Ballet Watch Day

 All of our girls have enjoyed all their dance classes at The Studio! One of my favorite events, as a parent, of each dance year are the two Ballet Watch Weeks they have each year. We had one Watch Week in mid-December and we enjoyed watching our girls dance as much as they liked dancing for us!

 Rachel and Bekah are both taking Beginning Acrobatics. They both love this class and are always trying to show us their acro moves even at home! This is also the first dance class they have ever been in together and that has been fun for them tooHet

 Here they are getting a little help on their handstands.

 Rachel also had Ballet immediately following her Acrobatics class on the same day, same classroom and same teacher! She danced for an hour and 45 mins straight and still had energy to spare!

 Rebekah also took ballet this year too.

 Here she is with her Acro teacher, Mrs. Audrey.

Thank you to all their teachers at The Studio for all they have taught each of our girls about dance and life long lessons about hard work, patience,  and dedication as well. They have enjoyed every minute of their time dancing at The Studio!
Thank you to Mimi and Nana for paying for all 3 girls' dance classes this  year too!
Rachel, Bekah, and Bethany, we love watching each of you dance. You each like such different styles of dance and different dance moves! You each have your own beautiful style when you dance and we love how your personalities each shine through the way you dance. We are so proud of each of you! Always keep dancing for Jesus!

Bethany Ballerina

 Bethany had been waiting for her turn to begin ballet class like her big sisters. She turned 2 over the summer and so she was able to begin Creative Movement classes this August. She has loved ballet as well! If you ask her about her Tuesday afternoons, she will tell you "dance with Ms. Kitty."

 She is starting to learn about all her beginning dance potions and she will jump right in and show us when her big sisters show us what they are learning in dance too.

 Earlier in December, we had ballet watch week at the Studio and we were able to go in and watch her dance with her class. It is so much fun to see how she developing her own love of dance already!

 Here she is with her Creative Movement teacher, Ms. Kitty. Thank you, Ms. Kitty, for all you have taught Bethany already!

Bethany Ballerina, we are so proud of you! You dance so beautifully and so sweetly already! We always will love to watch you dance!

Apple Adventures

We did get have one other fun field trip this fall. Pink Ladies are one of our favorite apples. We waited until a little later in the fall to head to Carter Mountain just to be able to pick a few of the apples.

This little lady was very excited about the apple she was able to pick!

Her Daddy did all the lifting and would hold her up in the tree to pick her own apples

The big girls loved picking apples too. It took a little while looking before we found some low enough that they could reach on their own.

Glad for our family afternoon enjoying a little apple picking!

Luray Caverns

Rachel had asked several times since we moved to the mountains 5 years ago when we might be able to go to Luray Caverns (usually she asked when we had to drive up I-81 North past all the giant Luray Caverns billboards). Earlier this fall, I received information that the Home Educators Association of Virginia was part of a Homeschool week there in November. It was a great opportunity for us to be able to finally see Luray Caverns with the girls. Brent surprised me with a trip there for our first wedding anniversary, but it was the first time he and I had been back in 11 years too!

We did see the car and carriage museum too, but definitely not until after we saw the caverns first!

This was headed into the caverns. It is a wonder I have any pictures from this trip. They were so excited that they could hardly stand to stop for a picture!

Here are Rachel and Bekah as we entered the caverns.

I did get all 3 standing mostly still enough to get one picture.

 This little one got a little tired of walking and was ready for a ride on her Daddy's shoulders.

 This is my very favorite picture. The big girls had rounded a corner just ahead of us and I stopped to take a picture of Brent and Bethany and realized the big girls where looking right through at me also!

So glad we all were finally able to go to Luray Caverns together and we surely had fun learning about all those stalagmites and stalactites too!

Itty Bitty: 20 Weeks!!

 We got to see this beautiful girl today for her 20 week ultrasound today! I drank some lemonade before we went so she was definitely wiggly.

 She looks a lot like all of her sisters already. She is measuring at exactly 21 weeks, which I should be Wednesday, so she is growing right on track! That was a huge relief for this mommy since I have been so sick with her! The nausea is still there, but she is doing great and that is what matters! She is also weighing in at 14 ounces, which is just right also.

 She is walking straight into our hearts with those cute little feet...we love her so already! Yes, those are her tiny little feet in the picture above.

 She also loves to have her hands up by her head. She even had her knee to her nose for a little while in the pictures! Maybe another ballerina or a gymnast to come!

 We couldn't take pictures during the ultrasound but here are her Daddy and her sisters looking at all her beautiful pictures after the ultrasound.

20 weeks! Halfway there and so good to see our Itty Bitty today!

Sleeping Beauty and Where the Page Meets the Stage

Over the summer, Rachel did a creative writing workshop at The Studio, where she takes dance lessons. The workshop was called "Where the Page Meets the Stage." A fun part of this workshop is that the short stories written by each of the groups gets performed by the Rockbridge Ballet at one of their company performances. So finally this weekend, we got a chance to see the short story by Rachel's group performed as a ballet.

First, we got to enjoy the performance of Sleeping Beauty. This little ballerina was totally enthralled. We were seated right down front so she could see really well and she would watch a few minutes then lean over and grab my arm and point at the stage and grin.

The big girls were glad to see Miss Emma, who was back visiting from college.

The girls all loved watching Sleeping Beauty and then it was time for the stories from "Where the Page Meets the Stage." There was a slideshow from the workshop over the summer telling a little more about all the stories. If you look closely, this was Rachel's group on the screen.

Her group wrote a story called the "Four Princesses." It was a tale of 4 princess sisters who didn't listen to their mom, the Queen, and went picking berries where they were not supposed to and got themselves in trouble. Here are the Rockbridge Ballet dancers performing the story. The groups even got to help pick out costumes and music for their stories.

All ended well. Here the 4 princesses are back home safely with the Queen.

There were several other short ballets from the workshop as well. Of course, our favorite was the story written by Rachel's group. All of the dancers did a great job putting the stories to dance. Our family's other favorite was the "Chaos in the Kitchen", which was an very fun dance about...Pizza!

Here are all our ballerinas with Ms. Jessica.

Here was our little author showing us her group's story. She was so excited to see her group's story and picture in the program. Rachel, we are proud of you! We are so glad you enjoy writing and dance and we loved seeing your group's story set to dance!

October 31st!

These 3 little Princess Belles were excited to be out and about in downtown Lexington this afternoon getting a little (or maybe A LOT) of candy.

Little Pumpkin had fun with them too!

We got to see several friends while we were there. The girls were so excited to see Mrs. Debbie! They were so glad to see Mrs. Sarah, Brylen and Brody too.

They also liked to see the Rockbridge Crew from their dance studio dancing downtown today too! The Crew did a great job with their dance today!

They were thrilled to see Mrs. Jessica, Mrs. Audrey and Mr. Devin, some of their teachers from The Studio, downtown today too!

These girls loved being Princess Belle this year. Belle is currently their favorite princess. Their Mimi bought them each a Belle dress this year. Thanks, Mimi!

We haven't gotten to do as many fun fall things yet this fall since I have been so sick with Little Itty Bitty but these little ladies sure did have a fun afternoon today and we will definitely not be running out of candy any time soon! On a fun note, we are walking back to the car and a Ghostbuster comes up and asks the girls if they got a toothbrush to go with their candy. We gladly added new toothbrushes to go with their candy stockpile of the day!