The Nutcracker, Take 5

 

Five shows down, one to go! This afternoon, we finally got to see Courtney and Erica dance in IBC’s Nutcracker! They were cast as “Young Ladies” in the party scene, and they were very graceful and lovely Young Ladies. :-) The dresses they wore were provided by IBC and had been made from curtains! (when Mick heard this, he quoted Carol Burnette’s Scarlett O’Hara “I spotted it in the window and just couIdn’t resist it.” HA!) 

 

I had the girls get back into their costumes after the show and got a few pictures out in the lobby. They have spent an inordinate amount of time together in the past few weeks and still get along so well. How fun it is to watch your kids having fun together. :-)

 

  

Pointe taken

This year, we signed up Courtney & Erica for their first summer ballet intensive, which was a 3-week-long camp. We knew they’d learn a lot and be stretched – literally and figuratively - and boy were they. To say the first couple of days were rocky would be an understatement. Day 1 was a frustratingly difficult day for both as they tried to adjust to new faces, location, techniques, expectations, etc. Day 2 was even worse, and Rachel and I spent most of the drive home giving them pep talks while they stared out the windows, looking defeated and exhausted. I started fearing mutiny and mentally prepared the ‘ol “Do you know how much this thing cost?” speech. I don’t think it would’ve mattered. On the drive there on Day 3, just before we got to the studio, Courtney asked me what road we’d just turned off of. After I told her, she said “OK, I’m just trying to memorize the route in case I decide to walk home.”  She did not sound like she was kidding.

On top of all the newness of everything, they also had to try to get used to “zee Russian accents” of their instructors. All but a couple of them were from Russia. During the intensive, the ballet school posted this picture on their FB page:

Imposing bunch, no? The lady in yellow is the founding artistic director and, in spite of the beautiful smile, was quite a tough cookie. They did like her, however. In fact, the tall, intimidating guy at the right end, “Mr. Alexei,” was their absolute favorite. He told lots of stories of his incredibly-demanding life growing up as a ballet dancer in Russia. This was their favorite quote of his: “With American dancers, you cannot slap them or insult them.  You must find different ways to motivate them.” The girls thought this was pretty funny, actually – especially when said with a Russian accent, which seemed to improve each day, right along with their ballet skills. ;-)

After those first 2 rough days, however, Day 3 ended up being the turning point, and things started coming together. They started learning their dances and getting used to the heavy accents. And they especially enjoyed seeing good friends Emma and Isabelle during lunch each day, sharing stories, jokes and food. They came home each night and entertained us all during dinner with their stories and demonstrations of bits of their dances. They made friends with the Japanese dancers who knew no English. We looked up a few Japanese phrases online, but they were too shy to try them out. They did share the common language of ballet, plus some popular American songs that they sang together.

Through it all, they spun this elaborate tale about how good all the other dancers were and how awful they were. Being latecomers to ballet, I knew there’d be a learning curve for them, but when I accused them of exaggerating, they said “No, we’re not kidding Mom!” and “You’ll see!” On the last day, the school put on a recital, showcasing what they’d learned, and, well, what can I say? I was stunned.

From the contemporary dance. I need a higher resolution image so you can see the detail in Erica’s arms! So strong!

Courtney is in the middle of this pas de trois.

I mean, how beautiful are they?! It was all I could do keep from standing up and announcing to everyone they were my daughters! I was incredibly proud of them. They learned so much … and I did, too. I learned that they can definitely hold their own in a group of dancers who, in some cases, have studied many more years than they have. I also learned they are awfully hard on their own dancing skills, but these pictures tell the real story!

 

Courtney’s Sweet Sixteen

What’s a girl to do when she’s planned and daydreamed about something for months, even years?! Well, you drag out the actual event for almost 2 weeks! I can’t remember when Courtney first started talking about her 16th birthday; I know it’s been at least a year. Easily. Who knew it would end up being more like a birthWEEK or birth-week-and-a-half.  :-)

Two weeks ago, we were being socked by a winter storm, followed by two days of arctic temperatures (I think the high temperature was –11 one day) which the experts said was caused by a “polar vortex”. The storm hit on Sunday; Monday and Tuesday were the extremely cold days, Courtney’s birthday was on Wednesday. Since it was still very cold and snowy, I had to work and Grandma was sick, we decided to postpone the party. But we decided to have a little celebration here at home with just us. Since I had to work all day, that ruled out anything homemade for dinner and cake. Kroger came to the rescue with jarred spaghetti sauce, frozen meatballs, frozen garlic bread and even a chocolate fudge cake! We had a few gifts for her to open and rescheduled for the following Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa.

