Gracie’s First Beauty Pageant

I’m not really a big beauty pageant mom… in fact, this was in 2007 and it is the only “pageant” she’s ever been in.

This is when we still lived in Carroll County I couldn’t wait to enter her into the Carroll County Cutest Baby contest. I’d been dreaming of having a daughter in the contest since I competed in the Miss Carroll County contest many years before I became a Mom.

I was still working at the bank at the time and this dress was made by one of my sweet customers for Gracie as a gift. I still have it in my closet and can’t wait to see if Khloe will be small enough to fit in it. And oh…to think of future grandbabies in this dress… it’s just too much! I just love the dress so much!

This is out in the hallway, trying to keep her happy before the pageant started. That profile always melted my heart! Those big eyes… and those chubby little cheeks…

On the stage

With Mamma.

She was the youngest one in her division that year and she was chosen as one of the finalists, but she did not place.

Probably because she almost gave the judges (and all of the crowd) a heart attack… I had let go of her hand when she walked out for the finalists walk and let her walk around a little bit by herself. She walked toward the edge of the stage and I just hung back a little bit. Then she took off running full blast towards the end of the stage! I took off after her as fast as I could, but there’s no way I could’ve caught her before she ran right off the edge. But, she stopped on a dime right at the edge and just peered over it. You could hear the whole crowd exhale! And then everyone laughed. I was both relieved and mortified… :)

It was fun though. Probably not so much for her, but for her Mom, it was fulfilling a dream I’d always had. I got it out of my system and that was that. The next pageant she does is the one where she’s old enough to ask me if she can do it!

And it was just last week, when she saw these pics, that she asked me if she could be in another beauty pageant. Here we go… she’s growing up on me…