Ballet girls #whatsthestory #magicmoments

If you follow me on twitter or instagram then a few weeks ago you would have seen that my girls (three of them) were getting ready for a ballet show. They go to a ballet school that is run by a lady who danced for the English and Australian National Ballet..so she has quite high expectations for the girls in her company! I took these pictures just before they left, hence the make-up. They were pretty excited about the make-up bit it has to be said!! 🙂

The shows take place every second year, which is a good thing as i dont think i could cope with it every year…but pretty much since October half term we have been too-ing and fro-ing to lots of rehersals. The older girls have been to about 30 hours of extra practice in the last month or two and whilst that might seem like a lot, they accept that they have to be committed to it to be able to give their best performance. It is a big theatre and its only run on one night so its pretty important to get it right.

This is our third show and so we were ready this time. We gave the girls a little pep talk about what to expect and how it might make them feel. We usually hit a few ‘i dont want to do this anymore!” type of comments but they are soon forgotten after the show when they are all on a high and have fallen in love with the performance side of ballet. 🙂 They get to appreciate how much enjoyment can be gained from actually working hard at something, sticking with it when the going gets a bit tough and then being thrilled when they experience the results. I am so proud of them just for that regardless of how they actually performed!!

But they all did great and this year having three girls in the show gave us a lot of interest all the way through the show. Faces shining, big smiles and lots of attitude and giddy, happy and tired girls at the end. But it was all so worth it.

I am very happy that its two years to the next one however!! Maybe then it will be all four girls in the show!!

Motivational Monday

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Extraordinary Ordinary..

When you have a photographer as a mum. Well a part- time photographer. Your playroom often gets changed into a studio. There are strobe lights and big reflectors. A backdrop wobbling around against your piano and your toys all stacked in the corner and in other rooms in the house.

My kids are used to it, they often come down in the morning and peer into the playroom and ask me who is coming to have their photograph taken today. Most of the time they know not to go in and walk all over the backdrop in their shoes. They are pretty good about it.

But now and again, after a shoot, they all bundle in and i take some shots of them, which they love. This time of year we are starting to think christmas cards so i gave them some silly hats that might well make it onto our seasonal greetings. But might not as well! So far i know of at least 2 out of 4 of my kids classes that are doing that ‘design your christmas card and get it printed’ thing. So we will see.

This first one of this next collage, was the 1…2….3….shot before the jump! Can you tell!! 🙂

Looking back through them was really fun, it was the less than perfect shots that i liked the most. I gave them a little direction and then just left them to it and fired off a load of shots. They seemed to love it and it was pretty obvious to see that the youngest wanted to be doing exactly the same as the oldest but couldn’t quite pull off the ‘jump’ shots very well!!

What really made me smile when i was editing these shots was the ones that had captured a ‘down’ moment. When they weren’t performing and trying to shine for the camera. Little looks and interactions between them, closed eye giggles and chuckles and those little dropped out moments that my youngest has with her ‘boo.’ Then of course there is the inevitable crashes when you try and get five kids to all jump at the same time on a 5foot wide backdrop. They were all pretty good humoured about it though. It was only about 10 minutes of time but they really appreciate being able to be part of what i do. Just like they love it when they get an opportunity to come into the hospital and peer through the glass at the tiny wee babies in our intensive care rooms.

I guess they see it as special. A treat. Funny how what is so ordinary to me can be extraordinary to them.

🙂

cMotivational Mondaythe ordinary moments

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