Dance Recital

The girls had their first dance recital here in WI this weekend! It is quite the extravaganza at our dance studio. They had really fancy costumes, a dress rehearsal and TWO shows!! They really did have a blast...most of the time ; ) Both girls did awesome at the recitals! We were very worried because Braenna would not go on stage at the dress rehearsal, but she pulled through and danced her heart out at both shows! And Mikaiya was the leader of her class and had to lead the whole class on stage...she did so great! We are so proud of them both!! We learned this weekend that apparently just being incredibly cute is not enough for a ballet recital! Since our school was wanting the girls in make up and all, we decided to just completely go all out. Here are the girls getting ready for their first show...yep, those are hot rollers!! Grammy came and helped with hair. Here is Mikaiya all ready to go, she looks so grown up!!

Braenna looked beautiful also...although she doesn't hold still long enough for the camera these days! This is the best shot I could get of her:

And here are my two beautiful girls all dolled up and ready to go:

Braenna and Emily are in the same class. It is so awesome to get to see the girls together! Here are the three of them are at dress rehearsal:

I thought this was just the sweetest picture...here is Braenna and her class lining up to go in. It's like a little pink polka dotted sandwich!

And here is Mikaiya in her class. Note to self, next time put her in the older class versus the younger when she's on the border. She is by far the biggest kid in her class!!

They had so much fun. They even got flowers and presents after their first performance. We were so happy to get to have so much family here to share in their special days too! Nana and Pop drove all the way in from New York to be here, Grammy came down from Hayward and Aunt Cece, Uncle Mike, Aunt Teresa and Uncle Kory were all there too. Thank you so much to everyone for coming...it really means a lot to the girls!!

We have a TON more pictures! You can see them here: Click here for pictures!

March Pictures

Here's the link to the March pics: Click here!

Mikaiya's 5th Birthday

It's so hard to believe our baby girl is 5! She had a great day on her 5th birthday. It fell on a Saturday this year, so we got to do lots of celebrating! Here she is looking all adorable and grown up for her ballerina themed party:

We got her cake at the local grocery store and it actually turned out really cute and fit in perfectly with the theme! She of course loved it and couldn't wait to get her hands on the Barbie ballerina on the top!

We had her party at the Madison Dance Academy this year. They did a great job making the room look festive! Here are Mikaiya and Braenna posing before everyone arrived:

This is the first year we have invited her friends from school. She had 8 little school friends plus Braenna and cousin Emily attend. She was so excited to get to have Emily at her birthday this year! And she seems to be doing pretty well in making friends at her new school as all of the little girls seemed to get along very well and really loved Mikaiya. Here they all are posing with the ballerina who led the party:

After the ballerina party, Mikaiya got in a quick nap and then opened more presents from mommy and daddy and others that had sent them to her. She is having fun playing with everything! We also went out to dinner at Red Robin to get her free birthday sundae.

Here are her and Emily being silly with their canteloupe at dinner:

And here she is enjoying her sundae:

She really had a great day! Here are all of the pictures we took (sorry, there's a lot!!):

Click here for pics!