Lainey's First Dance Recital!

 My kids are not ones that love to pose for photos.

Oh well!

The recital was cute!

They did one choreographed song, a leaping exercise done individually, and then ended with a third song that was half choreographed but ended with free style dancing.

I was fairly convinced that Lainey would get out on stage and just freeze completely but she didn't!

Yay! 

She did her best to complete the choreographed songs correctly. 

So cute!

She needed the teachers hand in order to have enough courage to do the leaping exercise but participated well in the third song again.  

One little girl in her class wouldn't even go on stage. Poor thing!

It was at a local high school and a formal performance.  The kids were taken backstage, without parents, 30 minutes before the show started.  They didn't see us again for 2 hours.  That's pretty intimidating for a 3 year old!  

The studio we take her to is quite formal.

The teacher for the 3-6 year old kids is really kind and wonderful.

It's extremely organized (both the classes and recital).

It is quite strict though - specific tights, shoes, leotard and hair style (bun) required at 

every class. Yikes!  My bun making skills have improved dramatically over the year. Ha!

I have mixed feelings about this because I want dance to be fun and am afraid the formality of it

will take away from some of the fun.

That being said, I do think it's important to get good, quality training at whatever you participate in and she is getting that at this studio.

So far she seems to like dance.

She'll be in the same class next year (it's for 3-4 year old kids, that turn 4-5 during the year)

and I imagine she will improve drastically in her confidence next year.

The recital today was only for the 3-7 year old kids.

This limits it to just over an hour (yay!).  They did have older kids do two dances though.

I think this was mainly done to show the parents what our kids might be doing in 10 years.

One of the dances was particularly amazing!

Really, really beautiful.

Even Erik seemed captivated by it!

It was a fun day.

I am glad dance it done for now though as

her classes were on saturdays.

Two more soccer games and we will get our Saturdays back 

for the first time since Labor Day. Yay!