This weekend was the dance recital for the studio we attend. It’s always a wonderful show that is amazingly well put on. Recital for our studio consists of two days and three shows. Not every class or dance is in every show. The younger kids and the more beginning classes have only one performance between the three shows. The older and more advanced, the more performances.

This year was Phoebe’s FOURTH year in ballet. She has advanced a level every single year (so far) and loves it. She started out in pre-ballet and moved through beginning, level A and this year, level B. Prior to this year, she had only one performance. This year, she was in two. Phoebe did an amazing job and we are very proud of her. The only thing, really, is that when in her dance, they do a turn, she does two or three instead of one. She says that she can’t help it, that she just loves to spin. We joked (a bit) that while she was advanced to level C for the next year, they’ll probably be choreographing more spinning/turning in the routine, just for her. (No, we don’t really believe that.)

Alex decided that since she loved the dancing she was doing while in Oklahoma! last fall, that she wanted to take dance classes also. She was already in the musical theatre class at the dance studio, and she added beginning tap and beginning lyrical (she wanted ballet, but this was all there was available by this time in the year). When it came closer to the end of the dance year, she also signed up to do the opening and closing shows for the recital (which meant all three shows, just for that part!). She also did extremely well and we are very, very proud of her as well. She advanced to level C of musical theatre and lyrical and to level A in tap.

Three super busy weekends in a row are now over! (Two Cinderella Kids performance weekends, followed by recital!) Phew!

Where has the time gone? Seven years ago today, my baby girl was born.

Today will be spend having lunch at Red Robin (her all-time favorite place…still!) and some more dance recital rehearsal activities (Phoebe’s was yesterday, Alex has one this afternoon and one tonight). I can’t imagine how life would be without her in ours, she definitely makes things interesting!

Happy 7th Birthday to my darling baby girl! 
I love you very much! 

Phoebe has had a wonderful journey for the past three months!

She auditioned for a role in the local community theatre’s production of ‘Disney’s Cinderella Kids’ back in March. After a call back, she had the role of one of the adorable little mice in the Mouse Chorus.

It has been a wonderful three months of making new friends and learning new things! When she first tried on her costume for a fitting, she was slightly disappointed that she was the blue mouse rather than the pink one! However, that quickly went by the wayside when it was pointed out to her that Cinderella’s ball gown is also blue!

She had a little more than basic theatre stage makeup:

(And, I became really good and quick at applying it by the end of the show’s run!)

Our fantastic set build guy even crafted this awesome mouse trap which Gus found himself stuck in!

Phoebe became really adept at maneuvering around the set during her scenes:

She was thrilled to sign autographs for other kids during the “meet and greet” following each performance:

It was not without its pitfalls, however.

This is what a little girl looks like after the second Friday evening performance:

The theatre was VERY hot. The air conditioning was supposedly working, however, being part of a school campus, the timers for the temperature settings were based on when the buildings *should* be empty of students/faculty/people. Therefore, Friday’s were always hot, she really just was only very tired. We thought…

As it turns out, she woke up Saturday morning in hysterics. Her throat hurt very, VERY badly. I took her to the doctor and it was determined that she did indeed have strep throat. In June. She was given antibiotics and a recommendation to stay home until Tuesday. Tuesday? Oh my. She had a performance that evening and the show closed the next day. Phoebe was more hysterically upset about missing the shows than how much her throat hurt. Then her doctor conceded that she might be able to go, if she felt up to it. To cover my bases, I checked in with our director (as well as a few other people involved with the show). The consensus? If she felt up to it, she was more then welcome to be there. One of our costumers even said they’d make her a cozy little mouse hole to rest in while she wasn’t on stage! Our makeup lady practically scolded me for considering pulling her out of the show and regaled me the stories of having “puke buckets” in the wings during certain shows. (Then again, they don’t do understudies… and the show must go on you know… so….)

I left it entirely up to Phoebe whether she felt good enough, and wanted to go (and was convincing of her ability to do it).

She went and did an amazing job. The hardest part was during the meet and greet after. Little girls were constantly streaming up to her for her autograph (isn’t that sweet?). Finally, we had to just sneak away to get her out of her hot costume, cooled off and resting.

On Sunday, she felt MUCH better, thankfully! She made it through the show and the meet and greet marvelously. She was clearly more reserved and quiet than usual, but not unexpectedly.

Posing with Alex after the meet and greet for the closing show which, by the way, was a SOLD OUT performance! The theatre’s FIRST EVER sold out kids show! Woohoo!

After the meet and greet, everyone helps to clean the theatre and all the areas and strike the set. Awards and gifts were handed out while we were still at the theatre, then we all headed to the cast party. What else would a cast of a musical theatre production do at their cast party? Why, karaoke of course!

You did a truly awesome job Phoebe! We are all so very proud of you!

Today, I chaperoned Phoebe’s class field trip to one of the nearby nature centers. The bus was VERY loud, but I suppose it could have been much louder or very rowdy. (These were first graders, after all.)

Once the bus arrived at the nature center, the two classes split up. Our class did the inside presentation first before hiking to the pond for the pond study portion (the other class did the opposite).

The kids were giddy when our guide brought out a turtle and let it run around within the seated circle of kids. I’m not sure they heard anything she said at that point.

Out at the pond, the kids were given nets and our smaller groups split up between the several docks. Their mission was to scoop into the pond with the nets and see what pond life they managed to capture. Everything was put into pans of water so that everyone could see them.

Once the scooping was done, the groups looked at each pan in turn while our guide pointed out nifty things to them. It’s always amazing that the same kids that squeal and screech at most bugs and such were very focused on finding creatures and checking them out!

Phoebe wished she had more time to check out this pan:

Afterwards, we hiked back to the building, got washed up and had a picnic lunch before boarding the buses to head back to school.

It was a fun, but quite HOT morning!

My strawberries are coming in…

I finished up mowing our yard on Friday. We then got rained on a bit over the weekend.

What do I find this morning?

They are taking over the yard and making it look as though we I haven’t mowed the lawn. Tis the season, I guess.