Gianna's First Dance Recital

Gianna had her first dance recital this past weekend. It was three long nights, Thurs, Fri and Sat. I didn't know what to expect because Gianna tends to panic and be defiant, but she surprised us all, and was awesome! Here are a few pictures from the recital. Her song she danced to was "I Want Candy".

Apparently, I have a lot to learn about being a "dance recital" mom because the first night I was very unprepared. I couldn't figure out how to get the lipstick to stay on, I didn't know we are supposed to douse them in glitter, or use a full can of extra stiff hair spray. (And thanks to my sister-in-law Kristie, we were prepared with a full set of heat rollers). The second night, I finally got the lipstick on, but she smeared it all over, and the curl completely fell out of her hair (not enough hair spray? Perhaps 2 cans?) By the third night, I was doing great....got her lipstick to stay on and explained that you may only smack your lips together once, and I didn't brush her hair out after taking the curlers out, so that by the time she got on stage, the curl fell out just enough to make it the perfect curl, AND I remembered the body glitter.....however....

I was putting on Gianna's make up and got distracted talking to another mom and Gianna took the brush, stuck it into the loose blush and dumped it all down the front of her costume. Needless to say, I (probably overreacted) dragged her into the bathroom and got most of it off. But, seriously, I wanted to kill her! Not to mention that she had dark pink blush caked ten inches thick on her face! Her costume is now at the dry cleaners because I wanted to take her to get dance pictures taken since we missed the photos when Gianna had impetigo blisters on her face.

Beauty comes at a price.....

A very short video of Gianna's recital.

Videos

We have a case of "monkey see, monkey do" in our house. Here's a video of Gianna attempting to show me her dance from dance class, while being upstaged by a certain little person.

Here's a video of Gianna's impersonation of Hannah Montana - thanks to Aunt Marie for the Hannah Montana guitar!

Gianna's 4th Birthday!

Gianna just turned 4 years old - I can't believe I have survived 4 years of motherhood!! We had a few friends celebrate her birthday at the Children's Museum in the Shore Mall, and then we had a party for her at Grandma and Grandpa's Dairy Queen!

YES, I made this cake!! It took 10 weeks of cake decorating class and 12 hours of baking and decorating. If anyone needs a cake, let me know....I want to make more, but I don't have any more occassions coming up. I'm serious. (Oh, and tinkerbell is missing her eyelashes...I took the picture before I added them).

Gianna's birthday present from Mom and Dad. She wanted to take the training wheels off the first day....that's my overachiever!

Bet you didn't know Dairy Queen had roller-service....thanks to Gianna's birthday present from Grammy and Pop Pop.

More birthday pictures...Click if you need to enlarge them.

Easter Pictures

The girl's Easter pictures





Here are some additional Easter pictures...Click if you need to enlarge.

Swimming lessons

Gianna and Ainsley are continuing their swimming lessons at Miss Cate's Swim School. Gianna was swimming so good, and then when we got to Disney, she was afraid to go into the water without a life jacket, and she acted like she forgot how to swim. I talked to the instructor and thought that maybe Gianna was only comfortable in Miss Cate's pool and only with her. So the instructor had Gianna just swim back and forth almost the entire lesson to build confidence. I can tell a big difference now and she doesn't look to the instructor to be right by her side.

Ainsley is also taking lessons. She can "swim" underwater and come up without coughing. This is because the instructor has taught her to anticipate that she is going to go under the water and she takes a deep breath, then she blows bubbles underwater. When she comes up, she takes another deep breath. Its amazing that a baby can learn that. The instructor also teaches her to "fall" into the water by playing Humpty Dumpty and also try to roll onto her back. Ainsley is doing so good with it.

Here are a few videos...

Disney Vacation

Kevin and I decided to take the kids on a spontaneous trip to Disney after receiving a really good Disney deal and being able to find cheap airfare on a few weeks notice. We were just there in November, and the kids were both sick with ear infections, so this was going to be our "do-over" trip....well, it ended up being even worse: stomach virus!!!

Gianna's school called me on Friday 3/6 and told me she was throwing up. Since we were leaving on Sunday 3/8, I was not happy. She seemed fine the rest of Friday, until the evening hit and she spiked a fever over 104 degrees!! Sunday came and she seemed to be over it. We left for the airport at 8:00am and on the way there, Ainsley started puking. I think I had a panic attack just then. She continued to throw up all through security, and the officers gave us a hard time about taking the plastic bag full of puke through the metal detectors. So, luckily, Ainsley seemed to be acting better after puking in security. Then about half way through the flight - Gianna throws up. Then on the bus to the hotel, Ainsley throws up....and then Ainsley continued to throw up for the rest of our 6 day vacation!! (And I didn't even touch on the diarrhea in this posting - or the fact that Kevin and I were both out of commission for an entire day with stomach pain and diarrhea).

Wednesday, 3/11 Kevin took Ainsley to the emergency room because we feared that after 4 days of vomiting and diarrhea that she may be dehydrated. Luckily she wasn't, and the doctors there gave us a prescription to stop the vomiting.

We did get to enjoy some of the vacation. On Monday we went to the Magic Kingdom, and even though Ainsley threw up during the parade, she seemed fine enough to stay for the fireworks. On Tuesday we attempted the Magic Kingdom again, but Ainsley threw up all over her stroller so we had to leave about 20 minutes after we arrived. Wednesday Ainsley went to the emergency room, they gave her some anti-vomiting medication and we spent the rest of the day in the Animal Kingdom. Thursday we made it a full day without vomit in Hollywood Studios and then another full day in the Magic Kingdom on Friday. Here are some pictures that we took from our eventful vacation....



Gianna got picked from the parade crowd to dance. Here's a video.

Ainsley Feeding Her Daddy