abc...123

When faced with a sudden wardrobe malfunction during her recent dance recital Olivia told me that she just, "kept on dancin'!". And she did exactly that! Olivia had been practicing her tap routine since last fall, anticipating the chance to get back on the "big stage" to perform again. The week leading up to her recital we practiced her routine every night. It helped that it was a song that she really grew to love over the months...ABC-123 by the Jackson 5. After showing her a video of the Jackson 5 performing that song on American Bandstand she looked at me and said, "Who is that singing, mommy?" When I told her it was Micheal Jackson she looked at me with the most confused look on her face. She has always liked Micheal Jackson's music so I wasn't quite sure how to explain that the little boy singing that super cute song was the same man she has seen on TV and listened to in the car. She is obsessed with the song and walks around the house singing it or listening to it on her CD player.

I was super busy the weekend of Olivia's recital because I am a teacher at Northeast School of Dance. The recital was being held the Saturday and Sunday of Fathers Day weekend and I had to be there both days for the rehearsals and evenings for the actual performances. Olivia's class was performing on Sunday so I took her with me to the rehearsal that morning. Olivia has made friends with a few of the girls in her class and they have enjoyed dancing with each other all year. Here she is with a few of her little friends as they wait their turn to rehearse.

It was the first time the kids were wearing their costumes and practicing their routine on a big stage. Even though it was just a run-though I snapped a ton of pictures and tried to hold back my tears of joy as I watched my little girl do the same thing I did at that age! Olivia is very comfortable on the stage and seems to enjoying performing...shocking, right? Not only is she a pretty good little tapper, she has great stage presence as well. All of the kids did a great job with their run-through, which made me even more excited for her actual performance that night.

We arrived a little early to the recital so I could get her ready backstage. I made sure her hair was super curly that night and for the first time I put just a dab of blush and lip gloss on her so she would show up on stage. Putting make-up on a three year old is no easy task! Once she was all "made up" I decided to do a mini photo session with her. She was just so stinkin' cute that I couldn't put my camera down.

Once the rest of her little tap dancing friends arrived we did a group photo. How cute are these girls? Next we sent them backstage and I dashed out front so I could watch from the audience.

Olivia was so excited to perform, especially knowing that me, her Dad, her Nana and our good friend Cindy were watching in the audience. As she was walking on stage her little hat slipped off and fell around her neck. It was still dark and I could see her try to get someone to notice what happened so the hat could be fixed before the music started. But no one noticed and as the lights came up and the music started Olivia was dealing with an official wardrobe malfunction. I thought for sure she would panic and not dance with that hat hanging around her neck. I felt terrible for her until the music started and she started dancing like a pro. If was as if the hat was not even there. I was surprised because we never talked about what to do if something happened to her costume while she was on stage. I was so completely impressed with the lever of maturity she displayed. She did not let that hat get in her way of performing a dance she had worked all year to learn. And she performed like a pro I might add. I was one proud mommy!

The most important thing is that she had a good time out there. She did not let a little problem get in her way of enjoying her performance. When she got off stage I asked her what happened with her hat? She said, "I don't know, but I couldn't stop dancin'!" She was pretty proud of herself. Now that I am teaching at the dance studio she has become a favorite of all of the dance girls I teach. She loves being at the studio and watching the older kids practice. I hope she enjoys growing up at that dance studio the same way I did. I have a feeling she will. It was another successful recital for Olivia. Take a bow!

Now dance is over until August, and although she is still practicing her dance whenever she gets the chance, we have been busy with other things. Her main summer activity has been soccer. She said she wanted to try it this summer so we signed up her through the local Parks & Rec department. She just completed the first session and she liked it so much she will be going back for the second session next week!

The coaches are so great and Olivia loves them. Her favorite is Coach Yahya. He is a tall, skinny African man and all of the kids seem to love him the best. You can tell he is a great soccer player but he really seems to enjoying teaching the kids. She has learned many of the basic soccer skills, some coming easier to her than others. They play games and the parents even get involved sometimes. It has been a great summer activity for her and she is learning a lot too.

It is hard to believe that we are in July already. I have only scratched the surface of all the things Olivia has done so far this summer. She is one busy girl, but she seems to like it that way. I am always cautious that I may be putting too much on her, but so far she has loved every activity. I want her to experience as many things as possible and get as much out of her young years, before life starts getting difficult. So what's next? Stay tuned!

school's out for summer!

Hard to believe that Olivia has just finished her second full year of school. She's only three, for crying out loud, but you would think she was about to head into kindergarten. I think she wishes she was moving into kindergarten with some of the older kids from her class. Next year Olivia will no longer be the youngest in her class. With new kids coming in Olivia will love nothing more than showing them around the classroom and putting her very strong leadership skills to use.

