The Big Day! Ashley the Flower Girl

After 2 days of no naps, late bed times and evenings full of excitement (and playing with her Irish pal, Daniel) Tricia's wedding day arrived!

Thankfully, she did nap and it seemed to have paid off.  She was having lots of fun running around with the other flower girl, Fiona, who explained that she was the flower girl and Ashley was her assistant.  It was quite cute to watch the two of them run around in their matching dresses.

When time came to line up, I got nervous since I had no idea what she was going to do.  At rehearsal, she wanted to hold my hand and then ran down the aisle to me.  It was much better than expected.  Pete stayed in the "line up" with her and I sat in the front row.  She walked down going from aisle to aisle saying "mommy? mommy?"  Then she spotted me in the front and ran to me while all the guests laughed and awed at how cute she was.  Once she got to me, she gave me a hug and shouted, "DADDY!" and then ran all the way back to Pete.  It was very cute.

She was then whisked away as she was talking and we didn't want to disrupt the ceremony. Pete said she was running around in circles in the other room the entire time.  During pictures, we kept her entertained playing the piano and blowing on a kazoo (as the end of the ceremony had a surprise when the guests started singing "All you need is love" like the movie, "Love actually".)

The reception was fun, we spent much of dinner dancing with Ashley on the dance floor (they kept our dinners warm for us).  Her dancing involved pointing her fingers and throwing her arms to the air.  She had quite the time.

Ashley was picked up and spent the night with grandma and grandpa as well as most of the next day.  She had a lot to talk about including the wedding, her buddy Daniel from Ireland, and the day with grandma and grandpa.

We have a quiet weekend next weekend and the following weekend she will have visitors from Grammy, Poppy and Great-Grandmommy!  A few weeks later Auntie Laura will be visiting too!

Ashley can identify letters!

This morning Ashley correctly identified all the letters on my shirt, that spelled COTY BEAUTY.  I was in such shock that she did them all right that I asked her again and she got them all correct again!  I then asked her the letters on my diet Snapple bottle and she got those right (and some were lower case letters)!

I looked up at what age children can identify letters and at ages 3-4 children can identify some letters!  But, let's be honest, we knew she was smart!

Here's a link with ages for reading accomplishments:
http://www2.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/reader/part9.html

Pumpkin Patch

This year we went to Goebbert's Pumpkin Patch in Hampshire.  There was a lot to see besides pumpkins, including pigs, goats, a camel, giraffes, kangaroos and even tiger cubs!  And the list goes on!

Future Flower Girl!

Sneak Peak at Ashley's Flower Girl Dress that she will be wearing on October 28th for Tricia's wedding!!! Note that both feet are in the air!!

Game Day!

Looking Cute

First Dance Class!

Ashley started dance class today!  It's minutes away from us in the strip mall, just east of our neighborhood.  She has class once a week on Tuesdays from 11-11:30.  My parent's neighbors own the dance studio and Miss Jenny assists Miss Brittany in the class (I babysat Jenny and her younger siblings back in the day).

She didn't cry - until the end!  I had to carry her out of the dance room kicking and yelling!!

I tried to leave the room, but after a minute or two, she ran out looking for me.  There were several other mothers in the back of the room, so I just stuck around for most of the class.  The instructors said by the 3rd or 4th class they are typically comfortable so the moms do not need to be in the room.

From the other moms I spoke to, Ashley appears to be the youngest in the class, which explained why she wasn't participating as well as the others.  There was one girl that sat and barely moved for the entire class and one that cried for the first 10 minutes, so the fact that Ashley just observed, ran around and checked herself out in the mirror was better than I expected!  Of course, once we left she was talking about the wiggles song they played (she knew the dance, but didn't do it)

All-in-all, it was a good class!  I'm very happy it's 12 weeks since it'll be great for her to get used to it and still have more classes after that point.  With the park district programs we did, she would finally get comfortable and the class would be over!  If she likes it, we'll do it again in the winter/spring and she'll be in a recital in June!!!