Spring Showcase Time AND MORE

I forgot to post a couple of really cute beach pictures last week. LOOK AT THESE FACES.

We added Mr. Hudson and after many takes, I got one with all four looking sort of at me! Ha! Fun times with cousins.

And, one more, look at how incredibly happy this cat is to see her loving family. SO HAPPY.

Anyway, Autumn had her Spring Showcase and, as always, it was a great production. Autumn was only in the ballet portion and they did the Little Mermaid. Because she's one day a week, she was only in one dance. I really wish I could get her to do lyrical or jazz, though, because that's my favorite part of the Showcase. Tap is out of the question, though, because she hates the noise.

Before her dress rehearsal, Autumn did some dancing for me and I took about a zillion pictures because she's awesome and hilarious with her drama.

My mom and I are also jealous of her muscles. In a few of these she's looking kinda cut!

Gazing into the distance...

This one, I might have to frame. Too bad about the bag in the photo but I took this running into the program. I don't know why we were running behind but this is exactly why I take pictures before the dress rehearsal.

Afterward, we took our now-traditional photos with Lainey and Pd. I have no idea why I didn't get one with my mom, though. I really thought I did.

I don't usually get a photo of myself but this time I remembered! Check out her crazy dilated eyes.

On the way out, one of Autumn's little friends caught her. They used to be in the same class but Autumn is a little older and she ended up moving up and the friend moved to a younger class. Autumn misses her a lot so I'm glad they got to hang out a little.

I'm not sure what I'll be blogging about here next week BUT sometime this week I'm going to post photos from Autumn's very late birthday party at Passing Pinwheels! We had a special guest and some very happy folks:

April Mobile Moments!

Greetings, all! I totally missed blogging last week. We had Tamara's wedding and I pretty much spent Sunday and Monday doing NOTHING, ha! But, now it's back to regular schedule, waaah. But, it's a good time to get caught up on our April doings. I'm about to write an adoption update (short version: nothing at all is happening) before I do all the wedding posts over on the pinwheel blog so be sure to go by there this week.

A couple weeks ago, Autumn got to hang out with Micah and Liana. They got dirty. Just a little. Heh. I am not sure if all of this is the result of Autumn pretending that the dirt was her ice powers but at least part of it is.

The big family garage sale happened in early April. Kyle and I love working the garage sale, mainly because of Pd's shenanigans. This year he sold the sofa. Lainey found out when she came home later that day. It was pretty amazing. She's been wanting to replace it so it wasn't out of the blue but I don't think she quite expected her sofa to be sitting outside that day!

One fun thing about Tamara's wedding was getting to see Cheri more often. We stopped by to get a tiara for the bachelorette party and were able to visit with her sweet dogs.

Less sweet, but almost as furry, Molly enjoyed exploring the bachelorette party items. She actually got stuck in that zebra bag at one point and I had to rescue her. Ha! Kitties are so silly.

In the midst of all this, Autumn, who is never sick, was sick. Poor thing! I think it must have been some kind of 24 hour bug because she was only down for the count for a morning and afternoon and then all was well.

So, you know Mike likes coffee, right? Well, part of his coffee obsession is this grinder. We bought it ages ago and it was a great investment but it's still pretty funny to see people's reactions to his industrial strength coffee grinder. It needs fairly routine maintenance. This time around, Mike got Autumn to help him out. I think here she's sweeping out old coffee while Mike lights the way.

Last thing! Autumn's ballet class has been doing ballet buddies. An older dancer leaves notes and little gifts for her ballet buddy secretly and then this week they revealed the ballet buddy's identity. Too cute! Someday if I ever have enough teens around, I should totally do this with my kids classes. Autumn loved it. On the big reveal day, parents were allowed to come watch and take photos. I have a class during Autumn's so I only peeked once in a while. When they did the class photo (the girls got to wear costumes), I snuck out and snapped one. 

That's it for this week!

First Nutcracker!!

