Big.Sigh...

Sighing is all I can do over these recital pictures. My baby girl was beautiful as always but she was so (sniff, sniff) b.i.g. For some reason this year she just seemed like such a young lady. After her first dance a certain handsome daddy I know (I'm not naming names because I'm sure he'd be embarrassed if this info got out!) leaned over and whispered to me, "Did you tear up too?" I said I did because she looked so beautiful. At certain moments of the dance you could begin to glimpse the grown up ballerina she will become and reminded me of the older dancers. The unnamed dad said he was crying because she looked so happy. She was nonstop smiles.

That was a funny story because at rehearsal she was concentrating so hard she constantly had her tongue stuck out:

I've never seen her do that before and it was darling. I explained to her that if she would smile no one notice if she messed up at all. For once she took my advice and smiled throughout every dance which obviously worked on her daddy!
You look at her and see if you think she looks big!

So much of the joy of ballet comes from being with these sweet girls for Ashton and me getting to visit with the mommies!
Their tap dance was "Diamonds are a Girls' Best Friend". They wore huge diamonds on their fingers and waved them at the crowd at the end of their dance. It was precious. Of course, they rocked it with a little attitude.

We were digging the jazz outfits. I wish I could show you their dance. It involved some finger and hip shaking and was sassy.

As always, she had a lot of support including Granda.

You can imagine how happy I was that Jon allowed Jackson to wear his dirty baseball hat to a recital, backwards no less!

Nana gave her the sweetest Tinker Belle figurine which she loves. Pop got to attend his other granddaughter's recital a week ago. I'm pretty sure he'd never imagined watching any much less two ballet recitals :) I told him just to imagine if all 7 of his grandkids were girls. He'd probably have left the country by now (and I'd have gone with him if I had 4 girls under one roof!).

Donnie came bearing gifts of finger nail polish. On a related note, I'm hoping she'll give me a carpet cleaning for my birthday :<

This girl loves her some trophies and keeps count of how many she has which is going to make it really hard for me to secretly throw them away.

Not pictured are Gram and GranBobby who graciously volunteered to watch the twins and about 8:30 were wishing they were at a recital instead of being surrounded by screaming children- thanks mom!

Another year and it looks like many more to come. She's definitely lasted in ballet longer than I did. There's a very good reason for that. So, here's to my almost 7 year old girl- thanks for making Daddy and I so happy and proud!