My dancer

Reina's dance year culminated in her recital earlier in the month.  This year, she took ballet, pointe, hoop and a ballet conditioning class.  It's been so fun to watch her skills develop.  I never thought I'd give birth to a ballerina.   

I asked her for a nice selfie on the way to the recital.  This is what I got.  

Reina on pointe.  Look at those feet!  Those graceful arms!  Where did she come from?  

I loved this pose too.  She was a flamenco dancer. 

The ballet performance.  I recorded part of this on my phone and she looks so sweet.  

Hoop!  This is Reina's second year and she made a lot of strides this year.  She makes it look so easy.  

Look at that flexibility!  

 We love to watch our girl dance.  

September

We are in the whirlwind of school, sports, dance, work, gardening, hunting and everything else that can be accomplished in the month of September.  The kids are settling into their schedules.  Glenn and I count down the days until the weekend.  We have a lot of football happening at this house - much to Reina's dismay but she's being a good sport about it.  Will is playing JV and Varsity.  On Friday he got his first varsity start against Laramie and it was very exciting.  These pictures are out of order but here are a few memorable moments:  

Will sacked the quarterback on 4th down and this picture would be less blurry if I hadn't been simultaneously screaming and taking photos.  

Will's first start - he's #28.  He actually got the first defensive tackle of the game but that picture did not turn out at all.  

#28 under the lights.  

Reina's dance season has started and she had to get fitted for new pointe shoes today.  Thanks to technology we were able to do a fitting virtually so she put on her dance clothes and we went down to the basement/gym/taxidermy room and zoomed with a store in Colorado.  I'm so amazed at what she can do in those shoes - look at that balance!  I don't think she inherited that from my side of the family.  

All is well.  Stay tuned for more football/dance/hunting/gardening/pet pictures.  

Dance Dance Dance

Last weekend was Reina's dance recital.  This year, she took three classes - ballet 4, Jazz 2 and Hip Hop 1.  She's a dancing girl.  She had three programs last weekend, one on Friday and two on Saturday.  Throw in a 5k race that she and I did on Saturday morning and a brother's baseball game and it was one busy weekend.  

Reina's hip hop class danced to music from Back to the Future.  The recital's theme was music and movies from 1989.  I jammed out.  

Reina had a 'speaking' part in the dance.  

On Saturday, Almost-Kindergarten Cousin's class danced too and it ADORABLE.  They danced to "Don't Worry, Be Happy."  Vicky and I got the giggles every time the pre-dancers came on stage because someone would freeze in the lights, someone would forgot the dance and wave to family members and anytime they formed a circle, the poor kid at the end would get whipped because of physics. 

Getting ready to make a circle

Finding the right mark on the floor 

Reina's jazz class danced to a Debbie Gibson song from 1989.  Months ago, Reina was telling me about the dance and when I asked what the song was, she confidently told me "Electrocute."  I thought about that for a few weeks and couldn't remember any song like that from 1989.  When I asked her to sing it, we figured out that it was "Electric Youth."  Frankly, the song is much more enjoyable if you sign it as 'electrocute'.....

My jazzy girl 

Reina's ballet class danced to an Enya song and it was so pretty.  Reina and I both thought this outfit was the prettiest.  I just love watching her dance. 

The first week of summer break is almost complete.  Both kids had sports camps this week, basketball for Will over at UW and Reina did a volleyball camp at the community college.  They are diving into this summer with a lot of enthusiasm and happiness to have a break from school.  There's also a significant reluctance to pick up after themselves or learn cursive (one of my projects for them for the summer) but we'll tackle that one next week. 

Weekend stuff

Another week in December is wrapped up.  Yesterday, Glenn cheerfully pointed out that Christmas is two weeks from Tuesday and yiiiiiikes.  I need to get a move on.  The shopping is getting close to being done but the Christmas card is currently two lines of gibberish in a draft word document, none of the presents are wrapped, none of the packages are even in boxes to be mailed and every morning I race to move the Elf on the Shelf before someone in the house wakes up and looks for her.  So there's a lot going on.  On Saturday, Reina and I met Aunt Vicky and Grandma and the cousins to see the unveiling of a new playground in the mall that Vicky helped fundraise for and we also squeezed in some shopping.    

Aunt Vicky, Reina, Spiderman and an unaware Grandma.  

Unicorn girl doing the floss.  

Another shot of the serious Spiderman. 

Another one of my daily chores every morning is to pick up all of the Christmas ornaments that mysteriously fall off of the tree during the night.   

What (who) could possibly be the cause?  What a conundrum! 

Finally, this picture popped up in my FB feed over the weekend and I was instantly transported back to our first Christmas as parents and these two sitting under the tree.  Be still my heart.  

A few weeks ago

I've had these photos sitting in my draft folder for a few weeks now and I have a bunch of new football photos to upload so the October theme of the blog is FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL and also Reina's Halloween costume. 

Will's last regular season game was a few Wednesday's ago, on one of the high school fields under the lights.  It was a lot of fun.  Will had a good game and the team won.  It was also cold enough to be an adventure but not so cold that it was painful. 

Will's out there somewhere. 

Post-game dancing.  

Listening to the last post-game speech from the coach.  Look how old that kid looks!  

Slow down time, just slow down a little bit.  

That weekend we also had our first snow of the season and it wasn't just a skiff.  It felt strange dusting off the snow shovels when I still had blooming flower pots but that's Wyoming for you.  

It was cold enough for all three pets to sorta snuggle up on the same bed for an extended period of time.  

So that was an earlier October weekend.  Since then, we've had a little bit more football, some hunting for Glenn, lots of work on Reina's Halloween project (to be unveiled soon) and a bunch of other stuff.  Party, party, party!

