many, many years to come.  Have a fabulous weekend :) Go have yourself some steak, beer, sweet cake, wine and baby crackers – and please don’t poopoo in your pants like Dayton’s 14 year old sister Mally…

Lil’ Mudbugs…

On Saturday, PaPa and friends had a team for a crawfish boil contest here in town.  DeDe got us all cute shirts to wear so we decided to go out and show our support.  I didn’t get all the pics on my camera – DeDe has some so I’ll have to add more later, but here are a few.  I don’t have the ones of the kids’ crawfish races where they got to pick crawfish and watch them race off the top of an upside down kiddie pool.  Mallory’s won first and Date’s won second in their groups so they were very excited!

Quick Pic…

I don’t have much – Here’s a picture of Brandon and I on Saturday night – we were lucky enough to get to enjoy a little Mommy and Daddy time at Greek’s where we got to watch The Slags.  Fun times!  Daddy and Grandpa did good in their golf tourney and Mommy and the kiddos had a good weekend, too.  More pics to come soon! :)

A-DORA-ble

Mallory loves, loves, loves Dora.  Her vocabulary is expanding every day – now saying very short sentences but one of her favorite things to “talk” about is Dora – She says Dora, boots, no-no to Swiper, map, ba-pa (backpack) and more.  While our second birthday is still six months away – you know me and I’m already thinking about it and I’m thinking if she keeps this up, we may just have ourselves an A-DORA-ble good time :)

 

A few other pics from the week:

Dayton’s Water Splash Day at school – I didn’t get any pictures while they were playing b/c I was supervising the blow-up slide…  

Daddy’s weekend = golf, golf and more golf.

Mommy’s weekend = kids, kids and more kids.

D-A-N-C-E

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d ever get the amazing opportunity to share my passion with children AND get paid for it.  I never thought or planned or dreamt of the day when I’d become “Mrs. Jenna” (because I thought it was a dream that was out of reach) but I have to say I can’t imagine my life any other way.  It is stressful and trying and hard and exhausting, but aren’t all jobs?  I think I have one of the best jobs in the world.  By no means is it easy, but so rewarding – especially that one night a year when those beautiful children with their big bright eyes get up on that big bright glittery stage in their beautiful sparkling costumes and their hearts literally spill out of them.  They take my breath away.  I had NO criers this year which was amazing and a miracle all it’s own.  There were things I would’ve changed, but let’s face it, that’s just how it’s gonna be when you put your fate into the hands of 140 3-15 year olds.  I couldn’t be prouder.  I am relieved and satisfied and tickled pink that it is all said and done.  And, don’t think for a second that I am slowing down – full speed ahead for recital 2012.  I’ve already got the theme, now it’s just finding 40+ songs that will go with it :)

Mrs. Zabodyn was sweet enough to take lots and lots of pictures.  I literally have pictures of every dance – what memories.  I will spare you pictures of 49 dances, but I couldn’t resist to share quite a few so enjoy :)

Here is my Mally on Friday morning:

Our banner this year – all of the girls will be signing it during class this week.  I have them up all around the studio:

 

The front of the stage had a Christmas tree on each side filled w/ glittered symbols for all of the months of the year:

The backdrop consisted of 12 glittered symbols – one for each month and a huge calendar in the middle:

 

I did get to see Mallory before rehearsal for a few minutes after everything was decorated:

 

These pictures are from rehearsal.  Diane was sitting on the side of the stage so she got some really good pictures of my two favorite dancers – Bryn and Anna.  I am so proud of them :)

MeMe, Mallory and DeDe:

  

Looks who’s pretty faces showed up to rehearsal ;)

 

Here is Dayton and my behind the scenes crew working hard:

 

A cute picture from one of the pointe dances:

 

Mommy and Mallory survived rehearsal – round 1 down :) 

So exhausting:

We were so happy to get to go to Mr. Connor’s birthday party on the day of the recital.  It helped me take my mind off things for a while and it wore the kids out really good so they took great naps for the long night ahead of them!

Here are some pics from the recital. I’d love to share one from each dance but it would go on and on, so here are some random ones:

MeMe and Mally:

Handsome Dayton (and yes, that is his DSi in his hand – how else is a 4 yr old boy gonna last 2 1/2 hours at a dance recital?)

Bryn and Mallory before the show:

Bryn in middle:

Anna on left:

Anna in middle:

Bryn in middle:

Anna far left (she was in three dances because she took someone’s spot who could not attend)

Our dance:

Okay – we had the coolest last dance ever (maybe not ever, but it was pretty cool).  This is the only pic of it I got, but it was much, much cooler to witness in person.  I ended up getting to be in it b/c someone got hurt last minute, so I took her place.  I had a blast but I was exhausted after being back stage all night, doing my dance and then doing this dance right after it – I was a sweaty mess as you’ll see in the pictures below!  Our costumes were battery operated glowstick jumpsuits.  We had the entire auditorium blacked out so all you could see were stick people moving around everywhere.  We even finished with half of us up and down the aisles dancing out in the middle of everyone – such a blast!  Definently a crowd pleaser!

Yep, that’s me far right looking like a dork in my jumpsuit but just wanted you to get the concept of these cool costumes:

I changed before taking pictures.  Here I am w/ Kayla and Lauren – Lauren, I know you read this and I missed you like crazy this year!  I hope you’ll be ready to do some babysitting this summer :)

What an awesome little group:

Dayton adores Anne Marie – she has been an awesome teacher and babysitter the last two years and we are going to miss her SO much next year when she moves off to “that” school.  I must admit she is and always will be my favorite little aggie ;)  We love you Anne Marie!

 

Here are my teachers from this year: Kirbie, Anne Marie and Savannah:

After the recital, by the time we got everything cleaned up, it was almost 11:00.  We headed back to our house and enjoyed some Jack’s enchiladas.  They were super yummy – and worth the wait!  By the time we got the kitchen cleaned and such it was 1:15 a.m. before we made it to bed – what a day!