 

Grandma and Grandpa were able to make it on Sunday and we were able to do all our usual birthday stuff: nice meal, homemade Strawberry Shortcake for the birthday dessert, all three verses of Happy Birthday, and gift opening in the living room.

 

The Strawberry Shortcake was delicious – tasty, fresh fruit year-round has got to be one of the nicest benefits of living in the Modern Age. The recipe I follow for the shortcake is very simple; I got it from a Strawberry Shortcake cookbook Mom gave to one of the girls years ago. I use it every time we have this dessert. I often use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the shortcakes, but sometimes I use a flower-shape, which is what I did this time. This is what Mick’s plate looked like. Can you tell it’s one of his favorite desserts?

When Mom picked out her shortcake, she found that she just couldn’t bring herself to eat it – er … him ... Her?

Ha!  The two “eye” holes were made from the candles. I promise we were not intending this when we were hurriedly putting the candles in the shortcakes! It was the only shortcake that looked like that – with the perfectly placed sideways crack for a smile. :-) We all had a good laugh at it, but strangely, no one could bring themselves to eat it!  :-D  It sat on the counter for a couple of days until two hungry little boys snagged it and I caught them hiding under the barstools nibbling on it.  :-D

We also planned a “friend” birthday party, with 21 of Courtney’s closest friends on the guest list.  ;-)

Here is the invitation we emailed:

 

On Wednesday evening, Courtney’s friend Moriah flew in for the party. Thursday found central Indiana getting hit with another winter storm; nothing like the previous one, but more snow and cold. Thankfully, the roads were cleared quickly. On Friday, Rachel made 8 homemade pizza crusts and a huge salad, Texas Sheet Cake and Orange Bars. Meanwhile, I picked up cousin Holly and brought her up from Indianapolis with me, and then, around 5:30, everyone else started showing up.

I think we had a total of 17 guests who were able to come. Our friend George made on good on his threat to crash the party, but he was only here for a short time, while waiting for friends to pick him up when they dropped off their girls.

The girls all had a great time eating, chatting, laughing and making bracelets together.

 

 

 

 

The fun continued on into the weekend, with 3 cousins and Moriah here Saturday night into Sunday morning, and cousin Holly and Moriah here Sunday night! Last night, around 9:00, the girls pushed back the dining room table and started doing some impromptu dances to Irish jigs, and when I got into bed around 11:00, I could hear them laughing downstairs while they played Apples to Apples.  It’s been an exciting week and I think I can safely say it lived up to all the months and months (years?) of build-up.  :-)

I’ll end with just a few pictures of Courtney through the years. Keep in mind, the vast majority of my pictures of her before the age of 10 have not been scanned yet!

 

 

 

 

 

Best in Show

Back in April, 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled The Boys of Summer, describing how Courtney managed to get this great picture of Trent:

Out of all the nice shots she got that day, this was my hands-down favorite. I just think it’s a great picture! In 2012, the girls did not participate in 4H, so we weren’t able to use this picture in the fair. This past year, Courtney signed up for 4H photography, but you can only submit pictures that have been taken in the past year, and we just missed the mark. A few weeks after the fair, we received an email from the 4H organizers letting all the 4H-ers know they were invited to submit photos to a local festival our town has every fall. This festival has a live band, antique car show, and an art and photography contest. We checked out the entry form, and their rules did not include any timeframes for when the pictures had to have been taken. So we decided to enter this picture.

Courtney got a call yesterday morning from one of the judges saying her picture had won “Best of Show” in her category! I was at the grocery when she got the call, so she called me to let me know. She told me later that when she was dialing the phone to tell me, she was so excited she dropped the phone!  :-D

We’re proud of Courtney and thankful she was recognized for such beautiful artwork!

4-H

Courtney participated in the 4-H Photography class this year. She took lots of pictures and had a hard time narrowing it down to her favorites.