Reina's Spring Program

Before the month completely gets away from me, I have to post some pictures from Reina's Spring program a few weeks ago.  The theme of the third-grade extravaganza was along the lines of "skip Spring in Wyoming and just head straight into summer because Spring doesn't happen here."  We had a few inches of snow on the ground yesterday morning so the program is certainly prophetic.  

Reina had a speaking part for this program.  She tried out several months ago and was picked along with three other students.  She was pretty excited to bring home the news and she faithfully practiced her lines and sang us snippets of the songs for weeks.  

A few days before the program, Reina decided she needed a new dress.  The music teacher had suggested that the students wear something spring-y, western or beachy.  We took a quick trip to the mall and I let Reina pick the store.  We found ourselves in The Store Where All The Pre-Tween Girls Congregate and while I was wishing we were in Target, Reina picked out the perfect combination of denim, flowers and spring-y.  She looked adorable.  

Singing her heart out in the front row.  

Singing and flag waving to "Grand Ol' Flag" 

I can't remember what song this was but the hand motions were smashing.

More dancing and singing 

We took so many pictures but most were blurry because of all of the action and out seats towards the back. I couldn't get a shot of our superstar talking but this was close.  

 Reina's music teacher does a terrific job teaching songs and dance moves and you could tell the kids had a great time. I told the teacher afterwards that I thought the class was chock full of future music theater students.  I know at least one sure enjoyed her time on the stage. 

An overload of baseball pictures

Reina's t-ball game was rained out tonight so for the first time in a few weeks, we had a night without (hardly) anything going on.  It's lovely.  In between loads of laundry and dishes making a certain 8-yr old do a few math worksheets (more on that later), I thought I'd take advantage of all of this free time and blog about baseball.  I took my big camera to the game last night and took a few pictures.  Okay, so I actually took like 30 pictures but here are the best of the batch.  

 

Reina and her BFF whose brother was playing on another field.  These two wily negotiators managed to buy a giant batch of cotton candy without either mothers noticing until it was too late. I do believe this picture is post-candy, notice that gleam in Reina's eye? 

Will's team has had some great games and a few tough ones.  Last night was definitely in the tough column but Will played hard and didn't give up.  I have so much fun watching this kid play ball.  

Warming up, not sure if that's a squint or a smile. 

Still warming up but definitely not looking at the lady with the camera.

Dancing in the outfield, I can only assume this is when his team made a good play.  Will generally has a strict "no dancing in public" policy.

#12 up to bat. I couldn't get any pictures of him making contact because the photographer usually jerked the camera too hard when she stood up to watch the ball.  Because she's a little too invested in 8-yr old baseball at this point. 

Up to bat again. 

This is Glenn's game face.  Glenn has turned into Mr. Baseball, which in itself is probably a whole separate blog post.  In last night's game, he was the warm-up coach and the dugout manager.  When I showed him this picture, I said, "you look mad."  He replied that he's found a mad face and voice get more accomplished in the dugout.  I guess you can't kill anyone with kindness in baseball.  Or at least baseball with 7 and 8-yr olds.

No wait, this is Glenn's game face. 

Okay, I think this is definitely his game face. 

No idea what's going on here... but I don't think he needed a bathroom break. 

So to wrap-up, Will's playing baseball.  Mom and Dad are emotionally invested in baseball.  Reina likes to cheer on her Bobo and also get snacks.  Will is smacking the ball and learning more and more about the game every day.  Go Indians! 

Prima

WARNING:  This blog post may contain a certain amount of gushiness because I'm just in one of those moods. 

 

Reina has been taking a pre-dance class from a local studio since January.  As you might remember, I finally relented on a Saturday in December when she marched off of the indoor soccer field and announced that someone had punched in the arm.  She hadn't actually been punched, she just happened to be in the same vicinity as the ball and was jostled by other kids who were going for the ball (she was not).  I thought, "why am I making her play soccer when she's been bugging me for months to take a dance class?"  So we signed up and we've been faithfully attending every Wednesday night since then.  The class is pretty great.  The teachers manage to keep twelve (give or take) 4 and 5-yr olds moving in one direction.  They keep it organized but not militaristic and Reina bounces around the house practicing her moves.  Last Friday night, it all came together for one giant recital.   

Guess who came to the ballet recital?  Baby cousin and a hiding Aunt Vicky.  Both sets of grandparents were in attendance, too.  The Reina Pauley fan club. 

Baby Cousin was fascinated with the glitter and glam of Reina's costume.  She was all business as she tried in vain to get the blue taffeta/sequined/tulle-d concoction it in her mouth. 

Probably my favorite picture of my favorite ballerina.  Pop-pop is the official photographer of this page of the blog.  Isn't that a great picture? 

 

Reina's class was the second dance of the night and they brought the house down with pure cuteness.  Her class had one little boy dancer in it and as part of the routine, he went down the line of girls and 'lifted' them all up while they jumped.  It was delightful. I actually cried through the whole routine because I'm my mom's daughter and happy or sad, we cry. Reina was so cute and so brave on that big stage. 

 

Watch out Blog, I've figured out how to write on the pictures.    

We stayed for the first half of the program and saw dances of all different kinds, modern, tap, ballet and Irish step dancing.  The Irish group danced a long number to the theme music from Pirates of the Caribbean.  Will, who'd been watching with more interest than I thought he'd have, sat straight up and was hooked.  The dancers even had swords and the look on his face was priceless.  When the song was over, he turned to me and whispered, "I might want to do that sometime."  Stay tuned..... 
 

My sweet ballerina and the flowers from her daddy.  What a special night.