Miss Firecracker -- Photo Essay

  PHOTO ESSAY CONTEST

Some of you may already recognize her, but this is my daughter, Shea.  As you can see from the photos, she has recovered quite well and is pretty much back to her normal self after having her tonsils removed just 2 1/2 weeks ago.  Of course she was plenty recovered enough to enter into our little community pageant held as part of the festivities every year at our Fourth of July celebration in the park.  There are 5 age categories - from babies to teens - and one boy and one girl from each age group are "crowned" with an appropriately festive title for the day.  Any child can enter and they are judged on presence, costume, and general cuteness.  The only "requirement" is for the kids to dress in red, white and blue - basically something patriotic and American.   The winners get the "glory" of parading their title for the day (;-), and riding on the fire truck in 2 major parades later in the summer.  Wooohooo!!  LOL ;-)

So here she is sitting in her "costume" before the pageant.  We dressed up her skirt a little with the string of red beads sewn on the seam.  Otherwise this is basically just one of her everyday school outfits.

And of course we had to paint her fingernails red, white, and blue.  Then we had to do her hair too.  All I did was put her hair up in 2 ponytails and tied about a yard's length each of red, white, and bule ribbons in a big bow around each ponytail.  Turned out really cute :-)!!  

 This is her being introduced to the judges - name, age, and where she is from.  The star is her "contestant" number.

And here she is lined up in front of the judges with her other "competitors".

They announce the runner up first, and that was the girl on the left in the picture.  Then they announce "Miss Firecracker" -- and Shea won!!   :-)

This is her being crowned and awarded her trophy.

              And this is the grin she had on her face as she came
                 over to me after recieving her crown!  Looks pretty
                happy about it, doesn't she!!  ;-)                    

Of course after she won, me being a mom with a digital camera (lol) had to take a few pictures of "Miss Firecracker" with her crown and trophy.  And of course, she told me that if she won, she was NOT going home to change, lol..... and she didn't.  She paraded in the park all day as "Miss Firecracker"!!  And she had a blast doing it too ;-)!!

Be sure to check out the details of the rest of our day celebrating the Fourth of July in the Park!