Dance competition

This was our first ever dance competition. All three of the older girls competed in the 10th Annual Invitational Showcase at The Performing Arts Centre. It was a really fun time!

I was so excited to have them be a part of it - it really gets your blood pumping, all the excitement and atmosphere! It also gives us an opportunity to have them have stage practice and wear their costumes more than once!!
Here are some pics:

Olivia the ballerina!

Grace before with her hair in rollers!

Grace after with hair and make-up!

Amelia before with her hair in rollers

Amelia after costume and make-up!

Super cute, heh?? I wish I could have taken pictures at the event, but flash photography is very distracting to dancers on stage so there is no cameras allowed at the theatre....they did good. Olivia had one little mis-step and Grace got a little behind - which is unfortunate, because some of the other girls watch her so they got a bit behind too - I think it took the group longer to get all the way on stage than they had anticipated in practice. The best part is all of those kinks should be worked out before the recital! It was really great!

Olivia's group placed 1st in their division and Grace and Amelia ended up competing against each other in the same age grouping somehow - so Amelia's group got 2nd and Grace's got 3rd. Greg asked if I thought that Amelia's group were actually better - and I think that although Grace's group had better technique - Amelia's group had less mistakes in their routine as a whole. The wierd thing for me is that the group that placed 1st and Amelia's group were younger so their teachers were out with them...and Grace's group and the other 3rd place group were alone on stage - I don't know if that matters but it is interesting to note.

We don't really care about placing though, after all - I am just glad they got some performance experience! The stage can be a scary place!!

Spring...I have proof!

Well, the calendar said on March 20 that it was the first day of spring, and I guess it was - but if you just look outside you wouldn't be convinced! And now today it is snowing again, only light flurries, but still! I do however have proof of spring...wanna see??


This is one of the ways you can tell it is spring! Daffodils! They are absolutely, hands-down my favorite flower! Not only are they yellow (and really, if you want to make someone smile, yellow is the way to do it!), but they are only available for a short time, which makes them even more special, doesn't it? If you could get them all year round, they would lose some of their charm!
Even more than that though is this....


Awwwww, heh??? This is Amelia in her costume in the "cutsie pose". Oh, I can hardly stand it! The girls are getting ready for their first ever dance competition. Olivia has never even danced in a competition because the school she went to in Calgary was a non-competitive dance school. I am so excited about it! Mostly because there is more opportunity for us to see them dance in their costumes! I have everything I need now I think - hair rollers, hair nets, bobby pins, a comb and red lipstick...oh, I still need to go out and get gel....mmm, add that to the to-do list!
It should be fun anyway!
The next couple of weeks have so much happening that it is causing me a little stress - I need to be really diligent in checking the calendar - I will post pics of all the girls after their shows - so you can see them with hair and make-up! Yay!

It's been a couple of weeks

Sorry about that - I know there are a few blogs that I read regularily, and I hate waiting for new posts!
Not much has been going on so it is hard to think up post ideas! I can't even share photos because of my terrible camera! Ok, well, I guess I have taken a few lately that have been okay...I haven't really had time to shop for a new one either. Everything is just so expensive! We are going to need to do something about our stereo up here as well. I have a little stereo that I bought from the Brick a long time ago and it is just junk now...it won't read some of our CDs at all and the speakers are awful! Sometimes the drawer will continually try to close over and over - and it doesn't seem to 'catch' if you know what I mean! And when you first push the close button you have to give it a little tap to get it to start moving! I know, Fonzie moments!!! I have been trying to look at buying a TV for upstairs as well...okay, this is depressing, it is all too much money! New subject!
We have had a new niece born in Calgary - I still am trying to decide about whether or not we should go there in April without Daddy. He will be working everyday during shut-down so I think we might....hard to say. I have never made that trip alone with all my kids before though...the last time I think I only had Olivia - maybe her and Grace! We'll see I guess!
We started another session of our homeschool activities on Fridays - it has been a fun couple of weeks, the kids always have a fun time, and the class I am teaching has been fun as well. There are a few of their friends (particularily Olivia's) that don't come in the spring because of farming and gardening type time commitments, but that's the way it goes!
Spring has finally started to start here I think....the birds are back, so that is a good sign, right? Abbey just loves the birds - I have to get a feeder put up out there in the backyard for her to watch out her door.
Well, I am still feeling bored, so I think I might go to Costco...