Autumn was in the Nutcracker for 5 whole minutes today! Hahaha. It really was great. It was her first year and she's still getting used to the stage so she only had one part. Most of the other girls her age and a little older have 2 or 3 parts. It's possible that Autumn might do that next year but we'll see! Today, though, she was an angel.

The day started out pretty well. She got a good rest in after church and we got ready smoothly and were even early! I put her in makeup but some of the other kids weren't wearing any at all. I figure it's better to do it so any photos she's in will look good. Here's Autumn before we left:

Once we got there and Autumn was in costume, she got nervous and worried about the audience. There was a lot of chaos backstage so she kind of went into emergency mode. I put her in a chair near where the backstage parents were sitting so she was out of most of the buzzing around and that helped a little. But not much.

From what I could see, I think she did as well as anyone else and was at least circling when she was supposed to circle! Afterward, you'd think Autumn would chill out but no. She was all, "you said there wouldn't be a whole lot of people but there were and I don't want to bow."

She did it though! And it was pretty fun because she was the only kid still in an angel costume during the bow so she stood out. Well. Good for mom's grin but maybe not so good for the aesthetic of the line! Autumn was originally schedule to perform yesterday with some other angel-only kids but we had made plans already so her teacher was kind enough to move the date. And next week there will be other kids who are first timers, too!

After the performance, I offered a drink from sonic and Autumn asked if she could have a hot dog from there for dinner. I called Mike and we decided we could do that for her. :) Happiness ensued.

We're still doing 25 Days of Kindness! Check it out on Passing Pinwheels and let me know if you're interested in participating in this week's big project.

First Dance Recital!

Ok, after this I think I'll be all caught up! Some of you might have seen this on facebook, but Autumn had her first dance recital. This is so crazy...her dress rehearsal makeup. I also feel the need to tell you that I swear we had just cleaned the playroom. T_T


I am SO PROUD of myself. Autumn has super thin hair. I'm sure it'll thicken up because her hair is exactly like mine was when I was her age. I found a tutorial on how to use a sock, hair pins, and ponytail holders to make a decent looking ballet bun and BEHOLD:


I didn't get a good shot of her ballet costume but this is her tap costume. A local photography studio did dance shots before the recital and we did those in her ballet outfit. I'm guessing we'll get the pictures in a couple of weeks. I also ordered a dvd (holy cow, this is expensive! I'm so glad I trade aikido for the ballet classes). When I gave the lady taking the money my check and order form BEFORE the performance (they asked us to prepay, too!), she goes, "I'm sorry but we don't have the dvds available yet." Really?? I thought for sure you had a time machine.  (¬_¬)


After the performance, we did some pictures. Penny brought her those pretty flowers. I usually don't see much resemblance between my mom and Autumn but they kind of look similar here!


The lights were really yellow so this picture looks really weird in color, haha. So you get a sepia tone, Penny!


Back at home, more picture. Nanny and Boppa are too cute with Autumn here.


Of course, there was a short break for presents. Autumn loooooved her new ballet doll and Cinderella tutu. Which she is going to wear to ballet camp tomorrow!


And that would be why she has such a huge smile here. Also, Pd is, like, super tan. This was the week after we went to the beach, ha.


Although Autumn was about done with all the picture taking, we had to do a mama and papa picture.


Too fun! The Student Showcase was seriously fabulous. I am amazed at what a great production they put on at the Harrell Theater in Collierville. They had ages 3 years to adults doing ballet, tap, lyrical, jazz, and more. I have to be straight up honest, though--poor Autumn got her dance skills from me!! She's really stinking cute when she dances but she also looks like she's fighting invisible demons. Who knows, though! Enough practice and maybe someday she'll get to do one of the solos! Either way, it's a super fun experience and we all had a great time watching her perform. I mean, she's always been so people-averse (ahem, guess who she got THAT from) that it was super awesome to see her get on stage with no fear at all.

By the way, if you haven't been to passing pinwheels in a while, stop in and check it out! Be sure to take a look at Mike's Father's Day gift. Here's one of the photos I didn't use. Her face is hilarious.