Fresh Beat Band Concert!

Yes, my big 4-year old just went to her first live concert - The Fresh Beat Band! A friend of ours was the lucky winner of 25 tickets to the sold out show at the Midland Theater and invited us along!

Madeline has watched the Fresh Beat Band's show on tv for the last year or so, so was pretty excited to get to see them! She got up and danced around as she watched the show and had a blast!

Maddie and me before the show started.

Relaxing on a cushey chair.

Watching the show with a couple of her little friends.

Of course all the kids wanted the little flashing light wands to wave in the air.

Julia, Madeline, Mauryn, and Dakota. Dakota's mom is the one who won tickets.

Madeline outside the Midland Theater. What a fun night!

Maddie's First Dance Class!

This week Maddie had her first little dance class. I think it's actually called "Creative Movement" or something like that. It was basically a little ballet class.

The parents had to wait outside but there was a little window to look through so I tried to take a couple pics.

Maddie waiting in line to get a hand stamp after class. She looks like she enjoyed it!

She was doing some sort of move for the teacher here.

And doing some sort of move for me.

So proud of herself!

Valentine's Day

Wow, I'm so behind in blogging! Yikes!!! I'll try to catch up starting with Valentine's Day! The Friday before V-Day we had a party with our playgroup at a local community center. We did the mini pizza making and cookie decorating again this year. We also had lots of balloons which the kids all loved playing with.

One of the moms in the group used a plastic table cloth as a parachute and played some games with the kids.

Here's a pic of Maddie with her friend Alyssa.

The weekend before Valentine's Day Maddie stayed at grandma and grandpa's house for 4 nights. I picked her up on V-Day and we had lunch with Grandma in Warrensburg, MO at Heroes. I had baked some small heart cakes while she was gone and let her decorate them when she got back.

She sure had fun doing that!

That's alot of decorations!!!

Alyssa's Princess Party

Today Maddie went to her friend Alyssa's 4th birthday party at Fairytale Ballet. The girls had so much fun dressing up, dancing, chasing bubbles, and eating cake.

Madeline was so proud of her tutu!

The girls did so good listening to the dance teacher.

And had so much fun dancing together.

Look at them busting out their best ballet moves!

Doing the ribbon dance.

Maddie in a mermaid costume dancing with her wand.

You can just see how much fun they were having...especially Maddie.

The little girls loved Alyssa's princess cake.

Happy birthday to you Alyssa!

Mmmmm, cake!

The birthday girl!

And of course they loved watching Alyssa open presents. It was hard to keep them from helping out! Happy 4th birthday Alyssa!!!

For the Love of Puppies!

One of Madeline's favorite things is puppies so we recently stopped by a puppy store during a recent trip....

Most of the puppies were two small breeds mixed together. They were all so cute. When we walked in all of the puppies perked up and looked at us with this "I'm cute, please take me home" look.

They all had their A-games on!

I mean how cute are these???

Madeline was in heaven!

They were all in short, open cages so we could easily pet them or pick them up.

It made me really want another puppy but ONE IS ENOUGH! We enjoyed our visit though.

Happy New Year 2012!

This New Year's Eve was the first one that Madeline got to celebrate. We went to a friend's house and enjoyed a small kid-friendly party. We had lots of good food and the kids got to have a toast at midnight with sparkling pear juice and peach pear Italian soda. We also had confetti poppers that we shot at midnight.

Madeline had a great time playing with the other kids and actually made it to midnight semi-gracefully. At about 11:50pm she broke down out of sheer exhaustion, cried, and threw a little fit. We held out for 10 minutes to ring in the new year then hit the road. I think she was asleep within 3.5 seconds of pulling out of the driveway to head home.

All in all we had a fun night and are so looking forward to what's ahead for us in 2012!

I wish you a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!