Preschool Graduation

Brooklyn started her 2nd year of preschool on September 8, 2010. Here she is on her first day of school.
And here she is on her last day of school on Wednesday, May 25, 2011.
Then she graduated on Thursday May 26th. She wanted to wear a "pretty dress". I made her a candy lei, but I don't think she understood why I did that. I thought it would be something fun.
The 3 year old and 4 year old classes were together for the graduation at the Kearns Library. Her class is on the front row. There were 16 kids in her class.
I arrived 30 minutes early this year because I knew how busy it would be after last year's graduation. I was still 4 rows back from the front. It was SO hard to see her with all those heads in front of me. We took a video of her graduation program, but sadly it didn't turn out great because of all the people. This year the room was completely packed!
There were cute and fun songs and poems. The kids loved showing us all the things they learned this year. They each had a part of the alphabet. Brooklyn's part was "The letter I says 'ice cream, ink'. One line, two short, now give a wink!'" I made sure she winked when she said that last part.
Eliza was my test during the graduation. She couldn't see very well so she was bored and out of control. Yet only I could hold her. It was hard to get pictures with a wiggly 2 year old on my lap. Plus, she was always trying to stand up on my knees to see so I didn't see too much of the program (not that I could through all the heads anyway). Luckily Brooklyn had sang most of the songs and told me most of the parts of the program beforehand so I didn't feel like I missed too much.
Brooklyn received her "diploma" from Miss Barbara. They posed for a picture, but we were on the wrong side of the room. :)
She was excited to show it to her classmates. Too cute!
All done! I wish I would have been able to get a good picture of her "graduation procession". My dad tried to get a good picture, but wasn't able to. Apparently, she saw my dad and the camera and suddenly stopped and posed. That's my girl all right!
I'm glad my stepmom and dad were able to make it to support her. My dad kept closing his eyes because of flash so he ended up looking away. :) They took us to lunch afterward at Wendy's to celebrate.
My mom also took the day off work to be there. Thanks Mom! She took Brooklyn and I to see Kung Fu Panda 2 to celebrate later in the day. She also gave Brooklyn $5 to spend, but she wouldn't. She's my saver. She's ok with me spending my money on her, but she won't spend her own!
Her other grandparents were sick so they didn't make it.
Her is our family picture. Sadly, my dad shakes a lot anymore so the picture is a bit blurry. It works though. We gave her two books and the movie Gnomeo & Juliet. We were proud of our girl after the year started off with her not wanting to go at all.
And here is Brooklyn with Miss Barbara. She adores her teacher, but she's always a little shy around adults.

Bike riding

My niece is 13 and has been telling me for some time that she would like to give Brooklyn her old bike to ride. Before that, Brooklyn rode her tricycle or scooter everywhere because we didn't have a bigger bike for her. We didn't want to buy one if we were going to be handed down one. We got the bike in April and bought some training wheels for it. Marty finally put the training wheels on last week and let her ride.
We know of a lot of kids her age (or younger) that are riding bikes without training wheels, but this is her first experience on a bike so the training wheels will be here for awhile.
It's a 20 inch bike so it's a bit big for her still. She can't get on or off it by herself. It scares me to death to see her ride it! The helmet is mandatory.
She feels so big riding it. She looks big too!
She rode it from driveway to driveway over and over again. She fell one time because she was going too fast and trying to turn. She still wanted to ride it the next day. We just have to stay close to her because she can't reach the ground.
I want to get her a smaller bike, but Brooklyn wants to keep this one. I told her she could keep it, but we just needed a smaller one for now. We haven't bought one yet so we'll see what happens in the next few weeks.

Moab weekend

Right after Brooklyn's dance performance last Friday, we drove home because we forgot to pack a couple of things for our trip to Moab. We left our house at 9:30 pm and arrived in Moab at 1:30 am Saturday. We are insane, I know. I blame it all on Marty. ;)
The girls loved their new travel pillows. Only problem was they couldn't sleep too well with them. We gave the girls ice cream cones before we left which explains why Brooklyn has a chocolate mustache.
Eliza finally crashed around 11 pm. She's never been a good sleeper in the car.

