Fun Saturday!

Kelley has been wanting to take dance for years. I've hesitated for a lot of reasons. Some of them include: 1) It is kind of cost intensive when you consider the classes, costumes, traveling if you do competitions, etc. 2) Although I know there is a lot of value to dance, there's also a lot for a mother to be nervous about. I've seen some of the dances they have these little girls do and the costumes they put them in. Although it is tempting to get on my soap box here...I won't. But...it is something I think about a lot. 3) Time, we don't have a lot of it to spare :)

Well this year Kelley was asking about it again and so I asked if she would rather take dance lessons and get dance stuff for Christmas from mom and dad, or if she wanted toys. She said she'd rather have dance. (It was hard decision for her though, and it helped that she will probably still get a toy present from Tyler ;)

Joey thinks it's a good idea because she's at the age where she should start developing her interests if she wants to really excel at them. So....Kelley is now in ballet. I figured that was fairly safe as far as the modesty in dress and dance thing goes. It does bring up another concern....body image. I know a lot of ballerinas struggle with that, but I think I probably have more to do with helping her develop a positive attitude than anything else. Anyway, back to the point. She's taking ballet with the Cedar City Junior Ballet and will also be in their production of Cinderella in Feburary (19, 20 and 22 if anyone wants to know...). Right now she's slated as a fairy and a cupboard mouse. This is a picture of her first practice last Saturday. Isn't she cute in her little ballet bun? She seemed to really enjoy herself. I think she will really like the performance aspect of it. She tends to be very "animated".

Later that day we also went to the Storybook Calvalcade Parade. Best parade in Cedar City...I can't believe we haven't been before! It was so fun. It was a bit long and we ended up leaving early, but overall the weather was very nice and it was great for the kids. I think that the city has just collected story book costumes for years and years and uses the same ones every year.

Tyler's favorite was the marching band. My little rhythm boy. He hears a beat and he can't help but move! He liked the characters on the floats, but the ones that came down the sidelines giving the kids high fives scared him. He kept running behind me. He does the same thing at SUU games with the T- Bird. For some reason it freaks him out. Come to think of it, the only character he would see at Disneyland was Pooh Bear. Didn't want a thing to do with any of the rest of them. Funny kid...

Kelley's favorite part was all the princesses...of course!

The kids also got to see Santa. Pictures were supposed to be $5, $10 if you wanted a digital copy. BUT since we left the parade early, we were the first in line. The line formed quickly and Santa came in before the photographer or anyone else that appeared in charge for that matter. I tried to wait for someone, but there was a big line of people that didn't want to wait, so I just snapped the photos myself and saved a few bucks.
Tyler was funny. He didn't want to go see Santa...of course! The Santa was really good and said he didn't have to, but did ask from afar what he wanted. Of course then Tyler went off on Batman. While he was a little distracted by that we asked if he wanted to go get a treat. He said yes and went over to get one himself.

We got lucky that he was willing to turn around and cheese for the camera and that Santa did the same. Of course my camera was slow and so I didn't get the first grin, which was REALLY cute....but snapped this one, which will do for the year I suppose.