Dance Delirium 2014

Here are the videos from the dress rehearsal yesterday for the dance recital tomorrow.  The girls are very excited.  I am very tired just thinking about it.
Ella's Ballet

 
Ella's Tap
 
Ella's Jazz
 
Ella's Hip Hop

 
Livi's Dance

Parent Watch Week v. 5.2

I'm actually really happy with the dance schedule this year.  We only have to go on two nights and the girls overlap on Wednesdays.  What IS hard about this is parent watch week:  It means 2 days of  2 hours a night sitting on a hard floor, and one night having to pick which child you go see because your husband has court in another county. 

I had to bring Livi with me to watch Ella since Ella goes earlier that night, which meant while Ella was doing her very dignified, proper ballet:

Livi was at the window doing this:

Finally Livi go to have her class and I swear I was a little scared when all the girls sat on the floor and did this:

The Haunting, anyone???

The Busiest Weekend, EVER... or It's Dance Time Again

There are a lot of jokes I could make about dictators, feeling like an incompetent ninny, and probably a knock knock joke about a donkey and a chicken, but honestly, seeing what the girl's dance teachers were able to pull off I have to give those women some serious recognition. Not only do they put in 1,372 hours, they have to organize all of the dancers, the annoying parents, and they pull off a pretty good show. There were 3 shows this year, with each girl dancing in 2 (or all 3 for some unlucky parents). Since Ella turned 8 and was going to be baptized this year anyways we decided to do it the same weekend as the dance extravaganza so everyone who traveled out here for the baptism could go to the recital as well. 9 birds 1 stone type of thing, or to quote a better blogger than me "Twice up the barrel, once down the side."

This year was a "high" year, meaning that our bills were very high.  Ha ha.  No, what it means is that the costumes (and sometimes props) are more elaborate, which in turn means our bill is very high.  This was Livi's very first year which made it extra exciting for her, and Ella was in 4 dances herself, so between the two I felt like half the show was my girls (slight exaggeration, but for the time we spent preparing it sure seemed like it).

 I vowed this year that I wouldn't be a behind-the-scenes stage mom, like previous years, because it stresses me out, and I always end up getting yelled at.  I can handle a lot, but being yelled at by another adult is not one of them.  I tend to cry, as is the family tradition.  As the show got closer and closer no one signed up for Ella's classes so I decided I could help with ballet.  Ballet was 1st in her show order so I could help at the beginning and then pass the girls on to the next set of moms.  Less stress, right?  Well the last week of dance and still nobody had signed up for Jazz.  I should have just walked away, but I would worry more about Ella backstage with no one to help, than about being yelled at.

So I ended up being a stage mom for ballet, jazz, and for the left-over girls in the finale (not like put in a fridge left-over, just not with a big group).  It was slightly more than I had wanted, but I want the recitals to go well for the girls almost as much as Miss Kathy.  Almost, but no one cares more than Miss Kathy. On the bright side I was the stage mom for 3 dances but only got yelled at twice.  My percentages are getting better!

With such beautiful costumes I had to take lots of pictures, so rather than have lots of scrolling I pre-digitally scrapbooked them (are those even real words).

My Little Dancers, my little dancers, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh (sang to My Little Pony)

It was that wonderful twice yearly parent watch week in dance, where we parents are yelled at for stepping on the dance floor in our street shoes (not me), yelled at for taping our own children at non-specified times (also not me, I learned from last time, now I'm sneaky) and guilt-ed at (?) for not singing up to be dance mothers for the recital (me).
Both girls are doing great.  Livi seems to be having a lot of fun, and Ella is excelling.  It is a lot of fun to watch, but unfortunately (or fortunately if you are not a grandparent) both girls are in the front or main sections so parents sitting at the back of the class can't really tape them well (especially while we are hiding the cameras from vigilant teachers).

Sneak Camera Attack

Very nice tondue

A very nice try at retire' (I think)

I have 2 clips of just small little moments I enjoyed: This is just a warm up in Livi's class, but I love her "swimming" "backwards" (both intentionally in quotes). She is in the back by the pillar:

Ella is the youngest in her class, but seems to grasp things better than some of the much older girls (toot toot): Poor Livi was very bored going with me to Ella's classes (Eric teaches that on that night). I showed her the reverse function on the camera where you can take pictures of yourself and she went a little crazy. She kept telling me how to pose and when to kiss her cheek as she shot away. She got very mad when I told her I wanted to watch Ella, so I ended up with about 10 of these pictures.

Livi did let me take one or two pictures of Ella.  She is growing up too fast, and looks way to mature in her dance clothes!

I'm Not Sure How I Should Feel About This...

This was at the roller skating rink, with lots of kids and parents all around.  Olivia has no fear of an audience, that is for sure.

I Feel Like I Was Hit By A Mac Truck

We've had some eventful days. Ella's end of the year dance program was yesterday and we spent ALL week preparing for it. We had rehearsal on Tuesday and Wednesday and then a full dress rehearsal on Thursday. Just carting kids to and from and helping with hair and costumes made me exhausted. I should have known it would only get worse.