Do you ever wish you would have just spent the money?

Last Monday after the kids had choir we went to Best Buy to shop at the Customer Appreciation sale. They had $100 off of all Digital SLR cameras and $30 off all digital cameras over $150 or something like that! So we went to shop as our camera has just been terrible lately. Worse and worse since Christmas. So I asked some people who know way more than me if digital cameras 'wear out'. The general consensus is yes.

So, I had considered buying a digital SLR - I have kids, lots of them, and they are always moving...so in order to take good pictures you need a camera that has action options! SLRs are the way to go to take quick pictures from what I have been told and now researched (thanks for the links Berkans!)

So okay, that works well, and it just so HAPPENS that Costco had a good deal on a package - actually it was an AMAZING deal really. A Canon camera with two lenses and the bag for a total of $599 - the same package at Best Buy without the bag was over $800 and at Don's Photo Shop online it was over $1100 - crazy, heh?? But still way more than I really wanted to pay for a camera - mostly because then we would have to either buy a separate digital camcorder or another point and shoot to have video options. So we did the online research and I just couldn't' bring myself to buy it at this point -so we went shopping for something smaller. Anyway, being the good shoppers that we are - but the terrible buyers - we didn't buy anything. I had basically decided to buy the same camera I shopped for my father-in-law for. It still is at the top of so many consumer reports of point and shoots....anyway, that night we bought nothing because we were going to the homeschooling convention in Saskatoon at the end of last week, which was going to be expensive enough, right?

Carry on a few days and we went to Saskatoon, and got there just in time to join some friends for lunch in the hotel restaurant. Well, would you believe it - our friends had seen the Prime Minister of Canada that morning leaving their hotel!!! "A" said she didn't want to take his picture and get tackled...LOL!!! How exciting!

The convention was at the Saskatoon Inn, and they have a lunch buffet as well as full menu service, and were just getting ready to have lunch, and all of a sudden there was an 'air'. You know what I mean, a sense of something happening, you could actually feel it in the room, and then within a few minutes we noticed lots of men dressed in black suits, talking into their hands! Before we knew it Mr. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, came into the restaurant with his whole entourage! About 6-8 people that sat with him and then a few designated security that didn't sit.

Here is a link to my friend's blog that tells the same story at home with the keffers: What a weekend! . So Mr. Harper went to the buffet, helped himself, and everyone in the restaurant had a hard time eating! My husband went up to shake his hand and was asked to wait as the PM was still eating. So when he was done, Greg got up and intercepted their path to shake his hand and say thanks for governing our country! So cool...then if you can even believe this - our friends' got their picture taken with him....really! By the official photographer and everything, turns out that "M" knows one of the PMs entourage from his hometown! Very cool, I can hardly wait to see the picture when they get it e-mailed to them!

You know, I realize he is just a guy, just a guy who is doing his job, but it is a prestigous job, an important job, and one that I don't envy him! I would hate to be the one making tough decisions and then having the press be more worried about your hair than your policies! It was pretty cool to 'dine' with the PM - to be just as close to him as we would have been if we had paid $100 a seat at a fundraising banquet! There was even one heckler there in the restaurant who should just be glad we live in Canada where she can be so vocal about her stupid, uneducated opinion! ;)

Here is my bad picture taken with my awful camera! The guy in the green coat, who is likely texting everyone he knows to let them know that the PM is here in the same room, is completely clear, but not the subject of the photo! Obviously Mr. Harper is the gentleman in the suit holding a plate, center of the frame. Oh, why didn't I buy a better camera on Monday????