Ballet Northwest Coppelia

My three girls are doing ballet this year. Emily did ballet at a different studio last year, but they did more modern dance than classical ballet in her class. So I decided to try a different studio. We ended up at Ballet Northwest Academy, and we really like it. Some how all my girls ended up taking ballet instead of just Emily. They started out all in the same class - which was very convenient! Too bad it didn't last.


We decided to let Leilani take ballet to try and improve her grace and form in gymnastics. It seems to have worked. Her scores have improved in gymnastics, and she has rapidly moved up in ballet. She has moved through three ballet classes since September, and is talking about moving on to pointe. Her ballet teacher is excited about how strong she is, and her gymnastics coach is excited about the improvement in form, so I guess it is a win win for everybody except my pocketbook! :)


Emily is taking ballet because she quit gymnastics a couple of years ago and decided to focus on dance and music instead. She quickly moved out of the beginning ballet class, and now I have all three girls in different classes...which is not as fun for me...but they like it better!

Elisabeth is taking ballet because she has begged to do it since she was three, and she looks pretty cute twirling around! She is still in gymnastics too, but she isn't on team or anywhere near it at this point. So, she has a lot more time to experiment with different activities than Leilani does.

Emily and Elisabeth participated in the ballet Coppelia this year. It was put on by the Pacific Classical Ballet, but they used younger students from Ballet Northwest Academy too. Leilani couldn't do it because it was in the middle of her gymnastic competition season, but I don't think she really wanted to do it anyway.
The girls were villagers during Act 1 and Act 3. These pictures were taken during dress rehearsal, so they don't have their hair and make up done, but I couldn't get any at the actual performance...I wasn't allowed back stage.

During Act 2, the girls are Chinese dolls. They really liked their costumes for that dance!
They were a little harder to dance in than the villager dresses, though.

I was able to take pictures of the dress rehearsal, because they didn't allow any photography of the performance itself. I videoed it too, but it is way too big a file to upload here.

It was a cute ballet. They all did a good job, and they were very excited to perform on stage at the Hult Center. I guess we will see if they try out again next year.

Asian Celebration 2011

Both Emily and Elisabeth performed at the Asian Celebration this year. It was held at the fairgrounds.

Leilani wasn't able to come with us, because of YW basketball, but Benjamin was very excited to watch his sisters.


They both played on the big Taiko drums. (I had video, but it is too big)
They both really enjoy the drums, but they also both received bruises and owies while learning the songs. Apparently it REALLY hurts to get hit with one of the Taiko sticks. They learned not to stand too close to the person playing the drum!

The older girls did a couple of dances with fans.
I have video of all this, but it is much too big a file to post on blogger, so the pictures will have to do.
The younger girls just danced without any props.
Our school chose three grade levels to perform at the Asian Celebration: K, 2nd and 5th. Each of the grades performed separately and then they sang all together. These pictures are of them singing together. I was blessed to be able to get Elisabeth, Emily and their cousin Kyle all in the same frame as I filmed them. In the picture above, Elisabeth is standing in the front row of the kids in back, Kyle is sitting behind the microphone and in front of the girl in yellow, and Emily's head is at the bottom between the two boys.

Here is a close up of Emily.
And here is another shot of Elisabeth and Kyle.

The kids did a good job, and they had lots of fun. Benjamin was even singing along with some of the songs, so I guess he has a head start for next year. It is too bad that they don't have any more performing opportunities after they leave grade school. Leilani would love to still perform!

Some Valentine Fun

Happy Valentines Day!

We had some fun this year for Valentine's Day. I found a great hair blog, with tons of videos and tutorials on different hairstyles. So, I tried out some of the Valentine ideas on my girls. (Well, not Leilani, because she is too cool for that now - but she did say I could do her hair for crazy hair day tomorrow!)
Emily is sporting the heart braid...

and we did a three heart twist on Elisabeth's hair. I am excited to try more cute ideas in the future. If you want to check the site out, here is the link:

http://www.princesshairstyles.com/2009/01/valentines-day-hairdos.html

We also did our nails - except for Leilani again. She's a party pooper :( But she did have me just braid her hair down her back and put a heart ponytail on it. Who knows why she wouldn't do her nails? Elisabeth is sporting her own individual style of red and pink alternating nails.