I look at pictures from when Olivia started her first year at Three Rivers Montessori and compare them to what she looks like now, as she finishes her second year. It is amazing how much our little girl has grown, not just physically but developmentally as well. Since the beginning of the school year she has learned how to write her name, point out and name all 7 continents, how to mix certain colors to make other colors, count by 10's up to 100, and at the end of the year she officially read her very first word (more on that later). Needless to say we are very proud of her and how hard she worked this year. She also built some great friendships with the kids in her class. Overall it was a great school year for Olivia and I know she is very excited to go back in the fall.

On the last day of school the kids had their Field Day. It was a day full of fun and games and just goofing off before having to say good-bye for the summer. I stopped by the school for a few minutes that day so I could snap a few pictures of Olivia having fun with her friends. They were all very sweaty from their many races, but the smiles on their faces showed they were clearly having a great time!

After the games were over they went inside to cool off for a bit and finished the day on the playground where they would have a picnic lunch. Olivia was having so much fun with her friends that she did not care one bit that I had to head back to work. Before I left I snapped a picture of Olivia with her teacher, Ms. Laura. I think it is my favorite picture from the day! She loves Ms. Laura so much and she has been so good to Olivia this year. We are so lucky to have such an amazing teacher guiding Olivia during this important time in her life. Olivia will be attending summer camp at her school a few weeks this summer. It is a great program because they do a ton of fun outdoor things, while still learning in the process. She will get to see her teacher again while also spending some time with the other teachers. It is a great way to keep Olivia's routine somewhat regular, even during the summer months.
So I am usually always using the blog as a way to keep everyone up to date on things Olivia has been up to. Since leaving the baby and toddler stages in the dust I rarely talk about milestones or ways in which Olivia is changing. Although she is still growing and changing it does not happen as quickly as it did in the first few years. But things still happen on a daily basis which make me stop and say, "I have got to talk about that on the blog", and of course by the time I get around to my blog I have forgotten that memorable moment. So while I am thinking of it I am going to mention a few things that describe who Olivia is at this moment.

1.) Olivia is currently obsessed with what defines a naughty word. She has heard other kids say words that they should not and she has developed a curiosity in knowing which words are good and which ones are bad. She comes to me numerous times a day asking, "Mommy is ___ a good word or a bad word?". Most of the time the words are just normal, every day words, but occasionally she comes to me with a questionable word that she knows she should probably not repeat. So far none of the words have been terrible, thank goodness, but she is cracking me up with this. Her curiosity is adorable and I am proud of her for being able to distinguish the difference between which words are OK for her to say and which ones she should avoid. Hopefully her language will continue to remain on the clean side!

2.) Olivia has recently become infatuated with mermaids. Not exactly sure why, but I think it has something to do with a Dora book we read awhile back. She thought it was fascinating that this girl in the book had a fin instead of feet and she LOVED her long flowing hair. Since then she has been talking about how she wants to be a mermaid one day. I told her that the best I could do is try to make her a mermaid costume for Halloween. She loved that idea! Now she has a few different mermaid bath toys and she is determined to have a mermaid birthday party this year. Who knows, maybe this obsession with mermaids will disappear as soon as she finds the next best thing, but for now it is all about mermaids!

3.) I am very excited to report that during the last week of school Olivia read her very first word! While working on her reading with her teacher she recognized and read the word "at". May not seem like a big deal to most, but it is a big deal for us to see our 3 year old little girl reading her first word! Her teacher then worked with her on adding letter in front of "at" to create other words. She is now able to read...bat, hat, cat, rat, mat, fat and a few others. We are proud of her but she is also very proud of herself. She is doing a great job of sounding out words and putting letters together. Watching your child learn to read is a pretty fascinating thing.

4.) The last thing I want to share is that I currently have the most honest child on the planet. She spills the beans on everything and constantly feels the needs to tell us when she has done something wrong. She does not try to hide it or act like she did not do it. No, she immediately comes to us and says, "Mommy, I did or said ___!" It is too funny. It is as if whatever she has done weighs so heavily on her conscience that she cannot possibly keep it to herself. Most of the time she confesses to things that do not even warrant a confession. The funniest part is the look on her face when she is giving her confession...so innocent! What are the odds that she will always be that honest with us? I think the bigger question is what do Todd and I need to do to be able to keep her that honest? The might just be the parenting question of the century!

