Sarah's Dance Recital

Kristen's dance recital

Christmas Spectacular

The pictures are from the annual Dance show for December. The studio used to do "The Nutcracker" when Sarah was little, then when Kristen got old enough to dance the only boy at the studio graduated. They have not done "The Nutcraker" since, but instead have done a take off from the Radio City Rockettes with their Christmas Spectacular. It is a cute show that involves tap, jazz, ballet, and a live nativity at the end. I was talking with some of the parents I know with kids in the preschool classes. They were complaining about how little their kids were on stage compared to the older ones. That is when it dawned on me. I used to be that parent who wished I was able to see my child dance more, now I have realized that my child is the one that is doing most of the dancing. Sarah was probably in about 3/4 of the show. Kristen still doesn't have a lot of dances, but she is in more than just a 2 minute song. I have also come to realize that the reason the little kids (babies as they are called at dance) don't have longer parts is because it is harder for them to learn the part they have and because they still don't know many steps and need to work up gradually. To those parents who were complaining about the lack of stage time for their children, I want to say; Just wait, before you know it they will be the older dancers who have all of the roles. It seemed like just yesterday that Sarah was in the baby classes and now she is in the Advanced level and Kristen is in Junior III for both of her classes. Before I know it she will be in the Intermediate level.
I was surprised tonight to see just how far my girls have come in dancing. Sarah as always looked good on stage, but tonight she was smiling like she was having a good time and looked so grown up. Just another reminder that she is growing up and is no longer my little girl. Kristen also did much better this year. Other years she has looked like she didn't know the routine, but this year she had it down. I also noticed that during her tap dances, she has learned to do many steps and can actually tap now more than just a couple of beginning steps.

It is nice to see signs that your children are growing up, but it is also a little scary. Sarah only has 4 more Christmas shows before she graduates and leaves. So little time, so much more to teach. What happened to my little girl.

Baby its cold outside

This afternoon, Lyons had their annual Christmas Walk. The girls dance studio always participate in the walk at the Sterling Federal Bank. This year I took the girls down at 3:30, then ran home and did a few errands. Kurt and I went back down around 5:00. While it was fun to walk around together and spend some time talking without the girls around boy was it cold. I actually not only had my winter coat on, but put the hood back on my coat, had on gloves, earmuffs, and a scarf. By the end of walk, I couldn't feel my legs they were so numb from the cold. This year it didn't seem like there was as many businesses participating. Some just had a still display in the window. I really like the few that had a live show. Besides our group, there was a church putting on a puppet show (lambs were telling about the birth of Jesus), and one of the elementary schools had their second grade class in a window, with the teacher reading them Christmas stories. How fun would that be? One group had a live nativity scene and the seemed very proud of the fact that they had a 3 month old baby for the scene. I am sorry but that turned me off. As cold as it was today, look at what all I was wearing and I don't normally put all of that stuff on, I think the baby should have been home where it was nice and warm. A doll would have done the trick just as well without taking the risk of getting the child sick. All in all it was a fun afternoon, and I enjoyed having my husband with me for a while and not thinking about other things like the football game that is on tv at the moment.