Dancing Princess

In the few moments I have this morning, I need to write a post about Ellie's dance recital.

It was last weekend and she did such a great job!  She loves to dance and we LOVE her dance teacher, Ms. Victoria.  So happy to be with her at Dancemaker Studio.

Thanks Ms. Victoria for another fantastic year of dance!

Here are some pics from the night...

Her group- Ballet I- performed two numbers

"Matchmaker" from Fiddler on the Roof

"An Old-Fashioned Wedding" from Annie Get Your Gun

The girls all looked so beautiful in their fancy, sparkly dresses and they danced their little hearts out.

We had a good sized group there to cheer Ellie on and even though the auditorium was stifling hot and poor little Abbie had just come from the batting cages where she took a softball to the knuckle, we endured to the end. :)

(I wish I would have thought to take a pic of Abbie's knuckle.  It was a beauty.)

Every minute of the recital was worth it to see this happy, proud, beautiful face at the end.

 Great job little Ellie Bellie!  You are my dancer girl and I am so proud of you!

 We were thankful to have Great Grandma H, Grandma F and Grandpa and Grandma O there.  My mom and dad were just here the previous weekend for Josh and Emma's performances, so we are very thankful that Grandma F endured the journey from down South one more time to see Ellie dance.  

 What can I say about this amazing group of people?

Only that we love them and are so thankful to have them a part of our lives.  They are some of the amazing counselors from Camp Kesem- the summer camp that my kids have gone to for the past 2 years and will continue to go to until they kick them out because they are too old. These counselors go above and beyond the call of duty.  They have attended ice shows, dance recitals and softball games.  They send a personalized and fun-filled birthday message for each birthday and write letters.  It is one of the beautiful things that have come into our lives because of this ugly cancer disease.  My kids talk about Camp Kesem all....year....long and I will never be able to thank these counselors enough for what they have brought into my children's lives.

For some reason, we never get a picture with the kiddos at their actual event.  It is always an afterthought when we get back home.  Oh well, at least we have one, right?

One more series of pictures of my amazing little Ellie Bellie before I close out this post.

Yikes you say!  Well, that's what I said too.  I also said, "Gross" and "How could you do that?"

Ellie went to a birthday party a couple of weeks ago and my friend, Stephanie, was nice enough to send me these pictures.

I will say this...Ellie was in absolute heaven.

She loves animals of all shapes and sizes.  She always has and she always will.

I definitely can picture her as a veterinarian some day.

I still can't believe she let a snake crawl all over her.

I don't know if I can really claim her as my daughter. ;)

I know that her Uncle Craig will not hug her anymore because now she has snake cooties....