Our summer is officially in full swing. There is so much going on. Olivia started soccer last week. (More on that in the next post). She has also been doing a lot of swimming at Uncle VJ's...lovin' that! Next weekend is Olivia's dance recital and Father's Day, and that following weekend we have graduation parties for two of Olivia's cousins! It is a crazy busy month. I think things start to slow down a bit after that which means we can sit back and relax and enjoy the summer!

aunt sue sue comes to visit

Olivia loves her Great Aunt Sue Sue. So she was beyond thrilled to learn that she would be coming to visit for an entire week. I decided to take the week off from work so that we could all do fun things together. Olivia had school all week but we planned to do things in the afternoons. From the second Sue arrived they were BFFs. and they were inseparable all week!

First on the agenda was taking Aunt Sue Sue to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. Each year Sue gets us our zoo pass for Christmas. It is the best gift and we get so much use out of it each year. Olivia really wanted to take Sue to the zoo and show her all of her favorite animals. It was a beautiful day and we got some amazing up close views of the animals. One of the highlights was the crazy close look we got at "Bill" the lion. He was very outgoing that day and came right up to the glass. It was very exciting. All of the animals were active that day, which made for a very entertaining trip to the zoo!

Each time we visit the zoo Olivia begs to go on the "rides". We usually let her choose one per visit. Well this was a special trip to the zoo so she got to choose two special rides! Her first choice was the horses. Last year Olivia developed an affinity for one very cute little horse named, Gayle. Each time she rode the horses she would request Gayle, and she quickly become one of Olivia's favorites. So of course she was thrilled to see that Gayle was at the zoo again this year. She was so excited to be reunited with her and she even more excited to go for a ride!

Since we have a zoo pass we rarely take time to go through the entire zoo in one day, but that day we did. The weather was gorgeous and we were all having a great time. We saw and did everything! Olivia was thrilled to show Sue Sue all of her favorite animals. It was almost as if my Mom and I were not even there. The day was all about Sue Sue!

Another thing Sue wanted to do while she was here was visit Olivia's school and spend a little time in her classroom. My Aunt has experience as a teacher and has worked with young children before so she was interested to see what kinds of things Olivia did her in classroom. My Mom came up with the great idea of decorating cookies with the kids. They were in the middle of a unit on art so it gave the kids the perfect opportunity to be little artists and decorate their own masterpieces. I tagged along to take pictures as the kids took turns in groups designing their cookies. As you can imagine the activity was a huge hit and the kids had a blast! Olivia was thrilled to be able to show Aunt Sue Sue her classroom and introduce her to all of her friends.

Our week of fun continued as we took a trip to the Botanical Conservatory to see the butterfly exhibit. This was something we had wanted to do for awhile but we heard mixed reviews. We heard that there were not many butterflies and that it was not really worth the trip. We thought we would give it a shot anyway with the hope that we would be able to see some beautiful butterflies. It turned out to be so much better than we expected. Olivia wanted to bring her binoculars with her so she could really get a close look. They were all kept in a large white tent and there were quite a few different kinds for us to see. It was pretty cool and Olivia was totally into it!

While we were exploring the tent a woman came up to Olivia and I and asked if she could take some photos of us. She was with one of our local newspapers and she was doing a story about things to do during Mother's Day weekend. As we left she to look in the Friday paper to see if any of the photos were used. That Friday was my birthday and I woke up to see this super cute photo in the "Weekender" section of The Journal Gazette. It was the perfect Birthday present!

"Olivia Menor, 3, looks for butterflies at Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory’s “Butterflies & Fairies” exhibit. Visiting moms will get a free plant Sunday."

It was another jam packed day and Olivia was pretty exhausted. Before heading home for a nap we promised her we would stop for ice cream. This is by far one of Olivia's favorite summer treats. She is still mastering the skill of eating an ice cream cone without getting it all over herself. It is quite a sight, but she is in pure heaven!

Later that afternoon my Mom and Sue took Olivia to her tap class. I thought it would be nice for them to take her so they could see her dance. Olivia was more than happy to show off her tap dance moves for her Aunt Sue Sue. Next month Olivia will be performing in her second dance recital. She is just as excited as she was last year to get back up on the big stage. This is an exciting year for me too as I started teaching at the dance studio and I have my first class performing. So I will not only be there as a proud parent, but also as a proud teacher.

We packed a lot of fun things into the week Aunt Sue Sue was in town. We had some nice family dinners and spent a lot of time playing, reading books and just being silly...all of Olivia's favorite things! Olivia did not want Aunt Sue Sue to go home. She even plotted ways to try and get her to stay longer. But Sue had been traveling for three weeks and really had to get back to California. We all had a great time during her visit and we will miss her very much. Olivia is already talking about her next trip to California. According to her she is going to take a plane ride all by herself out to California. Hmmm...something tells me that she is not exactly ready for that quite yet. But we are always up for a trip out to California, so maybe we will be visiting sooner rather than later. I do know that Olivia will miss her Aunt Sue Sue terribly until we get to see her again.