It's All About the Dance Costumes Right Now

Having the costumes stored at my house means that I end up being the costume manager AND a dance teacher.

It makes me really appreciate our past costume managers!

First, I had to move all of the bins out of the storage room because that room had to be turned back into a bedroom for Belle (who arrives home in 3 days).  

Then Nature Angel, Little Princess, and I tried to put the bins in groups that made sense by content.  We were able to use the spreadsheet I created last summer to help us with that.

Nature Angel, our director, and I had a meeting to decide which dances would include which costumes.

We ran into all kinds of problems like sizing and quantity . . . and even found mold in one set of costumes. :(  

So, now I've done several sets of hand-washing, one set of machine-washing on gentle, and So. Much. Line-drying.

And I'm trying to sew 6 tiered circle skirts for my baby class because the costumes I thought would work, are actually all sized for larger kids, and there are no other costumes suitable for On the Good Ship Lollipop.

Oh!  And the accessories!!!

I've sorted through well over 100 sets of accessories!  But I get to pass them off to our accessory coordinator as soon as we've committed to final plans.

I think all of the costume stuff is why I forgot to even do school with the younger kids on Friday afternoon!

We went to the park that morning to do school with the teens and give the younger kids some exercise.  I also had a meeting with a church friend, so we were at the park longer than usual.  By the time I'd served the kids a late lunch (they'd had sandwiches and apples at the park), all I could stand to do was lie down and be quiet for a while.

Then I got up, sewed another circle skirt, and made dinner. :)

We have only one regular rehearsal session left before we have a dress rehearsal and three weeks of shows.

(The following rehearsal phots are courtesy of one of our dance moms.)

My baby Stars listening carefully for their cue in the music

Nature Angel teaching her class

It looks like Little Princess is rehearsing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.

Rehearsing Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

In regular school life, the teens and I are 50 pages from the end of The Last of the Mohicans, and we've made it to Mark Twain in our literature text, so that means we're starting The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  For the next week, we'll be reading both books, and when we finish TLotM, we'll keep reading TAoHF and return to our usual textbook readings.

Both high schoolers are doing well in math, science, and other individual classes.  Nature Angel has added an online (HarvardX) human anatomy class to her schedule.

The younger kids and I finished Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin and started The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  We're still reading about Galileo!  We're not stagnating.  There are just that many chapters about his contributions to science!  We had several games, with leftover Halloween candy rewards, testing what the kids remember about our history/geography studies, and they are doing quite well.  We started and finished The Bears of Hemlock Mountain and continued our readings in Liberty or Death and The Great Little Madison.

One sunny day, I took the kids to the swales and we did school there.  We read aloud together, practiced memorization, and did a nature scavenger hunt.







The session ended with an energetic game of freeze tag.

And suddenly the kids were all inspired to spend more time outdoors for the rest of the week!

I am gratefully calling the kids inside at the end of each day.

Cooler temperatures have inspired some good old-fashioned cooking projects; Little Princess baked bread, and I did several canning sessions.

I'm ready to put regular school aside and take that fall break I wrote about 2 weeks ago!


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