Birthdays and Ballerinas

In my excitement concerning beach pictures, I never did post about the rest of May's events. Selah's ballet recital was held the day before my birthday. My parents came up to see it and I made a big dinner of roast, mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuits, etc. My mom requested that the kids play piano for them since they weren't having a formal recital this year. It was a fun family day making memories.

Selah, after the recital with my gorgeous friend and her teacher, Mrs. Lynne! She danced beautifully and did so well up on the stage.

I hate that the only pictures I grabbed were blurry!

Thankfully, I have her official dance portraits, taken at the studio by Amy Puckett:

Following the ballet recital, we headed home and ate an early dinner, then went downstairs to the schoolroom for a piano recital. Kaity designed a beautiful program for the event. Each pianist played 2 selections, and they performed a duet.

Joe, playing "Festive March" and "Light and Blue".

A duet they developed themselves of "The Imperial March" from Star Wars.

Kaity playing "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera and "Gypsy Dance".

Then Jeff and Kaity played an impromptu duet of Chopsticks, just for fun.

German Chocolate Cake for dessert - my favorite birthday cake!

On the Friday after my birthday, I was unshowered, wearing no makeup and old clothes, packing stuff for our vacation, when I saw a car drive into our cul-de-sac. I thought, "That looks like Amber's car ... it IS Amber's car!"

My sweet friends Amber and Kim had conspired with my husband to take me out on a girls' night! I took fifteen minutes to throw myself together and we headed out the door to Athens. It was a really fun evening in which we spent my birthday money, ate dinner at my favorite restaurant and of course went to a bookstore for coffee. It was a delightful surprise!