dance competition

With the busy but wonderful chaos of having three kids, especially so close in age, its really rare that I get very much one-on-one time with each of them.  So last year, getting a whole day with my little ballerina was pretty wonderful and I've been looking forward to doing it again ever since.

So last Saturday, we rounded up all her stuff and headed out, just me, Grammy and L.  We started with a few quick errands, the best of which was going to the Disney Store.  They were having a special event, "Princess Training", in honor of the soon-to-be-released Cinderella.  So she donned her favorite dress up, the Princess Belle ballgown made by her aunt and joined the other princesses (and a few princes).  They got to see clips from the new movie, learned to curtsey (and bow), practiced fencing and waltzed.  In a word, adorable.

By then, the rather complicated hairstyle that is required as part of her costume was falling out.  So we stopped at Walmart to pick up a smaller curling iron, picked up Grandma Great who was visiting just to see her dance, and arrived at the competition.  She sat patiently as I fixed her hair, applied her make up and then got her dressed before she ran off to play with her dance friends and join the warm up exercises.

They preformed "Wedding Bells", in their beautiful, classy and adorable bride costumes with their handsome teddy bear grooms.  This is her favorite dance because she gets to do an 8 count solo at the very end.  Then they ran back to their dressing room to put on their fairy costumes and practice "The Gift", which is done with three other age groups from the studio as a production number. In between numbers, we took photos of her team, both smiling and silly faces, and passed out the team gift we had brought--a little bag with teddy grahams, ring pops, M&Ms and a little bottle of nail polish.  Their performance of "The Gift" was wonderful and immediately followed by an awards ceremony for some of the numbers.  (a second ceremony was at 9 pm, we didn't stay for that.)

L, who has been very sick all week, was pretty worn out by then.  So we gathered her things and went in search of dinner.  We ate at Panda Express, stopped at one more store and then headed home to tuck my little dancer into bed.  So proud of her and so grateful for her and the time I get to spend with her.