Tag Archives: Dance

Spring Showcase

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Last weekend was the spring dance showcase. This time the theme was Alice in Wonderland. It’s absolutely amazing to see the growth of all the kids from one showcase to another. They all work so hard and the show was absolutely amazing!

For the first time Zeke didn’t fight me on getting makeup put on. At his house before us toys and things were very gendered so he was quite uncomfortable with wearing makeup on stage. Now he understands about the lights and sees that the other boys wear makeup, too, while they are performing so it’s okay with him now. Zeke opted to wait until he was backstage to put on his first costume. Mayci actually needed a different one for her first number so she had to change before the show (they were there an hour before it started so plenty of time to get the right costume on).

Mayci’s first number was junior acro to the song Lost by Maroon 5. That is her favorite type of dance right now and she’s getting to take a weekly class of it through the summer which makes her very happy (plus she’ll be taking a one week junior acro camp and helping in a mini acro camp).

Since Mayci is 6 and really hadn’t had much dance experience before last August she’s been taking mostly mini age classes this year. She’s tall for her age so she towers over the other kids in most of her classes. But junior acro is 6-12 year olds making her one of the smallest in the class. This means she got to do a couple lifts where she was the one being lifted.

Mayci and Anthony did a mini hip hop dance to A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman. Their costumes were very much Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation time period.

Zeke and Mayci did a ballet dance to Shake It Off. Zeke was totally wearing a formal tuxedo outfit complete with a bow tie.

Mayci is very good at doing cartwheels. She and one of her Munchkin teammates who was also taking ballet/tap with Zeke and Mayci did cartwheels across the stage in the middle of the song.

Zeke’s progressed so much in his musical theater and acting classes this year. He gave his lines with good voice inflection. This arms in the air while cheering about something is so totally him. I love that they wrote that into his part. Notice he’s the only one with something on under his t-shirt. This scene came immediately after the ballet dance. He went backstage where someone was waiting with his t-shirt. They quickly removed his bow tie and put the t-shirt on him and he was right back on stage.

Mayci, Anthony, and Nicholas did a jazz dance to What Else Can I Do? from Encanto. I absolutely love the costumes for this one. The fiesta dresses for the girls are beautiful and the guayabera shirts for the boys are so nice.

Best part of the dance for the kids was getting to use the ribbons near the end of it. Who doesn’t love waving a ribbon around after all.

Mayci’s last number was a jazz dance to Teenage Drama Queen with her Munchkin team. They didn’t really start learning it until after their competition. I’m impressed with how well they did with just a few weeks of practice.

Mayci will be on the competition team again next year. One of her teammates is moving up to Juniors and they are adding a little girl who was in mini hip hop and ballet/jazz with Mayci and Anthony this year.

They got to use feather boas for their dance. Every Tuesday and Thursday I’ve been picking feathers out of her hair and dance bag. Looking at how many feathers were left on the stage, I’m surprised there are any left on the boas at this point!

Some Costumes

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I love when we are getting toward time for the dance showcase and costumes start coming home.

Mayci and Anthony are in a different ballet/jazz class than Nicholas, but they’ll dance together at the showcase. They will be dancing to What Else Can I Do? from Encanto.

These costumes are for their hip hop routine. They’ll be dancing to A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman.

This costume is for Mayci and Zeke’s ballet routine from their ballet/tap class. They’ll be dancing to Shake It Off by Taylor Swift.

One of these is for Zeke’s musical theater class and the other is for his acting class. He’s completely convinced that the black shirt is made from trash bags.

Dance Camps

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This summer the kids (especially Mayci) spent lots of time at dance camps (plus a sports camp for Zeke). They all had a great time and it helped break up our days.

Mayci started the summer with princess camp. One day her teacher even came in dressed as Belle ready for the ball. That was an exciting day for all the girls.

Mayci, Nicky, Noah, and Joel did a ballet and jazz camp. The boys were kind of crazy but they had tons of fun. One day we went to pick them up and Joel was sound asleep, totally worn out by all the activity.

Mayci’s next adventure was Encanto camp. They danced to We Don’t Talk About Bruno. She had a ball at that one. After all, she absolutely loves Encanto!

