Ballerina, Ballerina

My little girl doesn't have a shy bone in her body when it comes to performing in front of a crowd! She gets on the stage and does what she is supposed to do - with a little bit of nosiness thrown in (checking her co-stars to make sure they are on cue, or telling them not to cry that it will be ok). On the 18th, she and her class performed at a little carnival. She and her buddy Sydney pretty much stole the show. Sydney is the little girl with long blond hair and sun glasses. She sang along with the music at the top of her lungs through the whole dance. It was too cute.

My cute little pumpkin...

Jeff, Grace and I went to Sweet Berry Farms a couple of Saturdays ago. We had so much fun! There were a ton of activities - flower pickin', face painting, mazes, hay rides, pony rides, petting zoo, pumpkin picking and more. We couldn't even do everything!

Grace did have a blast in the maze. She totally wanted to make her own path - not following in the footsteps of others. She also wanted to be the leader, with Jeff in the middle. Any time I passed either of them, I was regulated to the back of the line. We ran around in the maze for quite a while, playing chase, hide-n-seek, and jumping out and scaring each other.


When we left the maze, we started towards the pony rides, but the line was SO long. We skipped that and Grace picked a pumpkin to paint. Since painting is one of her favorite pastimes, this was something she really got into.



From there, we fed the goats (Grace was fascinated by the ones that were climbing trees. Then, we went to build our scare crow. Since we don't have a garden, he is now sitting out in our front yard. Jeff had a great time with this activity - I think more than Grace did!


Since it was getting late and Grace had a ballet performance that night, we decided to pick our pumpkins and flowers and head on home. Grace wasn't in the mood to take any more pictures by this time (who can blame her), so I just snapped a couple and we headed out!

Fire Fest

This past weekend, Grace's dance school participated in Buda's Fire Fest. The girls (and a few boys!) got out there and danced their little hearts out.

Jeff had to go into work that morning, so Jen and Brad picked Grace and I up. Grace was hamming it up in the yard waiting for our ride.

In this photo, she is doing what we call the "Butt Wiggle." For no reason at all, at any given moment, she will just stop what she is doing and turn around and wiggle her tushi at any and everyone. It almost looks like she is doing some kind of chicken dance.Grace was so excited to dance. While most of her classmates were running around, dancing in place, talking excitedly, she was sitting in my lap - intently watching the people that were dancing at the time. After each performance, she would ask, "Is it my turn?"

She did a great job dancing. I was trying to take photos in one hand and use the other little camera to take video, so none of these shots are close ups. As soon as I have time, I'll crop them and get some better ones posted. Her friend, Aubrey, was a couple of people down from her and was crying. It was so cute, because every once in a while, she would quit dancing, look for Aubrey and say, "It's okay!"After the dance was over (she was very disappointed that she only had one dance), we went to the play ground to let the kids swing, slide and burn off even more energy.
On the way out, Grace fed a camel and petted a snake!

Today, Tomorrow, Tonow, Tolater

Grace puts the prefix "to-" onto most words that relate to time (pardon the bad pun). For instance, when she asks for a piece of candy, I will say, "You may have a piece after you finish your dinner." She will respond, "No! Not to-later, I need it to-now!"

She also uses it with other words from time to time...like to-everything. It makes me smile, and to-now I have a tendency to use the words "to-now" and "to-later."

Catch you guys to-later!

More Dinosaurs!

We met with our playgroup at the Zilker Science Center. I had no idea that there was a large science museum, dinosaur bone pit, wildlife habitat, etc there. Grace and all her friends had such a great time digging for bones, playing in the dirt and having fun!

After digging for bones, we checked out the animals. There were foxes, rabbits, raccoons, and more. Then Grace got to feed the pigeons with her friends. They would come right up and eat out of their hands. She was laughing so hard as she threw food at them (not too them!) and chased them around.

No trip to Zilker is complete without a ride on the train, so after our picnic, we rode the train. She and Kate grabbed some time at the playground - I can't believe the amount of energy she still had at this time.

By the time we got home, she was FILTHY. We threw the girls in (Kristy and Kate rode to and from with us) the bathtub before we had to head out to ballet. I literally had to vacuum the sand out of the tub.

Dinosaurs!

Zilker park is having a Dinosaur exhibit over the next couple of months. Since Grace is so into dino's right now, we thought she would enjoy seeing life-sized replicas of them. On Sunday, September 21st, we took off to go enjoy the exhibit.

Grace loved looking at the dinosaurs and trying to mimic their expressions. Her favorite was a mama dino with a next of eggs next to her. After walking through the exhibit, we decided to look around at the rest of the Botanical Garden, since we haven't ever been there.

I really enjoyed watching her running around and exploring everything. They had historical cabins, waterfalls, bridges, etc. She wanted to see everything!