Dance Recital 2012!

Oooooh, the long awaited dance recital!!! Such a fun, memorable and exhausting few days. I'm writing this blog post several months ago (okay... 7. Oh. my. word. I'm behind!), but it is so easy to remember the excitement of the day. Even though I had a newborn (C was a week and a half old) and I was totally sleep deprived I was still really excited about the recital.

S had several dance rehearsal the weeks leading up to the recital and then dress rehearsal all morning Saturday. We had enough time to run home, eat lunch and take a short siesta before heading back up to the Metro Center. Needless to say it was a marathon day, but SO worth it! 

I was flying solo most of the morning, which in hindsight probably wasn't the smartest idea. I had to change Sophia's costume/tights three times for three different dances and make sure she was in the right place at the right time. It really wasn't too bad because Carsten was in the sling and he slept the entire time. Literally, I fed him around 8am and then again right before we left around 1pm. Such a sweet baby :-) I loooove watching my sweet girl dancing her heart out. She truly loves dancing... (especially freestyle) and I love that she gets to dance it with her friends.

It's a good thing Melanie took pictures all day because I didn't even bring my camera :-)

Annaleece, Sophia and Corinne after their morning rehearsal

First up was their Performing Company dance...

(S is second from left)

It was adorable and the girls love using the pom-poms!

S is far left below

Their ballet dance was to You'll Be In My Heart (by Phil Collins) from the movie Tarzan. Such a sweet song and the dance was so adorable.  Sophia is on the far right.  She was the leader when it was time to run a circle around the stage .  She was always so proud that she knew exactly when to go and exactly where to run back to.  So sweet :-)  You can see on the video that she waves at the audience as she is running across the stage back to her spot .  There was definitely some clapping/laughing in the audience when she did that :-) Adorable!

In the above picture S is second from right (next to the blonde girl).

You can easily spot her in the picture below with her hospital bracelet on.  I still don't know how they didn't notice that before sending her on stage!  

"...you'll be in my heart" :-)

The little girl in the middle came in late and in the wrong costume.  Bless her heart!  Good thing it was just the morning rehearsal :-)

Clearly Dan was not excited about pictures...

Our first official picture of our family of four :-) So tired, but so happy!

I love that she still had her hospital bracelet on :-)

Sophia, Corinne and Ella before the Daddy-Daughter dance.  They have four or five practices the month before the recital, but no one is allowed to watch.  That way the Daddy-Daughter dance is a surprise for all the moms/relatives/friends that come watch. 

These pics are from my iPhone before I dropped her off backstage before both dances.  Not bad for phone pics :-)  Sweet girl was soooo excited to dance!

Believe it or not, she had on less make up than most of the girls :-)

Our very pretty and very dramatic girl!

Daddy-Daughter dance is such a neat thing and definitely makes for some sweet, sweet memories for all involved! Their dance this year was to the Footloose song, Let's hear it for the Boy. Super cute!  Here are the Dad's waiting on the girls to come out...

I love how S is laughing at Mr David (to her right) :-)  She thinks he is hilarious!

The Dads get a few seconds to show off their moves before the girls come out.  Some of them are actually pretty good and some are just pretty funny :-)

Some of my favorite girls and their Dads after the recital :-)

My sweet girl and I after her recital :-)

The grand finale with all the Daddys and Daughters at United Performing Arts Company!  What a great night!  W can't wait until next year :-)

On a side note... we were all beyond exhausted (physically, mentally, and emotionally) from the busy week, crazy recital day and of course getting little sleep with a newborn.  Well, I guess Carsten (11 days old) was exhausted too because he slept from 11pm-6:30am.  Whooo hoooo!  You don't even know how badly I needed it.  What an unexpected blessing that was!  Love my sweet little guy :-)