Dance Recital Day!

So two girls in dance this year meant exactly one thing to me: Two heads of hair to curl. Twice the torture. Twice the waste of time, given that no amount of hairspray in the world seems to keep curl in their hair. Yaaaaay.

This year's recital went very well anyway, despite my lackluster hair styling and make-up skills. : ) Actually, Grandpa and Grandma J. came to visit for the weekend and went with us to the recital, so I was able to put Grandma to work as my make-up artist while I did hair. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it on time without her! Thanks, Grandma!


Elsa danced ballet this year to the Chipmunks' version of the "Witch Doctor" (a more recent and hip-hopped-up 21st century version—I'm guessing from one of the newer Chipmunks movies). Yes, she danced ballet to that. I don't get it either. But it was cute. And her "choreography" (such as it is) has gotten a lot more complicated lately! Here she is with Marina and Eliana.

Claire also danced ballet, to "Fly to My Heart" by Selena Gomez from one of the Tinkerbelle movies. (This picture is both the girls with our next-door neighbor Anna.) I know I might be a tiny bit biased, but I seriously think she stole the show. She was hysterically cute up there! She was absolutely beaming through the whole thing—it was really touching how much she was clearly enjoying herself and delighting in the fact that it was finally her turn to do this. She always was a little obsessed with dance and sparkly costumes. Even when she was a little baby during Elsa's first year of dance, we used to sit and repeatedly page through the binder of photos from the previous year's classes. She never got tired of looking at all the girls in their pretty costumes. She would shriek and try to grab at the pages and cry her eyes out when I put the book away. So I guess she literally waited all her life for this very moment!

Then at one point in the song, the lyrics say something about fairy dust, and the girls were supposed to come to the front of the stage and shake their magic wands as if they were "dusting" the audience. Claire got out there to the edge of the stage and looked so pleased with herself! And I think she could also see the audience more clearly when she came to the edge of the stage. At any rate, she stayed out there at the edge of the stage a good 30 seconds longer than any of the other girls did, shaking her wand, even putting one hand on her hip while beaming at everyone. The whole audience was laughing and I was dying! It was so cute! When she finally realized that everyone else had gone back to their spots, she gave a little wave before finally turning and going back herself. It was too funny. Afterward, her teacher said to me, "She did a really good, thorough job with the fairy dust, didn't she?" LOL.

So we survived another recital, this time with double the number of dancers. I call that a win. On to next year.