Labels: beach, Madalyn, photography, pics, pictures, sugar and spice, summer

This is Madalyn with her BFF, Madelyn ("Maddie.") 

For the past few months Madalyn went home with her from school and then to gymnastics...

and by the time she crawled into our car after I got Evan, at about 3:30, she was more than a tad over-tired and cranky.  But slept well.

These pictures were from one of the parent observation days.

There are a million of them.   

And that was after narrowing it down.  The light was horrible- as in non-existent, so adjust your eyes for some blur.

Here they are doing stretches.  They do the CUTEST routine.  They say all of these little imaginative things when doing these stretches... about how they're putting jewels on their mermaid tails and all sorts of girly things like that.

I know I'm her mother but I can't help myself- I mean does she, or does she not have the prettiest fingers, most like the instructor's?

I had NO IDEA she could do a pancake split until I snapped this shot (with my jaw dangling open.)  I could do splits when I was in gymnastics, but never perfect pancakes like this-

You go, little miss thang.

Now her vaulting abilities are looking more like mine did.  I always ran flat-footed.  I remember my dad trying to teach me to run more on my toes and I never quite could master it.

But who cares when you have such a pretty finish?

And Lord have mercy, she has NO SENSE around trampolines.  Never mind if someone is already ON it and it's only 2 feet wide, never mind if it's not kind to the knees to jump off a tower down onto one... no fear is her motto.

But wasn't life good when you were too innocent to be fearful?

Oh my... look at that tongue...

I should talk to her about that...

before she bites it off.

\

Now here she is doing what she's told.

And again.

And in this one, not so much.  She is supposed to be sitting and watching Maddie who instead is watching her breaking the rules from the other bar upside down.

But she had some perfecting to do... you know, pushing herself, striving to be all that she can be, just like Nadia.  (Well Nadia and Rocky and the Tiger off Frosted Flakes, and the entire US Army.) 

This is how Olympian-bound gymnasts ARE.  They can't help it.

It makes me feel so good to know my child is not the only one who contorts and spasms in seizure-like fashion like Maddie is doing in this picture.  Forget fretting over a possible trampoline neck injury when they can get one just waiting in line like this, am I right?

No one was quicker to bow than she was.

So quick she has four eyes in this picture.  And two noses.

Now you can see the other girls starting to bow.

Posing for a picture from the paparazzi moms.

Caught someone else's flash in this one and am sort of wishing I used my flash all along, as not ideal as flash lighting may be...

And then we called it a wrap.  And after keeping Jack and Evan quiet for an hour by stuffing their faces with juice boxes and crackers and shoving matchbox cars and electronic games in their hands, and picking up crumbs, and freaking out over leaving my camera there in the gym... she was not the only one who slept well that night.                                     

Labels: adventures in sports, Madalyn, pics, pictures, sugar and spice