the nutcracker report

Wow! I can't believe it is all over!

The day went amazingly well. We were all really worried about keeping the girls happy and entertained over such a long day. But it really didn't turn out to be all that hard. Thankfully each dance group had their own dressing room and all of the dressing rooms opened into a large common area. So we had a room full of 8 snowflakes to keep entertained. One of the parents brought a tv and dvd player so that really helped. This is how Clara spent a lot of her time...On her nap mat, in her under the counter cave watching shows on my iPod. (oh... and get a good look at the hair! can you believe I got her short hair into a bun?? her hair was completely shellacked... to the point that it didn't move even after I removed every barrette, bobby pin and rubber band after the show... lol!)

Here is a shot of Clara out in front of the stage door. I saw one of the other moms doing this and had to do it too! Peer pressure I guess! LOL!
Yes, that's snow and ice and yes my daughter is in tights and crocs... I promise we were only out there a second or two.

The kids had a brief stage run through right after noon. It was a little rough since things are so much different on stage. They had been practicing alone as a group in the studio for several weeks but this time they were on the big stage navigating around the professional dancers who they had never seen before. The girls did great though! I was really amazed at the poise they showed.

For the first show, I was backstage, but they had a tv in the main area back there that showed the stage. They did sooooo good! They hung out backstage a bit and then at the end got to go out for the curtain call. The snowflakes were right up there in front! The dancer who played Drosselmeyer broke into the line of snowflakes, grabbing Clara's hand and the hand of the girl who was next to her for the final bows. Clara was sooooo in awe!

They came back the dressing room to change out of their costumes and into their warm-ups so they could go out and see their families. Clara was excited to see her grandparents and Alex! We went back stage again to have dinner and get ready for the second show.

During the down time, the Russian dancers came out to sign autographs and take pictures with the children.

Here is Clara with Clara (actually they call her Masha in this production, but all of the girls called her Clara)...
And here is Clara with the prince....
The kids were soooooo thrilled to meet the Russian dancers.

I got to watch the second show with Jeff. I was a teary wreck through the whole first act. I was just so proud of the kids! Honestly, the snowflakes danced the best for the second show... they may have been more relaxed about the professional dancers after having the first show under their belts plus having met some of them between shows.

After the show we packed up and stopped by Jeff's parent's hotel room to wash the goop out of Clara's hair and to pick up Alex. We had them both in their pj's in case they fell asleep on the way home. I really figured that they would crash... but they didn't, which was actually good. We got home a little after 11:00 pm and they went straight to bed (did I mention that Clara and I had left the house at around 8:00 am and had been in the theater from 9:00am until around 9:30 pm??).

So, today we're taking it easy and trying to recuperate!

Oh... if you're wondering why there are no pictures of Clara in her costume, well... that's because no photography was allowed while they were in their costumes.... plus they were only allowed to be in their costumes right before they left to go on stage and had to take them off the minute they got back stage. And there was no photography allowed in the theater... the studio owner tried to get permission for me as the studio's "photographer" but it was a no go... oh well!

Okay... I'm going to try and do something productive today!