The PondFam5 loves our little elephant sooooo much!

Rose, Harper and Lucy!

It’s nap time (and the recital hasn’t even started yet)!

Sweet Emily came to cheer Rose on (she’s seen Rose do the dances in our living room, so she had to see the real thing)!  Rara and Poppa came to town just for the day but wouldn’t have missed it, and Rose knew it!

Khloe, Lucy, Claire and Rose as rainbow ballerinas.

Their ballet dance was to “Over the Rainbow” by Israel Ka?ano?i Kamakawiwo?ole.  

Rose belting out “her” song, “Ring Around the Rosie” back stage!

Anna Kate wanted a picture with her sissy so badly, but Rose was all over the place! 

Finally got her!  During the first part of her ballet number on stage, she was doing her tap routine (sweet girl), but she became graceful very quickly and started hamming up her long reaching motions.  I’ll never forget our sweet baby Rose during her first ballet dance! 

Rose was busy being a pretty ballerina before her “Rainbow” dance, but since it was smack dab in the middle of her nap, she was totally zoning out (and dress rehearsal was that morning, so it was a crazy day for our little one).  But once she saw Katie after her last dance had finished, that all changed.  You can see how precious that moment was!

Sweethearts!

Mike gave Rose a gorgeous bouquet of flowers and Kay Kay and Grandpapa came too!

We were all so proud of our sweet baby Rose!

“Smell my roses, Poppa!”  Thank you, Bekah Boo, for coming!

What a very special day watching Rose blossom!

Noelle had the super fun idea to make piggy pancakes for Anna Kate’s first recital (Anna Kate was 3), and she made very well sure we did it again for Rose’s turn as an elephant!

Rose’s first tap number was to a song entitled “Water for the Elephants” and will always be a PondFam favorite!

Sweet Noelle is the most caring, tender-hearted big sissy we could ever hope for!  Her first tap dance was to the song “Lollipop!”  She had just turned 3 and danced with a big shiny lollipop on stage.  I haven’t scanned her super star pics from her first recital, and this is a good reminder that it’s time to get them digital!  So far, each girl has only given dance one try.  We may start going back through the rounds, giving everyone one more chance at studio dance and see if it sticks! They are all great dancers at home but with the all the time, effort and money that goes into dance, they’re gonna be begging me to go, not the other way around!  My fingers are crossed one of them will love it as much as I did!

It’s recital time for our little elephant!  Tap was her favorite number this year for her first recital, but her rainbow ballerina dance was precious too!  Professional pics coming soon but for now, sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

I haven’t been posting our Mondays in the Middle, but we’ve been having them, and they’ve been a total blast!  Anna Kate is such a lovely young little lady, and we’ve both enjoyed every second of our one-on-one time together this spring! 

One of our most favorite activities came to me at the Dollar Tree one day.  I found these tickets (100’s for $1.00), you know the carnival type.  She would pick out 5 of her favorite stuffed animals and give each one a ticket.  Each ticket has a matching ticket with the exact same number on it for the cup we draw from.  She loved tearing apart all of the tickets and could do it all by herself!

Then, we’d put the matching tickets in a cup, make out a tally card and start drawing winners.  Each time an animal would win, we’d give them a tally mark and their little prize was to hold the bouncy ball until the next round’s winner was announced.

Matching the numbers to find the winners was confusing at first, but she loved announcing the winner once she found the matching tickets!

She named our carnival game “Glitz & Glam.”  We played this too many times to count, and the title was always the same.  Today, Sleeping Beauty won the most rounds, so she was the grand prize winner!

Anna Kate is so clever; This next part was her idea!  She got the doll salon chair for the winner and set it on top of the Go Fish! game that spins around, with Sleeping Beauty strapped in.  She gave her the bouncy ball, and we had a winners ceremony where she turned the Go Fish! game on, and Sleeping Beauty spun round and round.  We also turned on music and danced and clapped and cheered.  It was so much fun!  Then, of course, it was on to hair salon for her doll, Julie.  I’ll never forget these days with my middle!  I hope this summer is the slowest one yet.  I’m not ready for her to go to kindergarten! 

I think this outfit was a first favorite of mine, one that I kept over five years for all of our girls to wear, although I barely got it on Rose.  All their hair colors are still the same (super blonde for Noelle, blonde Anna Kate, and dark haired Rose).  It’s hard to say who looks the most alike because they are not the same ages, but it changes every day anyway!  We hear the older two, we hear the younger two, and oftentimes, we hear they each look totally different.  I think they all look totally alike and totally different, all at the same time!  It’s so crazy cool to watch and compare what they are up to, how much they are alike and different, because ultimately, we are fascinated with each one as if they were the only one. 

Noelle is 2 years, 2 months in the picture with the buckets, Anna Kate is 2 years, 4 months in the smiley picture with big sissy Noelle (who is still wearing that fab dress 3 years later, oh yeah!), and Rose is 3 years, 3 months in the last picture (I missed comparing Rose with the others by a year… too much going on)!

This is a 2T outfit and supposed to be worn as pants, but I think I like them better as capris… a little more sassy on our 3T gal!  These just make me smile and laugh at the same time! 

No matter how much they change to look alike or different over time, one thing is for sure, they will always and forever each have their very own wonderfully unique personalities!

The girls were so excited to see their Pond cousin, Noemi, over the holiday weekend!  We had a blast catching up!

Isn’t she a doll baby!?!  Noemi is 2, almost exactly one year younger than Rose.  They grow soooo fast!

We had s’mores, but Rose wasn’t a huge fan because of how sticky they were!  It was Aunt Susana’s first time to try s’mores, and I think they were a hit!

We played until we couldn’t play any longer!  Love these girlies!

This was such a fun and special night for our family to just play, dance and goof off together, and I think you can see that in the pictures… just wish there was one of all five of us!  Maybe next year, we can bring the tripod! 

The rooster had perfect comedic timing interrupting Mrs. Paula!

Mara released horsey endorphins to give him peace of mind before the kids came to feed and pet him. 

Real egg hunt, which was so exciting for us all!

Queen of the sand pile! 

Mrs. Paula is always always teaching!  She’s truly the toddler whisperer, and I admire her so much!  Where other teachers we’ve experienced (sadly) yell at the class to get their attention, she literally whisperers, and they all lean in to listen because no one wants to miss out on all the interesting things she has to say! 

Anna Kate had a blast getting the sand blown off of her!  No matter where you go, or what you do, a more fun field trip for preschoolers does not exist!  Thank you, Mara, Jerry and Luke for sharing your farm in the big city with us!  You truly have the best of both worlds!

*These are my pictures from a mother’s eye of all of the farm fun, but I’ll post Mrs. Paula’s soon with the rest of her May pics!  Oh, and check out her website too!  She went into all the educational details of the trip and described everything exactly as it happened.  I had a blast watching her and the kids in action on this field trip, and she even caught me looking totally grossed out at how long one of the claws on the chicken was (I had actually just gotten through touching it in her picture)!  So funny!  Check it out:

http://paulaspreschoolandkindergarten.blogspot.com/2014/05/on-farm.html