Ballet Recital 2011 - Cinderella

This year's recital theme was Cinderella. Ms Holly and South Suburban did such a great job this year - choreography, costumes, and wow, just putting on this show. A combination of music from the Prokofiev ballet and the Disney movie made this recital magical....

Elise's class was the Royal Court. Soloists from the International Ballet school performed as the Fairy Godmother, and Cinderella. Students from Elise's class were the Evil Stepmother and the Evil Stepsisters, the Spring Fairies, the Winter Fairies, and the Royal Pages. Elise was one of the Winter Fairies. Every class from South Suburban's Academy of Dance performed - from the itty-bitties (~3 year olds) all the way up to Elise's class of 7-13 year olds.

The Winter Fairies (actually renamed Autumn Fairies per Elise's request, since she didn't think the costumes were very winter-like :-)

We needed some artsy shots, with such a beautiful dress!

Here is a video of the Winter Fairies at dress rehearsal - after they had put on their Waltz dresses. This video is much better than the one with their fairy dresses ;-p Elise is the fairy on the right.



Here is the Royal Court, waiting......

And waiting.....

And here is the dance - Waltz-Coda (Allegro expressivo)
Elise is in the second set of dancers to appear, first on the left. Thereafter she dances in the right side, mostly.

After the recital with flowers from teacher Ms Amy

Posing in our yard afterwards

Remembering she is still just a kid who likes to play on the swing set

Boots and all :-)

Celebratory dinner at Wild Ginger Thai Restuarant

Spring has Sprung

I am so ready to work in the garden! After all the rain we had, I need to wait a few more days before I go digging around ;-p

My seedlings are almost ready to go out! Unfortunately, I really need to wait a few more weeks to put them out - so they will spend their days hanging out in the garden in their pots, and nights inside our warm home.

Here is my windowsill garden, for now:

Elise's seed experiment (all the obscure seeds from my seed box :-)

My view next to my desk :-)

Talent Show 2011

Our school's Talent Show was today - and Owen was amazing! He gave up a pottery class and one band practice for this....

The show was open to any 4th or 5th grader.
Way to go Owen!!! Look how far you have come since christmas :-)

Pirates Show

5th Grade Show this year was Pirates. For your viewing and listening pleasure, I have included here the Pirate Show in it's entirity, bad video and all.
Just for your information, Owen's only speaking part is in the first video - but he sings in the rest :-)

Here's the group - Owen is in maroon, with a tie-dyed beard (looks pretty dark here). His character was Tie-Dye Beard the Pirate.


Tie-Dye Beard.

And here's the show!


Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV


Part V

Part VI

Photos from these past weeks

New chicks when we first brought them home:

My seedlings

Last week, we had snow AND 80 degrees.

Kids purse - turned out great felted!

My new purse - also came out great felted! Working on lining it with fabric - pics to follow.

Sleepy kitty (Zolo - now about 8 months)

Another sleepy kitty (she's much cuter than this - black cats just do NOT photograph well!) Gigi is about 7 months.

The chick pictures were all taken about a week ago - they have changed so much already!!! Notice the feet on the bantams - fluffy!

Opaula - the runt (one of our bantams)

This is either Pancake or Eqclef - two of our bantams.

Willa - an Australorp.

Allegra - another Speckled Sussex.

I'll take some better photos this week for comparison - they are getting much bigger!

Today's Project: Masks

After-school project extraordinaire....

Lovely creatures are my children.

Littleton All-City Band (Elementary)

This week Owen participated in his first band workshop - with advanced band members from many of Littleton's elementary schools. They had 89 kids there. I loved doing band workshops, trips, contests etc when I was in school (although I don't think I got to do one this young!) - they were always motivating. His love of music seems to have grown from this experience, and I hope it continues. Owen did not want to loose his trumpet (cornet) - he took it to the workshop sans case (long story.....) so it needed to have some sort of unique feature....

The trumpet line!

The videos don't show anything of Owen, he was with the trumpets on the far left of the screen.

A bunch of the Runyon band with Mr Waibel at Solid Grounds for an after-concert party:

Owen with Mr Waibel.