Samantha's International Prince and Princess Pageant

Twice a year Sami does an all natural pageant in Stamford, CT. We stay for the weekend while she competes in informal beauty, formal beauty, model wear, interview, and she has to make up a commercial. The panel of judges are made up of former contestants and talent scouts from NYC.

This is her fourth year doing it, and we always have a blast win or lose. This year she did so well. We were so proud of her. She won interview, received 2nd runner up for beauty and 1st runner up for model wear. In addition, all contestants have to make up a commercial. This is for the judges to see how you'd do in the world of acting. Samantha blew us away with her confidence along with the awards she received for this. She got best overall commercial, most original, and best costume (thanks to my wonderful friend Lesley who is a costume designer).

We are not allowed to take photos or videos during the pageant, so these videos and photos were taken either at home or in the hotel.

Here is her commercial:

For informal beauty all contestant's wear the same T-shirt and can dress anyway they want...

For model wear she wore a sundress and straw hat. The video for this is taken in the hotel lobby before she went on.

The last category of the day was formal beauty....

Lucky Reece is away in North Carolina with a friend for spring break, but Randy, RJ, my parents, and of course myself went to cheer on our #1 girl. Here are some miscellaneous photos of Sami with family and friends.

Sorry about the clarity and choppiness of the videos.  We used Sami's camera which isn't the greatest for these purposes. 

Thanks so much for letting me take time from decorating to share my proud mommy moment with all of you. I promise, "back to normal DIY business" tomorrow....

UPDATE TO THIS POST SEVERAL HOURS AFTER POSTING IT

Unfortunately I just received a not so nice email:

No longer care to subscribe to the blog of someone who would allow their daughter to participate in this activity. Your right and all that but my right to stop my exposure to this skewed value system.
Have a good day!


I started my blog a few months back to help others with inexpensive ways to decorate along with trying to teach how to do projects on your own to avoid high costs and save some money. Soon after my journey began, I became immediate friends with so many of you. I felt that we began to share not only our love for decorating, but we have gotten to know each other on personal levels and have even gotten to know each others family members through our blogs. Although I try to stay on topic, I do not decorate every day and sometimes share my personal life with you.

Yes, my daughter does natural pageants. Yes, we have all seen Toddlers and Tiaras. For those of you who haven't, it is a documentary show of children and their parents being followed on camera the weeks before and of a pageant. They show the most dramatic bratty children along with parents who push their children to the limits. This show and some past stories have given pageants a bad name. Trust me, there are children out there who play the flute with not so great temperaments along with pushy parents. They just haven't made a show for this yet.

My husband and I are loving parents who revolve their lives around their children. We give them the freedom to choose if they want to do pageants, sports, modeling, skateboarding, chess, academic activities, etc. If they decide they don't want to do something, they don't have to. Our family is very open and we tell it like it is.

To have someone just send me that email bothers me for these reasons. They have decided to judge me based on knowing nothing about me. They have decided to judge me based on something they may or may not have experienced. They have decided to label something I have personally done as a "skewed value system". In my response to her, I asked her how she knew the system was skewed. She did respond telling me she has actually experienced pageants. Confused though???? Still don't know how she can label what I personally do as skewed. Don't think she has been anywhere I have been?

Throughout our lives we will all experience fixed systems, bad teachers, bad coaches, inappropriate parents, and personal skewed systems. BUT, we have no right to judge others and the choices they make based on their own decisions.

Normally I do not care what others think of me. I know that what I do for my family is the right thing. But, this email I received got to me for the reason that people can be so shallow. Many times our children grow up to be judgmental and bullies because of parents who teach us to perceive others in negative ways. I feel this is what this person has done. Of course when I wrote this post I had NO intention of having to write any of this. Unfortunately I felt the need to though to let the ignorant know that unless you have facts, please do not make assumptions. I can't even imagine a fellow blogger telling me that their son plays the trumpet and me emailing me to tell them I will no longer be subscribing to their blog because I disagree with parents who let their kids play instruments. Or if my child personally had a bad experience with the trumpet or director.

I can't even begin to describe how much I appreciate my followers, subscribers, and comments. This blog has become a huge asset to my life. My mind was just totally blown just now when I received this email.

Thanks for taking the time to read my EXTRA LONG post.....