Dancing Queen

Whew!! What a weekend!! Sorry I have been away for awhile. Our entire family was sick all last week =(. We had a bad stomach bug that would just NOT go away! But now, we are better, just exhausted from the busiest weekend!! This weekend was not only Claire's first ever Dance Recital, but my little sister Nicole's graduation. So we, and all of our family, have been running back and forth from here to Joplin all weekend!! I will post pictures of my baby sister, the College grad (OMG - I am getting old!!) later, but first I wanted to post all about my baby girl's dance recital!!!

To say that we are proud and thrilled to pieces with our little girl, is an understatement!! Last night was one of my proudest moments as a mother!! I won't lie, I cried and smiled through her entire performance!! What was even better, we were surrounded by all of our family that came out to see Claire in her dancing debut!! I bought 19 tickets, we took up almost 2 rows!! I grew up dancing all my life and had dreams of having a little girl that would love dancing as much as I did. So this was literally a dream come true for me and made me so happy to see that she was going to have this same interest as I did (and hopefully Bree too!).

Claire did so well with such a long day yesterday. We had to be at dress rehearsal 9am yesterday morning. This was her first time on stage and she did great! She came out and told me "I love the stage!" =). We were there all morning and then had to be back that night at 5. It made for a long day, but it was so much fun!! Her dance was called "The Sun Has Got It's Hat On" as the whole recital was themed "Fun in the Sun". Here are a tons of pictures of her before and after the recital. Of course, I did not get any pictures while on stage as it was not allowed, but I will try to get a video of her doing the dance out here soon. I know I am her mother, but I think she was the best (laugh at me Alyssa =)) and she did the whole dance, start to finish (even with a little girl a few down from her kicking off a tap shoe during the performance) and we were all soooo proud!!!!

Here she is all dolled up in tons of make up and her cute costume!

Dancing Queen and her pregnant Mama backstage - those brown eyes all done up and that outfit was WAY more than these pregnancy hormones could handle, I was a basket case!! I was pretty sure she would be fine and get out there and the be the star that she is =), but when I went to leave her backstage with her group and I told her "Good luck, we are all so proud of you!", those big dark eyes teared up and she started to cry!! She was nervous and need some calming down...I was losing it!!!! This is an exact reason why pregnant women should get at least ONE glass of wine!!!! =)

After the show - She had no idea that we all brought her flowers - when I say all, she received 8 bouquets of flowers!!! She was shocked and I love her expression in these photos!!!

Me giving her the cookie flowers Nicole left her - we were so sad that we had to miss Nicole's actual graduation that morning, but Nicole was so great and had no problem sharing her weekend with Claire! She even came back with everyone that night and came to see Claire perform and then drove back to Joplin for graduation festivities after Claire danced! We did not get a picture of her Claire - but we love you Nicole!!!

Proud parents!

Now all the family that came - Nonna and Poppy came...

Uncle Chad, Aunt Jennifer and Clayton and Caiden came!

Nana and Papa came...

G-pa and Brandi came...

Uncle Mitch and Aunt Brooke came...

Nina and Papa came...

Aunt Tara came...

One more picture with Mama...

Uncle Heath, Aunt Lane, and Sterling came...all the boy cousins and O did so great through a 2½ hour show!!

Poppy and Owen...

Proudest Daddy in the place...

Claire and her bestie Halle!

Claire almost passed out and Daddy carrying her and her MANY flowers!!!

I cannot thank all the family enough for coming out last night!! Claire told me on the way home "I cannot believe they all came to see me dance!". My family literally all went to Joplin Friday night for Nicole's Nursing Pinning Ceremony, back that night and then they all went to Graduation Saturday and made it back to Rogers for Claire's Recital. Yall are all the best family we could ever ask for or even dream of and we love you all so much!!! A big thanks to Tara for capturing all these amazing pictures for me, I know I can ALWAYS count on you!!

More posts to come soon!! I promise I will catch up on all of yall soon!!!!