We went to Moab because our bike team, the Zions Bank 'Z Team' had a training ride in Moab. We are fortunate to have Marty's little sister, Charlotte, live in Moab so we had a place to crash and someone to watch the girls while we ride.
I tried to talk Marty out of attending this ride because of Brooklyn's dance performance and the late night travel, but he wouldn't change his mind. Things didn't go so well the first little while that I began to wonder why we came. We arrived at Charlotte's house to a flat airbed that she had pumped up before going to bed. It was 1:30 am after all so we didn't want to wake up the rest of the house by fixing it. I slept on the couch and Marty slept on the floor. Then we were up at 7 am to our girls having the best of time in the other room. Let's just say no one sleep too well.
We arrived at our planned destination at 9:30 am to meet the rest of the team. Turns out, no one else came down. It was just us and Jim and Pat who live in Moab. Another couple told Marty they were coming so he didn't want to cancel the ride because he thought they were coming. They changed their mind at the last minute and never told Marty. I was frustrated, but made the best of it.
We rode our tandem and Jim and Pat went easy on us. We rode 28 miles. We had a lot of fun and there is nothing quite like riding in Moab. Beautiful! I'll post pictures of our ride later since I don't have that camera with me right now.
After the ride, we rested and then had dinner as a "team". Charlotte's family joined us as well.
Sunday we went to Charlotte's Stake Conference, ate dinner and headed home. On the way out of Moab, we stopped to show the girls a bridge we rode over on our bikes and thought they would love.
Brooklyn wanted to climb on the first rock she saw.
The girls were so excited to walk across the long bridge.
The water level is really high even in Moab.
While we were looking at the water, I thought our shadows were really cute so I made Marty take a picture.
Eliza was just too cute. She loved every second of it. Brooklyn started dropping rocks into the water and Eliza joined in. They could have done that for hours!
We asked the girls to get together for a picture and they both put their arms around each other. Love these moments!
Another angle of the bridge.
We, of course, needed a picture of us!
There were lizards everywhere. They were fun to watch!
On the way back to our truck, we gathered lots of bigger rocks. The girls loved actually hearing the rocks hit the water.
They had the best time. Eliza said "that was fun! Throw rocks in the water!" and when she said her prayers that night she was thankful for the rocks in the water. Oh, the simple things.
We all slept well in our beds Sunday night. Going away always make you appreciate your home that much more!

Brooklyn's Dance Performance

Her hair was done...
Her makeup on...
Her sister thought it was only fair to be included in the photo shoot...
Then it was time for dinner and to get dressed and off to the dance performance!
Friday was Brooklyn's dance performance at West Jordan Middle School. She loved the practice run on Tuesday night so she was so excited to be able to dance on stage again. When I asked if she was nervous, she said "no, it's fun!"
Madi Hawker and Brooklyn were in the same dance class. They loved being together!
They dance at Bonnie's School of Dance and I must say that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Ms. Bonnie and I was even more impressed by the dance program. Each class danced two different dances. The picture above is of their first dance. They danced to "I wanna be like you" by Smash Mouth. It was super cute. A part of the dance is included at the bottom of this post. They also danced to "You can't hurry love" by the Dixie Chicks and wore their pink costumes. I loved that she had costumes that she can wear again.
Brooklyn has learned so much this year. She did such a great job and I was one proud mama!
Eliza enjoyed her spot to watch the show.
The finale dance included all the dance classes and they danced to "Beautiful for Me" by Nichole Nordeman. Do me a favor and listen to this song on ITunes or Amazon. It makes me cry every time I hear it. Each dancer came out wearing a mask and during the dance, they took off the mask. Ms. Bonnie explained she wanted her "girls" to know that no matter what the worldly "mask" says about how they appear on the outside, that they are all beautiful. Something to that affect. I loved it! Brooklyn didn't quite understand it. She just loved the mask.
All of her grandparents came to support her. My mom left a little early since she had to serve in the temple bright and early the next day so sadly I have no picture with her.
Brooklyn wanted a picture of just her grandpa's too!
And of course a family picture.
Here is Brooklyn with Ms. Bonnie. Again, love her! We will be going back here next year. Inexpensive tuition, cheap costume and recital fees, modest costumes, a teacher trying to build self-esteem. What else could we ask for?
Below is my video from my point and shoot camera. It gets a little blurry when she moves too fast, but overall you can see how adorable it was. Too bad she's in the back on this dance. She was in the front on the other dance, but it was more blurry in my video. Hope it works, I've never uploaded a video on here before.

Curls

I finally invested in some foam curlers (I know, they cost so much huh? hehe). I thought they would come in handy having girls and all! I plan on using them mainly for dance performances and things, but it's fun to go curly just for fun too.
On Saturday night, I put the curlers in Brooklyn's hair to see what each size did to her hair. I was a little afraid she wouldn't sleep in them, but she did it without any problem.
All done and ready for pictures.

Some of them fell out during the night. I think I need to put them in tighter next time. Here she is all ready for church!
And from the back...
Eliza wanted her picture taken too. After looking at Brooklyn's pretty curls all morning, I decided to curl Eliza's hair. I just used a curling iron on her, but she really didn't want it curly so we didn't do too much.
Then I curled my own because I hardly ever do it and it was something fun and different.
And from the back. I really only did half of my hair, but it worked.