Jeanne's School of Dance presents...World of Dance

Once again, we have come to the girls dance recital. I dread and love this time every year. It is so much work and ends up being such a long day, but I absolutely love to watch my girls dance and see the growth they've made in the past year. Here's some evidence we enjoyed the day:

Katelyn in her Can-can costume on our way to the show

Megan in her Can-can costume ready for the opening number

Adam needed to join in the dance pose fun :)

Megan in the front right with the Mini Starz doing "Bouncin' Around the World"

Beautiful Katelyn in the middle in her lyrical number

Great pointed toes Katelyn! This is her "Kung Fu Fighting" jazz dance

Megan starting off her tumbling routine

Katelyn in tumbling

Megan in Surfin' USA

This one was Katelyn's favorite dance. It's tap to "Walk Like an Egyptian"

Rockin' My Country

The theme for the girl's spring dance recital this year is Rockin' My Country and these kids ROCKED it! And a BIG thank you for all the hard work Amy and Kaley do to put on a great show. The girls have grown a lot this year in dance and it was fun to see their hard work. Since I've been through a couple of these recitals now, I know I have to gear up for a long day and unexpected twists and turns to my schedule. This year was no different, but overall I think (as I want to remember it) all things weren't too bad. Great job girls!

On stage after the show.

These are looks of "thanks for the flowers, I'm tired and hungry, can we go now?"

Dance, dance, dance - Christmas show

It wouldn't be Christmas time without the Jeanne's School of Dance Christmas show! The girls did a great job. This is probably my favorite dance show of the year. I loving hearing all the Christmas music. Thanks Katelyn and Megan!

These are the girls cute costumes. Cute girls!

Adam was happy to be on the grass playing after the show.

Dancing in Disneyland!

Katelyn is finally old enough to dance in Disneyland! I know, your thinking, "but weren't you just in Disneyland in August." Yup. Thanks to Jeanne's School of Dance and Katelyn and 2 amazing sister-in-laws who teach dance, we got to do Disneyland a second time this year. The dancers were scheduled to dance on Saturday morning, so we got to the Happiest Place on Earth Thursday night so we could have one whole day in the park. If you know my family, you know we dress in the same color. So much easier to find your group in the crowd! So, Friday was "red day." Then I had the happy surprise to find out that my family had decided to celebrate my birthday. When we met at the fireplace at the Grand Californian, I was given a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse style adventure to collect my presents throughout the day. It was so much fun!

Here's our best family picture as we wait to enter the park. (Megan really was excited to be there even though she's not smiling in this picture, and Adam just wanted out of his stroller already!)

Here's a picture of all the birthday treats and presents I got throughout the day. Thank you Kaley and Amy for your crazy, fun, creative brain! It made me feel special all day!

I just love seeing the kids in Disneyland! Here's a collage of our fabulous "red day."

One of the presents I got was to have 3 hours with just Chris in the park and the rest of the family would watch my kids. We chose to leave just after dinner and enjoy a date! Chris chose to take me to Captain E-O because I had never (to my recollection) seen it before. It was definitely interesting! We then went on some rides. What a difference it is to stand in line without kids!

Dance, dance, dance

Along with the new school year, Katelyn and Megan have started a new dance year. They both grew so much as dancers last year, I'm excited to see what this next year will bring. The first two performances in the fall are the Zoowalk for Autism and the AZ State Fair. Chris had to brave the Zoowalk by himself with the kids this year playing the part of "dance mom." I had to be at the Primary program practice since I'm in the presidency and funny thing is I haven't figured out how to be in two places at one time! The girls performed dances from last year, so I tried not to feel too bad that I missed a show. Chris did a great job being a dance mom and the girls did a great job.

This year at the AZ State Fair, we got the royal treatment. Amy (Chris's sister and director of the dance company) road in our car with us and so we got the special fancy parking pass that let us park pretty much right next to the stage. We were there early and got to watch the other studios dance before it was our turn. I may be a little biased, but I think our company is the best! The girls had a great show. Then after the show we let the girls pick a couple rides to go on and they all got snow cones while the adults got pineapple ice cream....yum....can't wait for more of that next year!

Cute Megan getting ready to dance her favorite "Tiana" dance.

So, not the best picture of Katelyn, but it was a sunny day! I realized I didn't have any other good pictures of Katelyn that day in costume.

Adam enjoying a snow cone after the show. I love the look on his face. It says, "really Mom and Dad...yellow snow?"

A much happier Katelyn. And who doesn't love having blue teeth!

A "Cinemagical" dance recital

This year's dance recital was themed Cinemagic. Wow, was it magic! I think I saw Amy (sister-in-law and director of the Company) magically divide into 10 people and do way more than her one body could do to pull of this amazing show. Kaley (other sister-in-law and dance teacher) also was amazing making the show run smoothly. All in all, the show came off great. The road to get to the end was a little bit (ahhh, a lot bit) messy. I know all of that sounds cryptic for those who were not there, but I don't know if I have words yet to say how long of a day it was for my family. Because of situations beyond anyone's control, the dress rehearsal ran wayyy too long, so the girls and I had 30 minutes to eat a late lunch, change into costumes, do stage makeup, and dance hair to be ready for the first show. Somewhere in the first show I finally sat down and watched a little bit, until I knew I needed to help backstage. Then we pretty much ran from there and into the second show. The girls both did a GREAT job on their dances. I'm so proud of them. It was fun for me to see the change and improvement in their skills from the beginning of the year, and especially Katelyn from first starting dance just 2 years ago. We of course brought our video camera with us, but Chris was needed to help the stage crew, so we don't have much video of the night. We opted for the outrageously priced professional videographer's DVD which doesn't come to us for another few weeks. We'll post their dances once we get them. Until then...here's the only evidence that the day even existed....

A HUGE thank you to my mom and grandma for coming into town and helping out with making the day a little less crazy (hope you still want to come back again!) and for being the official audience crew, thank you to Grandma-ma Long for coming to the show, a thank you to Chris for getting only 2 hours of sleep to finish up the great intro "movie previews" before the opening number, a thank you to Cheryl and Kaley for helping with stage makeup and back stage costume changes, and thank you to Scott who provided the perfect shoulder for Adam to sleep on because his mommy was MIA.

Christmas time means dancing time

Each year the dance company dances at a neighborhood Christmas party. It was so fun to see the girls do their dances that they have been working on. It was actually a cold night for Arizona, but the girls both did a really good job. Their favorite part is seeing Santa after their show is over. Katelyn informed me this year that, "that is really the real Santa mom." Good to know, Katelyn.

Then later in the month, Jeanne's School of Dance does a Christmas show with all of their studios. I have to say that our Chandler studio by far were the best looking ones up there. And, of course, the girls did a great job again on their dances. The recital show was the best of both, so we'll show the video of that one.

Two times the fun!

We now have 2 little dancers in our home. Katelyn and Megan love it, they are having so much fun. This weekend, they had their first performances. Our morning started at the Phoenix Zoo where they danced for the Zoowalk for autism. The girls did a good job. It was an early morning for them to get ready and at the zoo. Then we rushed to the Arizona State Fair where they had their next performance. Both girls did better at the fair, so we'll post that performance. It was a whirlwind of a morning (both shows were done by noon), but they survived! On to the next show!