SEPTEMBER: A Month of Firsts

September was a month of a lot of firsts, especially for Melia.  Obviously she had her first haircut, which you saw in the previous post.  But there were some other firsts too.  She took her first ballet class, started preschool (going to a REAL preschool for the first time, rather than a co-op with me as a teacher), and she got her first BIG GIRL bed.  Evera, got his first real bed--he is out of the crib now.

Here's Melia ready for her first ballet lesson.

My little ballerina

 I took her to two different studios to decide which one I wanted to enroll her in.  The first one was super cute, but there was only one other girl in the class and they said they'd have to discontinue the class if no one else signed up.  Also, they didn't concentrate much on technique--it was just fun--like jumping like frogs and doing the bunny hop... which is great, but I did want her learning a little more technique than they were learning so I ended up going with the second studio which is where she is still taking lessons and I love it.  These pictures are from the first studio.

 It was a ballet / tap combo class--so here she is doing tap too.  :)

 And a big jump!

Here are some pictures of Melia's first day of preschool.  I ABSOLUTELY LOVE HER PRESCHOOL!

 Evera wanted to join in some pictures too.  :)

 When we dropped Melia off at school Evera was soooooo upset.  We walked her in and talked to the teacher for a few minutes, and then we left.  Oh my goodness, he would not stop crying.  He was so sad to leave her.

His frowns kill me. 

But he was a happy boy when we picked her up!  Right when we pulled up to the school he exclaimed, "Yea!  Mia!"

And one more "first day" picture for good measure--taken after school.

Seriously though, her preschool is so stinking adorable and every so often I get to pick up some cute character instead of just my sweet little girl.  This day, I got to picture up a little blue bird!  :)  (Letter B!)

 I bought a new bed for Melia on KSL and painted it.  Here she is dancing on the bed before I started working on it.

 She really didn't want me to put a mattress on it because it made such a great stage.

 She even insisted that she'd sleep on it just the way it was--no mattress necessary.

 In the end I think she's glad we put a mattress on top--with sheets and blankets and all.  :)  Unfortunately I haven't gotten any pictures since getting a bedspread on the bed...but these will have to do.  We ended up getting a white duvet and attaching the little pink blanket to the top of it (my Grandma Virginia made the blanket for my daughter and it has little cross stitched bunnies on it).  So just pretend the nasty grayish looking blanket that is on her bed in the below pictures is a nice fluffy white duvet.  :)

 She was bummed I painted the bed white--she really wanted pink.  But I think it looks nice.  :)

 And Evera got Melia's toddler bed.

He slept pretty well in his new big boy bed.  :)

 He loves his new toddler bed.  :)  (And while we're looking at this picture...that dresser is Mike's old dresser from when he was a kid.  It was white and Mike's mom re painted it for us when I was pregnant with Evera and I antiqued and distressed it.  I looove it!

 And here the cute little guy is with his "Baby Aah-non" (Baby Arden).  After Mike's ex wife, Mandy, had her baby, Arden, Evera started pretending that this little Baby Belle doll of Melia's was Baby Arden.  Then he became inseparable from it and sleeps with it every night.  He LOOOOOVES "Baby Aah-non."