Zeke did a two day Disney sing-a-long camp and then did musical theater camp. He really enjoyed being on stage when he did the acting class at school, but add in singing and dancing and that’s his idea of heaven (he loved it so much he’s taking musical theater at the dance studio this year).

Mayci and Anthony took acro camp where they both enjoyed dancing and flipping and stretching. Mayci was made for acro with how bendy she is (she’ll be taking acro class this year).

Ballet camp is where Mayci discovered not only does she enjoy doing ballet, she is good at it. Anthony, who had never taken ballet at all before this camp, learned so much including the correct terms for some of the moves. Mayci was disappointed to discover she’s too young still for a ballet-only class, but that’s okay. She’s taking a ballet/tap combo and a ballet/jazz combo this year so between the two of them it’ll be like she’s getting a whole ballet class after all.

The last week of summer all four of the older little ones went to camp. Anthony and Nicholas took hip hop. My new favorite thing is little kids hip hop dancing. So of course Anthony will be taking hip hop this year.

While Anthony and Nicholas were doing hip hop, Zeke and Mayci were doing ballet and tap. Zeke loves tap (so of course he’s taking ballet/tap with Mayci this year).

This summer of dancing ended in Mayci winning a spot on the competition team and us picking out classes that will put at least one kid at the studio five days a week. Apparently dance is our life now.

Recital #2

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A few weeks ago Zeke and Mayci performed in a dance recital, both doing tap routines. They’ve both been taking ballet and tap once a week since August.

The girls Zeke danced with were wearing similar costumes to what Mayci had except in yellow. One thing is for sure… the girl costumes at this recital were WAY cooler than Zeke’s!

Mayci’s hair had to be half up/half down and they said I could do a few beads. I did braids and really more than a few beads. Between her hair and her costume she was super adorable.

Recital #1

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A few weeks ago Zeke performed in his first ever dance recital. This one was for the place where he takes hip hop.

He was so cute up there dancing with his group. The whole show was amazing. Lots of talent at that studio.

They’re done for the summer, but he’ll be taking a few camps and then will be back in August for at least two classes a week, maybe more.

School’s Out for the Littles

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Friday was the last day of school for our older three little ones. They all had a great year and learned so much. None of them are particularly glad that summer break is here. They thrive on routine and while we have a routine at our house it’s nothing like they have at school so breaks are a little hard for some of them.

Zeke got an excellent in conduct (his teacher says he’s very polite and kind to everyone). He also got excellents in Health, Art, Theater Arts, Music, and PE.

Language Arts – B 80% (86% for the year)
Reading – B 86% (87% for the year)
Math – B 85% (88% for the year)
Social Studies – A 96% (98% for the year)
Science – A 97% (98% for the year)

Mayci got 3s in Music and PE. In conduct, she got one 2 (for talking when not appropriate… she can’t really help it… she’s my daughter after all) and then a mix of 3s and 4s. She got a 4 for her stage of writing, a 2 for remembering to capitalize the beginning of sentences, and the rest 3s in Language Arts. She got all 3s in Reading. She can count by ones and tens to 100 and got all 3s in Math. She got all 3s in both Science and Social Studies and a 4 in Health.

Anthony got a 3 and 4 in PE (the 4 is for coordination and balance… he is definitely uncommonly coordinated for a four-year-old). His stage of writing is a 2. He got a mix of 2s and 3s in Language Arts. He knows 20 uppercase letters, 18 lowercase letters, and 18 letter sounds. He got mostly 2s and a couple 3s in Reading. He can rote count to 39 and can count to 30 with one-to-one correspondence. He got mostly 2s and a few 3s in Math. He got all 2s in Science and mostly 2s and a couple 3s in Social Studies. He got a mix of 2s and 3s in Conduct. He got all 3s in Fine Arts and Technology.

It’s hard to believe the school year is already over. When they go back in August these three will be in kindergarten, first, and second grades and they’ll be bringing another brother with them to school every day since it’ll be Nicholas’ turn for Pre-K. But for the next few weeks we have summer school and dance camps and a musical theater camp to look forward to!

2021

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This has been a busy year for us. I simultaneously can’t figure out how the time has gone by so fast and how we fit so much into just twelve months. Tomorrow will be 2022 and the start of twelve more months of adventures.

