mary and her little lamb go to a sock hop

friday was kindergarten nursery rhyme day. each kindergartner chose a nursery rhyme and came to school dressed as a character from their rhyme ready to recite it for the class.

mary and her little lamb during the kinder parade. abbie giggled the whole time and clearly loved the attention!

most kids wimped out and were too scared to actually share their rhyme but abbie was happy to volunteer

here she is with the other two girls who had been too scared to go but had also planned to be mary's. abbie volunteered to lead the crew and the other girls reluctantly agreed. somehow when they all were reciting together it turned into a song. oh well.

i think abbie's mary costume was the best, she was even willing to let me put sponge curlers in her hair the night before (though once they were in she was like, "wait, i have to sleep in these?)

...later that evening we headed back over to the elementary school for the annual River Ridge Valentine's Sock Hop school fundraiser

six cool cats ready to cut a rug

(the school somehow got five retro cars to park outside the school for families to get their pictures with....don't judge me for my boys white shirts, the only plain white t-shirts they have are their undershirts which are meant to be small)

there were balloons everywhere at the dance and the kids were clamoring to get their hands on them all night. next year i hope the decorating committee can come up with another idea because as the night wore on every kid at the dance became obsessed with getting his/her own balloon. there were fights, tears, and drama.

getting some calories in before getting their groove on

with that ponytail she could have been a fifties girl for sure

i was holding lexie on my lap but not monitoring what she was doing, i was too busy chatting. when i did finally glance down i realized she had helped herself to almost an entire slice of pizza!

jitterbug dance lessons with mom

perfectly paired dance partners

really getting into it

they were pretty good, maybe i should rent them out for parties...

ruby was one of the lucky kids who ended-up with a balloon but she had to keep running through the crowd or else other kids would steal it

dance lexie dance!

clapping for the band

comparing treats, push pop vs. ring pop...bracken chose the ring...hmm...

one tough guy

(he was not too happy that i kept wanting to roll his sleeves but once he had his push pop he was more willing to allow costume adjustments)

a dancing daddy dip

abbie and her girlfriends doing the cha-cha slide

(i guess the electric slide is out)

lexie flying past. she was a blur all night long, running, dancing, and on-the-go!

once lexie discovered these decorations all she cared about for the rest of the night was getting them taken down, one piece at a time

why must you always ruin my fun mom? i'm sure the clean-up committee won't mind me taking some decorations down

the bunny hop

the girls weren't too happy about stopping their fun to have their picture taken but I really wanted some shots of the girls in their poodle skirts that i spent all afternoon making

i had to grab ruby as she ran past and pull her down to be in this picture, if only she had been facing towards the camera i could have gotten all of my pink ladies together

lexie getting a lecture from me on why she can NOT go on the stage with the live band. i think she wanted to be the back-up dancer (she definitely has the moves for it).

it's hard to tell in this picture but the girls are crying...it was a long fun night but basketball games and team pictures were slotted to start early the next morning, tears mean it's time for bed!