Fabulous Day

Today was the "Mini Olympics" at gymnastics. Ally was a bit nervous about it since she has missed the last 2 weeks of classes while we were in Florida. But wow did she rally and she was AMAZING. Her teacher was thrilled - and told us we need to have an audience for Ally every week!

Here she is with 2 other girls from her class waiting for their turn to perform. The way the program works is the younger (or more inexperienced) go first and then they work their way up. Ally's class is the highest level for this time slot, which meant they were last. I imagine she had no nails left to bite by the time it was her turn to perform.

Here she is on the bar. She did the hip circle and forward roll ALL BY HERSELF. This is so huge. Her teacher could not contain her excited and said to the girl after Ally "she just did all by herself". Jenn - her coach spotted her a bit on the first circuit and the the second time it was all just spotting and Ally did the entire thing with her own body and momentum. We've watched the video a bunch of times already and Ally is so proud of herself - she gets a huge smile and she told me the first time we watched "I like this one best (the 2nd time)...I did it all by myself." Such a big grown up girl.

I did take a video of the whole thing on our better camera and Becky took these on Ally's camera so we would have some pictures for the blog. I can't seem to get video up loaded well on the blog. If I did not send you the link to the video and you want to see it leave a comment or email and I'll share the video.

On the beam.

jumping to a handstand position

This is Ally's class - one girl was missing - but yes this is who she practices with every week. And the two girls on the right are 9 years old. I think the blonde girl is 6.

Another great thing is that Ally's friend River from our neighborhood group has his class at the same time as Ally and her performed today as well. Ally thought that was neat since they also did the year end show together last June. Friends are such a good thing.

After the program ended they had a short practice. Here she is waiting for her turn on the tumble track where at the end her coach helps her do a front handspring.

the handspring Ally was so thrilled she skipped all the way back to do it again

Then it was on to the big beam. Look at our big girl all by herself on the tall beam.

Ally reminds me its not the really tall beam - the regulation one is about 6" higher.

It was really great - we got to stay in the gym the whole time and could really see what she does.

After class - with her ribbon for taking part in the Mini Olympics

Ally took our picture

Then it was on to celebration time. We asked Ally this week what she wanted to do after gymnastics to celebrate her Olympics. She thought about it a lot a couple times and finally said "cupcakes". Because of course celebration requires cupcakes.

Becky and I thought too and came up with a few more ideas. Here is our day:

We went to the movies - we saw S.ecret World of Arietty - I highly recommend it. Ally is sitting with her "Booey Bear" Grandma Barbie gave her this red bear for Valentine's Day and Ally named it "Booey". He joined us for the post gymnastics celebration.

After the movie it was off to Ally's pick of restaurant for lunch - Panera of course.

We stopped at the toy store and then it was to a local cupcake bakery for cupcakes.

At the toy store Ally got a new book - its an I Can Read book and it turns out Ally can read a lot of it!

She was so tired she fell asleep in the car on the way home.

But when she woke up it was time to eat our cupcakes. We each picked out own flavor. Ally's was vanilla with white butter cream frosting. Mine was chocolate with chocolate frosting.

Ally loved hers

She ate every bite.

Becky's was a mocha-cino cupcake - and she ate every bite as well.

This afternoon at home we did some crafts, played with the dollhouse, and enjoyed quite time together as a family.

What a great day.