In January Fritz and Adrian got their first semester report cards for 7th and 9th grades and both did amazing for their first time in public school since kindergarten and second grade. We also continued trying to figure out just how much food to make to feed our small army (spoiler alert: it’s always too much or too little).

In February we put up a baby urinal in our bathroom and it’s been the best thing we could have done. There was more figuring out how to feed our small army (we’ve pretty much got it down now). We got a playground put up in our backyard. We ended up with COVID in the house and had to quarantine at the same time pretty much the entire state of Texas shut down due to a freak snowstorm and crazy cold (we got lucky and never lost power).

In March I started getting more creative with Mayci’s hair. All the adults in the house got vaccinated for COVID. Zeke turned six on Pi Day. The next day Noah had surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids and have tubes put in his ears. We got brave and took all six kids to HEB for the first time.

In April I sprained my foot when I gracefully fell down the stairs of The Beast. We also discovered Zeke has hair like Fritz’s: It grows SO fast!

In May our six-year-old officially changed his name to Zeke. School got out and so Mayci finished pre-k, Zeke finished kindergarten, Adrian finished 7th grade, and Fritz finished 9th grade.

In June the kids were bored of their 11-week summer vacation within about 30 seconds so we started our summer schedule which continued the entire summer and worked great. We got Fritz’s end of course results (all three passed). We entered Birthday Season when Adrian turned 13 on Juneteenth. The end of the month the twins turned two.

In July we got Adrian’s STAAR test results (he did great especially because it was his first time taking that sort of test). On the 6th Nicholas turned 3. And then on the 11th Fritz turned 15. Adrian saved all year and enlisted the help of a few other people in order to give Fritz an Oculus Quest 2 for his birthday. On the 18th Anthony turned 4 ending our intense streak of five birthdays in less than three weeks. Fritz got all registered for the virtual school for 10th grade.

In August we finished birthday season on the 2nd when Mayci turned 5. Zeke and Mayci both took off in their reading (best decision ever to work on teaching them how to read over the summer). We found out who the three elementary schoolers’ teachers would be (they’ve all been the perfect teacher for each kid, especially Zeke’s). In the middle of the month it was time for four of the kids to be off to pre-k, kindergarten, 1st, and 8th grades (and Nicky moved to a new room at preschool). A week later Fritz started 10th grade. Just before the end of the month my beautiful mother turned three-quarters of a century old.

In September we started getting monthly boxes of Young Adult books from Literati for Adrian (love those books). Dance classes started up for Zeke and Mayci. I did the most complicated and beautiful hairstyle on Mayci that I’ve done so far (53 twists). The twins moved out of their cribs and into their big boy beds. We took four of the kids to the movies for the first time. Mayci went to dance camp at the high school and got to perform at halftime at a football game.

In October we pulled Nicholas out of preschool. We got the four littlest boys new church clothes. I did some fancy hair on both Mayci and Haley. We had some really cute costumed kids on Halloween.

In November Jamie and I went to see The Beach Boys again. Lola moved in with Cameron and Tami and it’s helped Nicky’s eczema so much (he’s allergic to dogs). We celebrated Jamie’s 46th birthday and one year since we adopted the kids by playing at a trampoline park. We got our family pictures taken. I started having more time to read again thanks to Haley playing with the twinplets six hours a week and the kids getting a little older and more independent.

In December Nicky suddenly started looking much older and bigger than his little brothers. Anthony’s dreams came true when we put a Christmas tree in our living room. My Daddy turned 77 on Christmas Eve.

And now here we are on New Year’s Eve looking forward to what 2022 will bring us. We know a few things like Trek for the big boys, Fritz being ordained to the office of Priest, Birthday Season ending with us having 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 14 and 16-year-olds, Ani turning 22 in February, Zeke turning 7 in March, me turning 44 in April, Cameron turning 21 in October, and Jamie turning 47 in November the same day we hit two years since the kids were adopted, and having kids starting pre-k, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 9th, and 11th grades in August. Whatever else 2022 has in store for us, I know it will be awesome!

One Happy Dancer

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On Saturday Mayci got to participate in a dance clinic. She was taught a dance routine by the girls on the high school’s dance teams and then she got to perform at halftime during the football game that night. She absolutely loved it! She had so much fun that we signed her up for the cheer clinic they’ll be doing next month.