I made the kids pink "love cakes." We dyed the pancake batter pink, and then Emily decided that we should add frozen blueberries because I told them how my dad used to add all kinds of fruit to our pancakes on Saturday morning. (She originally wanted to add orange slices, but that just sounded gross to me. My dad used lots of fruit - apples, pears, bananas, etc. - but never oranges.) I just used cookie cutters to make the shapes on the griddle. I learned that it is much easier to remove the mold if you spray it with PAM first, but they will come off if you use a knife to loosen the edges.

The finished product was yummy! Benjamin asked why I made Mickey Mouse shapes for Valentines day. I said, "Do we love Mickey Mouse?" They all answered "yes," and the matter was settled.
I also decided to try making a conversation heart candle this year. It turned out cute, and it was fairly easy.

I bought a white pillar candle and some sweetheart candy. I traced around each heart with my mom's ceramic tool, and then carved the wax out of the hole and pressed the candy heart into the hole.

I melted the leftover wax and put a layer of wax over the candy hearts to seal them. I needed a different brush for this part, and I needed to keep the wax hot instead of letting it cool down and then have to heat it up again, but live and learn! I enjoyed making it, and it is a cute decoration. Next year I am going to try a picture frame. Did any of you do any cute crafts for Valentines?

Pinewood Derby - a few years early

Our ward made the pine wood derby into a ward activity this year. The cub scouts raced their cars first, and then they had an open class for anyone else in the ward to compete in. Everyone in the ward also made banana cars to race and then they ate banana splits afterwards. My kids thought this was great!

All the kids were very excited about the racing (and so were many of the adults). You can see my kids and their cousins sitting down at the end of the track.


We didn't start our cars very early - we started Monday and the race was Friday - so they were pretty simple. My dad cut out wedges of wood for the car bodies, and we bought "official" wheels. The kids sanded and painted them (I helped Benjamin paint his), and the girls decorated theirs with glitter. Alan drilled the axle holes and glued the wheels in. They were very light weight, even though Alan glued some lead into the bottom, so the kids had to tape more weight onto the top of their cars. You can see our cars above: Benjamins is the green one with orange wheels (#26), Emily's is the silver car with blue wheels and two stripes down the middle (#25), Leilani's is blue, purple and pink with blue wheels and glitter all over it (#23) and Elisabeth's is dark pink with light pink polka dots and lines and black wheels (#24). They are pretty simple. The nice Oregon duck car on the right belongs to my brother Chris and his son Kyle. It was very nice looking - they did a good job in that department...but Ben and Elisabeth smoked them in the speed department :)

Here is Benjamin winning on of the races. He beat the "duck" car in this race.
Benjamin took 3rd in the open class competition. He was pretty excited! He beat both his cousins and their dad's (Jeff/Danny and Chris/Kyle). Elisabeth took 4th. Emily lost a wheel in one of the first rounds, and her car never competed well after that. Leilani...well, I think all the glitter may have impeded her racing :) But they all had fun!

This shows Elisabeth's car jumping the track on the final race off. It put her in 4th place.
Emily and her race car.
Elisabeth and her car (it was hard for Grandpa to accept a pink car - too many years of it being a boy event I guess!)

Leilani and her car. Notice that she even glittered the inside of the wheels...I do not think that helped her in the speed department. But she sure had fun making it!

A Long Awaited Wedding

We were able to go on a trip to Utah in November to attend Alan's brother Gordon's wedding. It was a long awaited wedding (he was the last kid to get married, but the second oldest), and one we wouldn't miss. The kids were excited to take a road trip in our new van.
The kids had lots of room to pack their toys and stuffed friends.
We stayed with my brother Mark and his family. The kids had a lot of fun playing with Jackson. They also really like to play the game Life with Mark and Shauna.
We didn't have a place to leave the kids while we were at the temple, so we dropped them off at the Bean museum at BYU with orders NOT to lose their brother and NOT to touch anything. We quickly went to pick them up after the sealing, and finally found them in the bathroom. They were fine, and had really enjoyed the museum.
We took the kids back up to the temple, and were in some family group shot pictures. In between shots, I took my own pictures around the temple.
Besides taking pictures of my family, I entertained myself taking pictures of the angel Moroni.






At the reception we sat with our nephews Andrew and Jason. They kept everything lively :)
It was fun to be able to see lots of family members that we hadn't seen in years. We were also able to see Grandma and Grandpa Walker.
On the way home, we stopped by the Hill Air Force museum in Ogden. We knew Benjamin would think it was pretty awesome.
The kids were really interested in the planes and the stories. They didn't want to leave.

It was a good trip, and we were glad to get to go and be with Gordon and Georgette for their wedding.