My beautiful beanerina

May is tough.

Not quite as busy and stressful as December, but a close second.

Recitals, concerts, graduations, programs, etc. etc.

We'll start with dance. 

Maddie decided she wanted to take a few dance classes, and so I asked around, and got some good referrals to a school just down the street. 

We really like it there, it's close, the people are super nice, I thought it was reasonably priced.  Maddie took a couple of classes, and really loved them.

It was fairly painless and stress free.

Enter May.

Suddenly there are costumes to pay for, including three pairs of tights because you need to flesh colored tights under the fish net stockings, and apparently at the beginning of the year I bought the wrong shoes and she needed the right ones for the recital, so I informed her she would be taking jazz next year as well, and bought shoes slightly bigger than what she currently wears.

Besides the actual recital itself, there was a dress rehearsal and a picture day.

Picture day was it's own mess, mostly because of everything else I had going on, and she was supposed to have her hair french braided and I can't french braid.  (I blame it on being the only girl with three brothers. I had no one to practice on. )  It all worked out, but I was a little stressed.  For starters it was a half day and there was a big end of school year block party we would be attending right after school.  One of my friends organized a big shin dig complete with a bouncy water slide and snow cone machine.  I wasn't able to stick around for much of it, because Nick and Maddie also had viola lessons, and Nick had a birthday party.  I let Maddie play at the neighborhood water party for exactly 45 minutes before rushing her home to change and then to a friend's house because she offered to do Maddie's hair. The hair turned out great,

but the pictures took forever, (there were several groups of little girls in front of us who must not have been so cooperative) and then it started to rain. Torrential Rain. And my house was locked cause I left Zach and Christopher at the park, relying on the mercy of my neighbors, and ended up running home just to open the house for them. 

The recital itself went well, but it was super long.

Maddie was in two different dances, the first was ballet and the second was jazz.  Unfortunately we don't have any pics of her in her jazz costume.  We didn't love the jazz costume so much, but we do love the ballet one.  The jazz one is a hot pink super short number (she wore the fish nets with this one).  Later that night she came home, looking disheveled with her hair a mess, (we had just taken out the bobby pins and french braid) and her make-up was smudged and smeared.  I thought she looked like she had been out partying a little too hard all night at some dance club or something.  We mentioned that if that were the case, she'd be grounded for the next 10 years.  (I doubt that I will ever have to worry at all with this girl, but I thought I'd put it out there just in case)