Ballerina Baby

It has begun.  The years of being a taxi service for the children, their friends, and their after school activities has started.  Boy does it start early!

John David has played T-Ball for the past 2 years and since Harrison will turn 4 before May 1st, he will be old enough to play this year.  To be fair, that meant Ella needed an activity too.  She can play T-Ball with Harrison if she wants, but ever since going to a friend's dance recital last spring, she has been dying to take ballet.  Of course, the former ballerina in me loved that she was asking to take ballet.  Watching the gymnastics this summer during the olympics put a slight wrench in the desire to take dance class.  Once she saw the gymnastics she really wanted to do that instead.  I must say, I seriously thought about gymnastics instead of dance.  We may change our minds in future years.  Ella has ridiculous upper body strength.  She could go all the way across the monkey bars on the playground at school before she turned 3.  Ballet won out in the end though.  The studio where she is taking classes is right around the corner from our house making it super convenient, always a plus, and is extremely reasonable price wise, as in half the price of gymnastics each month.  As she gets older, we may change our minds and switch to gymnastics but at this point she is really excited about dance class.  It is very low key.  Only 30 minutes a week.  Technically it isn't even called ballet but creative movement, but to her, it is ballet and she is a ballerina princess.  She's happy.  Mommy's happy.  And actually the boys are happy.  So far they have really enjoyed watching Ella's classes through the windows.

Here are a few shots of my ballerina baby at her first class.  She was a little hesitant at the beginning but warmed up quickly enough.

She's listening intently.

A slightly closer shot.  Still listening intently.  Love how you can see me taking the picture in the reflection from mirror .

Tiptoe

Boy can she jump

Picking out her sticker at the end of class.  This might have been her favorite part of dance.

All smiles after class is over.