Vegas Dance Convention - Day 1

This year The Dance Company decided that all Elite team members would participate in West Coast Dance Explosion National Convention and Competition. We will be here for four nights...so it's a pretty big trip! So far, Jo/Lex have performed their lyrical "Ms. Invisible". Hannah said she thinks it's the best they've ever done! And Lexi has been working so hard on improving her facials...that she said she almost felt like she was going to cry! That's bringing real emotion into the dance!

The next three days the girls will have workshop classes from 8-2 each day. Even though Peyton is not on the travel team, she gets to also participate in the workshop classes for her first time. They are very intense so I'm anxious to see how she will do!

West Coast Dance Explosion -Long Beach

This weekend we have another dance convention. It was in Long Beach California. Dance conventions are fun and intense because they are filled with so many classes from so many awesome instructors.

We make it a family affair and we all support the girls. I think Peyton gets a little bit bored, but she does a really good job. The girls did great, they got five stars on Applause (junior jazz small group) and Miss Invisible (mini lyrical small group), and four stars on Turn to Stone (junior lyrical trio).

Miss Jessie running through Turn to Stone before going on stage.

The junior ballroom taking classes from 8-2pm!

See what I mean?

This is why Berta calls Lexi "flexy".

Feedback right after Applause.

Went to dinner with the Trigueiros in between award ceremonies.

Tucker and Jimmy ate oysters...eeewwww.

Eddie taught musical theatre...best class!!

Our room was very comfy!!

View from our room.

Peyton got to go to the aquarium with daddy!

Open house, Mission Projects and Friends!

It is pretty rare to have a Friday afternoon with no dance, and no real plans. So couple weeks ago, before open house, we had one of these. I asked Nataly and Suzanne's mom if I could pick them up from school with my girls and spend the afternoon with them, taking them to stores, and shopping for items for their open house projects.

Tuesdays and Thursday MEMORIES

The girls and I are so lucky because every Tuesday and Thursday after school they get to go to my mom and dad's house. They have such awesome grandparents. They get amazing healthy and yummy meals, they get one-on-one help with their homework, and they get lots of special attention. This has been so helpful so I can see my clients in the afternoons a couple days a week. 

(This picture is when my dad read with Jordyn for about four hours straight so she could finish an AR book in time for the trimester to end. Jordyn's big struggle is completing her reading goals, and grandpa is so incredibly nice to help her with this!!)

I love to pick them up and hear all the stories. Random things like funny movies they have watch, poems they have learned, or family stories they have heard.  I really need to capture more of these special days on video or pictures but I snapped this one on the way out the door the other day and it captures the essence pretty well! I love it, and every day I feel thankful for such a blessing. It is these sorts of experiences that help shape who children become. Grandparents can be such a huge role in children's lives, and big role models. Our children are very blessed to have four amazing grandparents!

P.S. I love Jordyn's face in the first picture. She is holding a cardboard crown that she and grandpa worked on for part of her school's open house project. It was a prototype, and I love it!

Lex and the Principal's Honor Roll

Way to go Lexi! Lots of hard work went into this one! Lexi is so dedicated to making her goals, she set her alarm for 6:30 every morning so she can get her reading done. That is her own decision and doing, even when I tell her she cannot read in the morning, she still does it!

Leprechauns

I'm not sure exactly what started Peyton's deep interest in the leprechauns, but as St. Patrick's Day approached she kept talking about all the things leprechauns do. She was looking forward to her classroom being messed up, as happened last year in kindergarten. She thought maybe the chairs to be tipped over or something silly. Sadly, she has a long-term sub who is like 75 and very much in the retired mode. So she didn't get anything fun at school. 

Anyway, to back up, the night before St. Patrick's Day, Lexi and Jordyn kept encouraging me to make sure the leprechauns visited for Peyton. And when Peyton awoke, that was the first thing she thought of. In fact, she woke me up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night and asked to get in our bed. In the morning, she admitted that she actually got up in the middle of the night to see if the leprechauns had come!!! I could not believe it. When she told me this, I was in the shower, so I called to Tucker to come in the bathroom, and I asked him if the leprechauns had left green milk in the fridge for Peyton, wink wink. She was so thrilled with this!  Cute girl! I think we all love having someone around so sweet and young and believing.