Another new school year

School started up again this morning and the kids were all excited to go back. Alaina spent all of yesterday saying "I can't WAIT for tomorrow!" Allison, as always, was perhaps a bit apprehensive. Ian was just glad to be getting back to school so he could hang out with friends. Unfortunately, he didn't get to do a lot of that this summer. Here are pictures of the kids before they left for school. I think this is the first year I didn't get all the school goers in a photo together! Last year, I made Ian get up that early to take the group picture . . .but then it was a LONG wait until he actually had to be at school. He's playing the baritone for the second year -- he's gotta lug that thing back and forth to school everyday. My next door neighbor told me this morning she wished he reconsider riding a bike to school with her daughter and the girl across the street. I think the days of him wanting to go to school with them are gone -- at least for now! tehehe . . .but told the neighbor there was no way Ian could balance that honkin' thing on a bike!



The girls were juggling backpacks, paint cans, and in Alaina's case, lunchboxes. We always buy something off the teachers' wishlists, if they have them posted, to bring in the first day of school, so Alaina's backpack was full of baby wipes. She was a trooper and carried it all in herself!



Each year, we bring the teachers a first day of school gift. For at least the past 5 years, it's been a decorated paint can. I had a bit of a hard time figuring how to make one look more manly this year, as we have our first male (elementary school) teacher. I fill them with whatever I can find that I either remember always running out of when I was a teacher or know might be something they'd need/want. This year's cans had: 2 packages of "teacher" stickers, a magnetic notepad, a calculator, rubber bands/various clips, a set of dry erase markers, post-it notes, hand sanitizer, some sharpies, and Hersheys Hugs and Kisses. I usually try to decorate them to match the teacher's rooms (as we go the Friday before school starts to meet the teachers), but this year, there wasn't any obvious theme for either teacher's room. So my goal for Alaina's teacher was for it not to look girly, and noticed Allison's teacher had bright colored curtains on her windows, so I went bright with her. Here's what I ended up with:



It's a little lonely around here. . . definitely a lot less noise! However, I am free to go shopping and out to lunch with my sister who ended up with the day off.

Recitals -- photos of Allison

Once again, Allison is in the city ballet corp and in the studio's show company, so she is in all EIGHT recitals! We don't really start summer until the recitals are over this Saturday! However, she did do her 4 class routines and did 6 recitals this past weekend. Once again, pictures have not been retouched at all and are kinda dark. I'll repost lighter pictures as soon as I have the chance to retouch. Just have to get through the assembly of the PTA scrapbook and then I'll have photo/scrapbook time to call my own!

She's really improved over this past year. I don't know if the Disney trip shortly before recitals last year threw her off, or if truly there's been that much of a difference in her dancing over the past year. It will be interesting to see how she does this time next year.

She has been at the studio for 5 years, and received a 5 year trophy this year. She was so thrilled to get that trophy.

The Ballet number was danced to a song called Drumline. I really enjoyed the advanced ballet numbers this year. Many of them were done to songs that you wouldn't normally think of as ballet songs. This was one of them. Some very strong rhythms were in this song and it was faster paced than what you think of as ballet songs.


She's made a lot of improvements on her tapping. She actually looks like she knows what she's doing nowadays! Their song was Hoop-De-Do. And she did quite well. Overall, she looked to the wings very little this recital. I think the ballet and the show co. routines have helped her a lot with that one. She can't be depending on teachers in the wings with those routines.


She danced lyrical this year for the first time. I think that is, by far, her favorite class. That dance was choreographed to the song Don't Look Down. I thought she did fairly well for something that was new to her.


Allison also made great strides in her jazz class. She was a lot of fun to watch this year. They danced to "Sisters" . . . .when she first told me this, I kept saying "Do you mean . ...sisters, sisters, there were never 2 more devoted sisters. . ." from whatever that old musical is (White Christmas possibly?). She kept looking at me like I'd grown a 3rd eye (okay, so it sounds nothing like a jazz routine song, but at the time, I had no clue what class it was for and it was the only sisters song I could thing of.) It was that "sisters are doing it for themselves" song.


Her ballet class danced to Pizzacata Polka. It was some story about solders and fairies (?) fighting. You could see the differences in the way the girls carried themselves, but I had trouble remembering this story as the "soldiers" were dressed in these beautiful costumes as well as the fairies. Allison did have one point in this routine that she did a series of 5 or 6 turns and I thought she did a terrific job at it. I'm going to have to work on getting video youtubed.


Her last routine was the show co. one. They perform the finale at each show and it's usually 5 or so minutes long. This year, they did it to a Dreamgirls medley. Don't the costumes look so dreamgirlish? It's so fun seeing her interact with the older girls. . . and I love it when I hear one of them say hello to Allison. You can see her standing up straighter (with pride) every time one of the girls acknowledge her.

Recitals -- pictures of Alaina

As mentioned in the post below, I've finally gotten some photos transferred over to the laptop. These (and the ones in the next post) are this year's recital pics. They are untouched and ones from the rehearsal. So please excuse the quality! Hopefully, I'll eventually get the retouched ones up and they'll look a little better. I've not yet done the yearly posed pictures yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Alaina was in 4 dance classes this year, and therefore was in 4 routines. I think her favorite class is Hip Hop. Doesn't surprise me . . . totally fits her personality! They did their hip hop routine to Cheetah Girl's Off the Wall. She was so excited when she found out that she had a cheetah print costume!


Her ballet was done to some song called Friendship Light. She's doing really well in it and at the actual recital, she didn't look much at the teacher on the side who was dancing it in the wings. She's obviously been telling her teachers she can almost completely do the center splits -- as that was her final pose in 2 of the dances!




Her tap was to a song called "Steppin' Out". Very similar to the Fred Astaire version -- except words and some of the tune had been changed. . . "Fred Astaire" actually showed up in the lyrics! As were the lyrics "I feel pretty, I feel great."



Her final routine was for her jazz class. They danced to a song called "Hip Hop Princess". tehehe . . .we found it funny as that is (I think) now her new nickname. She did really well on this dance, and the dance had obviously been choreographed to what the girls could do. A cartwheel and the center splits (for Alaina) made an appearance in this number. The first picture is her doing that "flick the pretend dust off your shoulder like it doesn't bother you" move that I've seen I don't know how many times recently. I'm sure it has a real name . . . I have no clue what it is!