Courtney is very creative, has an eye for detail and enjoys a good story. I think all three of those characteristics came together very nicely in the picture she ended up submitting. The judge agreed: blue ribbon!

She actually laid down on the gravel road to take this shot. I think she should’ve gotten bonus points for that!

Erica and Courtney, July 2012

We’ve been browsing through pictures in our Picasa photo albums and there are so many pictures that we go back to again and again. More often than not, my favorite pictures seem to be the happy result of great lighting, great composition and great subject matter that seem to come together at just the right time. So, periodically, I want to try to remember to upload these favorites to the blog and give a little background on them. I tend to think of this blog in terms of recent, up-to-date news on what’s going on, but I need to remember that the main goal is to document our family through the years – even those pre-blog years.

This picture was taken one warm summer night when Mick made this two-seater swing. Mom’s cousin, Suzy, spotted the plans for it in a Lowe’s flyer. She gave them to me because she thought it was something Mick could easily do. She was right: he put it together in an evening and the girls had to try it out right away. The sun had just set and I really didn’t have enough light left to get this shot. So many of the other ones I took were blurry, but again, somehow, everything came together at just the right moment: the lighting, the tall corn as a backdrop, the girls’ bare feet and joyful, carefree expressions that kids so often have in the summertime. I love it!

“Leave it to Psmith” by P. G. Wodehouse

“Macbeth” by William Shakespeare

Courtney’s online literature class read “Macbeth” recently. The instructor assigned the students parts and they “performed” the play during class.

You know, I read “Macbeth” in high school, too. But the experience wasn’t anything like this.

I’m not bitter. Really.

Courtney’s 15th

Wow, it feels weird to type out that title. Shouldn’t Courtney be about 4 or 5? 

Courtney’s 14th year was dominated by one theme: ballet. Early in the year and through spring, Courtney and our other ballerinas were busy preparing for the Lebanon Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty.” It was a great learning experience and a very exciting time. It was also her first opportunity to wear a heavy amount of makeup with my permission. :-)

Ballet continued on through the summer, since Courtney and Erica would be joining the Ballet V class in the fall. Because they had only been taking ballet for a year, they felt like they had some extra work to be ready to join the older girls.

   

Last fall, we saw the movie “First Position,” which is a documentary about an international ballet competition, the Youth America Grand Prix. Rather than being intimidated by the realities of high cost, injuries and long practice hours, Courtney was inspired by it! She can hardly complete a simple household task without throwing in an arabesque or sashay or lots of other ballet moves, which I can’t even begin to spell. We added another night of ballet lessons last fall, so she and Erica are there 3 nights a week. I’ve wondered if they would start to get bored or burned out, but I haven’t seen any signs of that. Often, Mick and I can hear the thumping of her and Erica’s stretching and dancing coming from their bedroom late into the night. :-)

Aside from her sisters and cousins, Courtney’s good friends are mostly from church. She has also developed a good friendship with a sweet girl from her on-line class. They were able to meet in person back in May, when her family came to Indianapolis so her dad could run in the Mini Marathon.

Courtney has always been a very creative girl and one of her creative outlets is photography. She took some very good pictures last year, with Trent, the pets and nature being her favorite subjects. Along with the picture-taking, she has had fun doing some photo editing on the computer.

 

She has also honed her drawing skills and drew some very nice pictures in the past few months. She tried her hand at moviemaking last year and created some great little movies with her sisters, cousins and friends. This is one of my favorite parts of “The Secret of the Violin:”

Her birthday this year was a little more low-key because Grandma is still recovering from their accident, so she and Grandpa weren’t able to come. After lunch, I took her out for dessert. She requested The Fig Tree Cafe, a cute little place right in town that has some great gelato! After that, we did a little Goodwill shopping, which she could happily spend many, many hours doing. For dinner, the birthday girl requested Pasta Sausage Soup and Italian bread, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. This year, we focused on clothes for birthday gifts, partly because she has really shot up in the past year. She and Rachel are the same size now, which is great for sharing clothes, but makes it more difficult to tell the two apart. I’ve gotten them mixed up a lot lately! We also got her several books: a couple of Hardy Boys titles, and How They Kept the Faith- A Tale of the Huguenots of Languedocs, My Antonia, I Capture the Castle, and The Tale of Beatrix Potter- A Biography.

Happy 15th Birthday, Courtney! We love you!