first recital!

I never realized how much goes into a recital. It was a whole week of activities. First up: photos. I was volunteering that day, so Eva got to sit and watch some of the other classes getting their pictures taken and having a quick rehearsal.

One of the older dancers was helping to pose the girls. Check out Eva's expression. Can't wait to get those photos!

Then they had a quick rehearsal, in costume. Eva was so enthralled with her reflection in the mirror, it was hard to concentrate on the routines.

The real dress rehearsal on stage was a few days later. Then we had two nights of performances.

Eva could not have been more thrilled about wearing makeup (a first for her). She told me that she's going to look like that every day when she's grown up. She's going to be a beautiful paleontologist. I think she's wondering why I don't wear bright red lipstick.

On Friday night, I was a chaperone for the little girls in the green room. Oh my. I was in charge of 10 girls, but there were 32 in the room. It started out with the girls calmly coloring and watching DVDs, but the chaos increased steadily over the course of the 3 1/2 hours we were there.

In addition, one of the bees I was responsible for (a 3-yr.-old) kept making a run for it. I was thoroughly exhausted by the end!

They were hilarious to watch on stage, though. Here they are doing their hip hop routine!

On Saturday night, I got to just sit in the audience and watch, what a relief!

Grandma and Grandpa came to watch, along with Aunt Michelle, Kristen, and Nicole. (And Max and Lucas, of course. Marc was out of town.) She had a veritable cheering section.

I could not stop giggling. Eva found us in the audience and stole a wave or two.

I gave her a little coaching about smiling while on stage, but she insisted she couldn't possibly think about dancing and smiling at the same time. She became quite worried about the task. Finally I told her to just have fun and her face would reflect that. Good grief.

During one of our walks to and from the stage, she caught a glimpse of these two dancers and was enraptured by their toe shoes. She now has a goal.

It was terribly disappointing to her to not be able to see any of the "big ballerinas" in the show. Apparently we will have to buy the DVD so she can see all that she missed.

Again with the nonstop giggling.

I love how this shot captures the little ones and their fascination with the bubbles coming down. They simply couldn't tear themselves away long enough to take their bow. And one of the older girls behind them is scolding them and pointing to try to get them to turn around – too funny.

When it was all over, I gave her a single rose and her grandparents gave her a ballerina bear from Build-a-Bear. I'm pretty sure it was the best night of her life thus far.