First Dance Recital

In the middle of January, Olivia had her first ever dance recital! This is one of those Mommy milestones that I have been thinking about since she was born. Watching three-year-olds running around in foofy costumes is the perfect way to spend any Saturday :). It was quite a production, with her dress rehearsal starting at 9 (and running for 3 hours), then back to the auditorium at 2:30 to wait for the 3:30 show (which lasted just over 2 hours). O was in one of the last dances, so she and her class got the joy of waiting through the entire show before strutting their stuff.

We were so excited to have Grandma, Grandpa, and Ashley come for the weekend of Olivia's first dance recital. I'm not sure if she was more excited about Ashley coming or her recital, but we love to have company, and the kids were as thrilled as ever to have eager grownups to boss around.

I tried to take some pictures of O all dressed up before her dress rehearsal. Her dance poses need some work, and I could have chosen some place with better lighting, but she was so excited to put on all the makeup and her pretty tutu that it doesn't matter.

This is the girls' dressing room. All of the parents in her class were as new to these recitals as the girls, so we didn't know to come prepared with movies, coloring books, snacks, and crafts. They were in this room for a couple hours before getting do rehearse, so we were very glad to have an iPad for them to watch. I just loved this picture of all the buns and bums :).

After she practiced, we went home for lunch and rest time before driving back to the auditorium for the real show. I was just hoping that all her jitters were out, or the audience was going to see her whole class jump for two minutes (like they did in the dress rehearsal :)).

 Here is her entourage for the day. At the end we have Grandpa Gary, Alex, Amber, Elli, Kade, Ashley, Grandma Mary holding Carter, then me. I was so glad that O could show off for some of her cousins, who are also her best friends. They were all so patient through the whole show...which was pretty long even for an excited mom.

All lined up and ready to go...

She did great! All of the girls did all the moves they practiced (not always in the same order), and there were no regrets from anyone. This cemented her love for the stage and attention, not that she needed any encouragement in that department!

This last picture is pretty blurry, but it shows her excitement during the bows portion of the show. She open-mouth grinned through their entire bow :)

We were so proud of her! We celebrated by going to dinner at Mongo's before bringing home two very tired kids :).

We wanted to have a lower key day the next day, so we took Gma, Gpa, and Ashley with us to the 'animal store' (Petco, Petsmart). This is different from the 'dead animal store' (Cabela's), which we also frequent. I love the distinction that Olivia made one time when we weren't understanding her.

We still had some time after the animal store, so we went to the carousel! O fell in love with the Riverfront Carousel in Salem very early in life, and was thrilled when we found one in Boise shortly after moving. Pojo's is only a few miles from our house, and has a big arcade area as well as a carousel. We have already gone a few times and can tell it's going to be a family favorite.

Alex had to work on the last day of Grandma and Grandpa's visit, so we just played at home. Grandpa Gary also built a dress-up area in the play room so we could get all of our princess dresses and crazy accessories organized. Every girl's dream :).

We had so much fun showing off all the wonderful things about Meridian to our Oregon family! I can't say we don't miss Oregon sometimes, but every time we have visitors I am reminded of how much Meridian already feels like home. I love that my kids have a house now that they will have growing up memories in, and that we can slowly make changes and small repairs as this house grows and gets dirtier, just like the kids :).