Friday night Eric and I got to go watch the program, which was actually really good. Ella and I had to be there at 5:45, the program started at 6:30 and we left the high school at 10:26. Yep, the program was 4 HOURS LONG. The tour on Gilligan's Island was suppose to be shorter than that program. There were 58 dances. 58. 5-8. We were all very tired on Saturday, but looking forward to that night's performance. We should have known better.

On Saturday I signed up to be a "Chaperone Mom" which means I was a backstage helper for Ella's class. I was in charge of 11, 5&6 year olds (two of which are ADD) for 5 hours. I feel like I did after my car accidents. I think I was running on pure adrenaline last night and now I feel sooooooooooo worn out and achy. On the bright side, I did my turn and the other moms can do it next year.

Even as hard as it all was, and as blurry thinking as I am now, I am really glad that Ella has been able to participate with this dance company and I am extremely glad that she had such a good time that she is talking about "next year."

(This is why I love watching her dance. She exudes pure joy.)

Ella's first dance was a tap dance to "Sugar Time." She was a little disappointed her costume wasn't pink (I'm okay not having another pink costume in the house) but she loved how sparkly and girly it was.

Her second dance was a ballet number to the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary." The other class in her age group did a "jazz" number (mostly pantomime to the words) to "Candy Man," but Ella's class did so well they actually got to perform a real ballet dance. Ella also got to be the middle (since she was the only one who could consistently find center stage). She liked these costumes a little more since they had flowers on them and that ups the fancy factor.

Dancing Queen...s (to be said like Keanu Reeve...s)

I'm a little loopy from medicine but I wanted to post these videos for grandmas real quick. Thursday Ella had "parent watch day." Eric was in Lincoln arguing before the State Supreme Court so I "got" to take Livi and Ethan with me. Ethan grumped the whole time about not wanting to be there, but Livi had the exact opposite reaction, it was all I could do to keep her off of the dance floor.
Here is Ella tap dancing:



And here is Livi tap dancing:


Here is Livi (In the mirror) copying what she had seen the big girls do:


Here is part of Ella's big ballet dance they are doing for the recital in June, and Livi doing her own interpretive dance on the sidelines (when she's not directly in front of the camera you can see her in the mirror):


I don't know who I feel sorrier for, for the future. Ella, who will always have a charming, blond, angelic sister (not that I have any experience with that:) ) right on her heels wanting to do everything she does; or Livi having the beautiful, elegant, older sister who is competent at everything she does. Or me, who is going to have to be beating off boys with a stick.

Payback

We are in SOOOOO much trouble in about 10 years.Ella, dressed and made up to specifications for her recital.

You're Never Fully Dressed - Dress Rehearsal

After a wonderful year of driving every Thursday night to ballet, only to drive back 40 minutes later to pick her up, Ella's ready to have her performance this Saturday night. Ella is lucky, her teacher, Miss Tiffany, is a former Rockette who happens to be from the area and has returned to teach here. She is a stickler for technique so Ella knows all the ballet positions and they have strict hair and outfit requirements. This is going to be an amazing performance if the dress rehearsal is any indicator. The routines are cute, and even though this is not a high costume year Ella still got an amazingly cute (and well made) pink tutu-y outfit. We aren't allowed to tape that night since they are having a professional videographer come and charge us exorbitant amounts to buy it on DVD. Luckily they allowed us to tape dress rehearsal so I present for your viewing pleasure Ella in "You're Never Fully Dressed." (She is the one that is the leader)

Ella came home upset, saying she never wanted to take dance again. I couldn't understand what was going on until I watched the video. She was SOOOOOO embarrassed that she went the wrong way at the very end and was corrected. Eric and I are very excited for when she is 15 and in full diva mode! If you want to see the video bigger you can go to: http://s643.photobucket.com/albums/uu155/nikkistott/?action=view&current=MOV02774.flv

Videos Back From the Abyss

I've been going through all our pictures and videos, copying things onto our external hard drive, and an online service (no, I'm not obsessive) since our computer keeps threatening to die a horrible death. As I was searching through all the videos I found a couple that I thought were pretty funny and submit them to you for your viewing pleasure.
This first video is from our trip to Disneyland over Thankmus. Mom, Dad, Livi, Ebby and I were waiting for the others as they went on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Livi had barely napped all day and was a little slap happy. Poor Ebby is such a good little sleeper...

Next we have Ella and Ethan being silly. Okay, Ella is telling a story and Ethan is doing the silliest dancing ever. (technically this isn't long lost, it was today).

Last we have a video of Livi, who loves to help, but isn't very good at it...

Dancing Queen(s)

...Who just happens to be named, Ella

Ella loves her new tutu/skirt from Thankmus. She wears it at least once a day. Here is one of her "interpretive" dances inspired by her new favorite tutu.

Singing Sensation Ella, and Her Back Up Dancer Livi

Livi finally got to turn her car seat around, and thought it was stupid the first time she tried it. She has since found out life is a lot more fun when you can see where you are going. Ella is still addicted to the Twilight soundtrack, and more specifically Muse. Here are my girls enjoying listening to "Super Massive Black Hole" ( a rare treat, because I am a little sick of it after having to listen to it over and over and over and over).