DeLappenings: Retail & Recital Therapy!

After an über-tough week of me caring for sick babies and the hubby working long and stressful days--followed by another long night for me with Little Man, I woke this morning and said, "we're going to shop."

Nothing's better than a little retail family fun. So we loaded up three kids, headed to the largest mall in Dallas on the Saturday before Christmas...and our insanity paid off--ha.

(Oh, first, pause for a precious pic of Chicklet watching her morning cartoons while we got ready for our day.)

Okay...back to our retail adventures.

Attached to the mall is a wonderful restaurant that we go to for the occasional special brunch. It's known by us as the place with the Best Bacon In The Whole Wide World. Here's Chica sporting her glasses that we made out of the bendable silly sticks they give out instead of crayons.

After breakfast, we enjoyed a full (and furiously fast!) hour and twelve minutes of shopping! Ha. That's all the time we had, but it was more than plenty, and the girls had an absolute blast.

Then we kept to our schedule, raced back home, and prepared for the other main event of the day:

Chica's Very First (Holiday) Dance Recital!

Her costume was a simple, all white number, as they were snowflakes :) She was in heaven, though.

Even Chicklet could sense the excitement!

It was held at the local high school auditorium, and it was actually really fun going inside the school since we pass it all the time.

Here are the cutie pie snowflakes sitting against the wall backstage (squint your eyes to see them down there on the left, ha).

The sign said no parents backstage, but one of the instructors invited me back for a quick pic.

Here's the stage...

And Chicklet having a ball in the folding, theater-style seats.

And here's Little Man under the weather but still giving a smile of support! He decided he was hungry right as the performance was starting, so I raced off to feed him. But the hubby (and Chicklet) had to run and track me down, as the routines were going fairly quick and he didn't want me to miss Chica's!

I don't have any pics of the performance, as they weren't allowed. But I ordered a video and can't wait to have it in my hands.

She did SO GREAT, and was so precious up there on the stage with her classmates! There were no criers, and everybody danced. It was truly, truly precious. (Danced to the song "Here Comes Susie Snowflake.")

Chicklet was SO precious in the audience during the performance, too. As soon as she spotted her sister, she started waving (from our seats way in the back--ha) and saying, "hi." I die.

Here are the girls after.

And here they are playing outside the school in this amazing and random tornado of leaves! It was this cool vortex area somehow created by the wind and the building. So cool, and they were in heaven!