Old Friends, New Friends, Dancing and Dinosaurs

Early June arrived and it was time for Frank to trek to the annual Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention. Oh, and also Stella Dot's 4th birthday!  Single parenting for the weekend, I was desperate to fill the time.  Luckily, we had play dates and parties to attend!!

Here, Stella Dot's friend Stephen takes a break from leading the group on a treasure hunt at the park. 

Stella Dot and her Dora cupcakes.  Needless to say they were gobbled up promptly.  Stella Dot got lots of goodies, cake and pizza were eaten, and juiced up kids were running wild -- very successful party!

After nap that day, Maddie met a new friend, Sarah, at Monkey Joe's.  Monkey Joe's is a huge building filled with nothing but inflatable jump houses and screaming, shoeless kids.  It is always fun and wonderfully exhausting for the kids.  A perfect 100 degree day activity.

Sarah is the daughter of a coworker and a very energetic little girl.  She and Maddie jumped and bounced until we carted them off for chicken nuggets.

Mason finally played in the tiny bounce pit for his age group.  It only took him five tries and some crying spells, but he was a happy kid once he got the hang of it.

Fast forward a week.  Our garden is now starting to produce some.....er produce.  Here we have our first ever green beans from our garden and a hiding cucumber.  This is the first year we've grown green beans and Frank and I made a bamboo tee pee for the vines.  Only three plants this year until we see how they yield.  Maddie and I ate the entire cucumber that night.  Yum!

The green beans were eaten that night too.  Fresh and free.  Well, if you don't count the hours Frank has spent watering the garden and the medication for my many mosquito bites while weeding the garden.....so basically free (smile).

After her first taste of s'mores, Maddie is now an addict.
The gooier, the better she likes it.

Maddie's dance recital was June 10th.  A few days before, I invited my Mom to come up to see Maddie's recital and she made it work.  We didn't tell Maddie that Grandmama was coming to visit until the night before.  She was excited about everything...and we were nervous.   Maddie has been taking some tap and ballet classes through a special instructor who visits the day care and teaches a group of girls.  We were in Germany for last year's recital, so this was the first one we'd been to.  It was a long day and a big night because it was on a Friday and she had her end of the year party at a park earlier.

  She told me all about her ballet costume and how she would wear a yellow bow in her hair....haha.  We told her to just do her best and try to remember all the steps.....and that there would be a lot of people watching!  The theme was Toy Story so all the kids were dressed like different characters from the movie.

A very tired Mason made it through the entire recital -- which ended at around 9 p.m.!!  Frank and I were so very proud of her.  She had been asking for ballet classes and I think the recital convinced us that she is definitely in her element when she's dancing.  She absolutely glowed and did a good job remembering her steps. 

Maddie quickly put on her costume before the show.  My little ballerina!

The flash on my camera didn't work too well for zooming, so this very dark photo is all I got of her actual ballet performance, but Frank videotaped the whole thing!

Mason was kept entertained by a toy shark that Mama and I pretended was going to chew off his finger...He loved it and cackled the whole time.  He really was a great boy during the very long recital.

After ballet came the tap portion of the recital.  The girls were dressed up like cowgirls....Maddie's costume was so long she kept pulling it up so she could tap.  So funny, but she had fun anyway.

After the recital, Maddie got a bunch of pink roses from Grandmama.  All smiles here!

Another photo at home.  I promise I did not tell her to pose like this......really.

And an outtake.....

Saturday was filled with fun with Grandmama and then she headed home.  On Sunday, we made plans to visit the Dinosaur Trail at a local museum.  Mason is obviously ready for a journey to the jungle.  Maddie, not so much....

The dinosaurs were very close to scale, and very lifelike, but this was the only one you were allowed to touch...um, and sit on.

Maddie practices her dinosaur roar. 

Mason is not sure what to think.

Ah, finally made it to the butterfly house.  Say cheese, guys!

Some of the other kids (girls) had butterflies landing on their hands, so of course Maddie wanted one to land on her also.  We tried and tried and finally, with the help of a sympathetic volunteer, a butterfly found its way to Maddie's hand.  It stayed there so long, we had to move it back to the volunteer!  Maddie was ecstatic that the butterfly "really liked her"!

Last week, Maddie went to Vacation Bible School every night after day care.  I helped teach Maddie's VBS class of 19 four-year olds from 5:30 to 8:15 every night.  Maddie and I both had fun but are glad to get back to our routine.  We missed Mason and Frank!!  Now Maddie has started a summer ballet class with Stella Dot and will start swim lessons in a week. 

Meanwhile Mason has started telling us "no" a lot, and if he doesn't want something we try to feed him, he tells us, "no! you!"  And points to us. Smart kid.