Cameo Pageant

The night before the Cinderella State Pageant began there was a Cameo Pageant.  It's basically modeling in a nice dress but with a self introduction in the middle where the girl says her name age and where she is from.  Etta was in the 7-8 year old group and I told her it would be hard since she is one of the younger contestants.  She's been working on her modeling since school got out so I knew she could do it, it's just a matter of her doing it right on stage in front of an audience and several judges.

Etta and Tot friend Savannah before heading into the Ballroom for the Cameo Pageant.

My mom and grandma came into town to watch Chloe for us while Etta and I would be at State but they were able to come with Eric and Chloe to watch the Cameo pageant.  Man, Etta was amazing.  She did everything we've worked on and was AWESOME.  Million mile smile and perfect from first X to last X.  I was so proud of her.  I told her it didn't matter what she placed because she had been perfect.

Modeling her party dress

It was nerve wracking hearing the awards being announced especially then when it got down to the final two (Etta and her good friend Sarah).  Then they announced Etta as the winner.  As you can tell from the pictures below she was a happy girl!

 

 So proud of Etta.

Here are the Nevada State Cameo winners in each age division.  Etta has been working hard all year long for this past week.  It sure started off with a bang when she won Sunday night.  I know several of you want to see State Pageant pictures and want to know how everything went.  I'll have pictures and type all about the past week soon.  I need to catch up on lost sleep from this week.

 



Dance Pictures

It's been a long time since the girls had their dance pictures taken.  Here are my favorites.

Once I get the scanner to cooperate, I'll put their class pictures up as well.  Two more weeks of dance class, and we are free!

Dance Recital

A year of dance is nearly at an end.  The girls had their Bunker Dance Center recital at the Smith Center yesterday afternoon and it was quite a production.  It was about an hour and a half show with about 20 different dance numbers ranging from 3 year olds (which stole the show) to the Senior Performing Arts Company.  Having the recital and the Smith Center was pretty grand, especially since this was my first time there.  We had pretty good seats and one of Etta's best friends even came to watch.  Etta's class was fifth on stage and she did an amazing job.  She was in the center and didn't disappoint.  Now Chloe I've been worried about because she just doesn't try very hard.  I had a nice long talk about trying her hardest since we'll have this on DVD for everyone to see.  She was awesome.  She missed a couple of steps here and there but she sure did try and looked super cute.  We aren't allowed to video the performance so I ordered a DVD but won't have it for 5 to 6 weeks!  So you'll have to contend yourself with the videos of their dress rehearsal earlier this week (Etta's, Chloe's).  Here are several pictures of the girls after their performance.

 

Daddy giving Chloe some flowers.

Etta and her flowers.

  Etta's best friend Jordyn was so excited to see Etta perform.

 The girls posing at Symphony Park.

 

I just love how Chloe is being Chloe in this picture.

 

I should be getting their dance pictures this coming week that were taken quite a long time ago.  Hope to have them up in a few days!  The girls only have two more weeks of dance classes even though they finished their recital.  Etta is done with dance which is great since her schedule is busy enough.  Chloe has been on the fence about tap and think she's going to move on to other things.  I'm just glad they stuck with it this year even when they were ready to quit!





Etta's Dress Rehearsal

Today was Etta's dress rehearsal at the Smith Center.  They were the first on stage this morning so we left fairly early to make sure we would get there on time.  You never know about accidents and rush hour traffic here in Las Vegas.  Other than someone changing her hair bow, which then was askew, she looked great.  I can't wait to see her perform tomorrow.

 

I still have two tickets to the 2:30 show tomorrow, if you happen to be interested in going just let me know!

A Busy Week with Chloe

What a week.  Today was the girls' last day of school and of course was a half day. Which is a good thing because all the kids were crazy.  I was helping take down stuff in the hallways then helped in Chloe's class for their end of the year picnic.  I find it strange that they had their graduation last week then still had several full days of school.  Last year graduation was in the morning and that was it, school was over.  Oh well.  Even though Kindergarten doesn't do an awards ceremony they still had awards in the art binder.  Chloe got an attendance award for missing only 2 days of school, Principal's Citizenship Award (which I think everyone gets), and the Library Award (from the Librarian).  She was very happy!



All her Kindergarten awards

I took the girls out of school an hour early because Chloe had a dress rehearsal for their Bunker dance recital.  I let the girls have some food on the way there and dressed Chloe in the car when we got to the Smith Center.  This was my first time at the Smith Center and it's pretty impressive.  I was a little bummed because Chloe has been practicing her tap routine on stage left so I picked out seats on that side of the room (Etta is in the middle which made my decision easy).  Of course during dress rehearsal she was at the very end of stage right.  Aaaarrrgggg.  We were allowed to record the dress rehearsal but won't be able to this Saturday.  Instead we get to purchase very expensive DVDs of the performance.  Hopefully it will be a better quality than my little recorder. 

 

Chloe originally asked to do tap again next year but recently says she's done after this month.  I've been trying to encourage her to continue but then I watch this video and notice she really doesn't care.  So, I'd rather put the time and money somewhere she wants it.  She has horse camp next week, let's see how she enjoys that!

First Grade Awards

Another day, another ceremony.  Today was the Kitty Ward Elementary 1st Grade Award Ceremony.  Etta planned to look her best so she picked out a cute dress and wanted me to curl her hair.  Here she is before leaving for school.

There are seven first grade classes with anywhere from 19 to 25 students so you can imagine how long it took to get through them all.  We were fortunate that Etta's class went first!  Since our last name happens to be at the end of the alphabet she was one of that last to get called up.  Mrs. Carley gave Etta the Gold President's Award for Educational Excellence, meaning she has straight A's!  She was also given an award for demonstrating Responsibility throughout the year.

Mrs. Carley announcing Etta's awards.

Getting some love from the principal.

Etta's class and all their awards.

When I was picking up Etta at the end of the day she rushed over and told me that Mrs. Carley forgot to announce another award she earned, the ST Math award.  ST Math is a computer program with math problems that she's been working on at home.  She was pretty excited because she said only a handful of boys in the first grade got it and she was the only girl to get it.

Happy Etta!

 Eric and I are most proud of her straight A's.  She's a hard worker and enjoys doing well in school.  Let's hope she keeps it up!

Chloe's Kindergarten Graduation

It feels like we just did this last year with Etta.  Oh yeah, we did just do this last year with Etta.  You will notice many similarities between Etta's and Chloe's graduation.  I had to talk Chloe into wearing a dress for the special occasion but she finally picked a very girly dress.  Here she is posing before going to school.  She also insisted on me curling her hair and putting in two little pig tails.  So cute.

 

We chose good seats, we knew they would be coming down the middle isle signing so we picked a spot great for pictures.

 

All of the kids introduce themselves and say what they want to be when they grow up.  You can tell what Chloe wants to do this summer by her answer.



 A great view of Chloe throughout the graduation.  There were something like 5 sets of twins between the two full day kinder classes so they were the ones that did all the introductions. 

Cute singing.  Really I don't expect most of you to sit through this, but I can guarantee my mom will be watching every minute of her grand baby singing!

Daddy even participated in the Tooty Ta again this year.  What a good daddy!

 

Even though Chloe has graduated from kindergarten, she still has 3.5 days left of school.  I'm almost positive she's going to ask me tomorrow morning if she's going to first grade instead of kindergarten.  Sigh.  Tomorrow is another big day, it's first grade awards.  I'm fairly confident that Etta may get the most injuries to feet in a school year award.  We'll see.