Nutcracker 2012

I have a confession to make which will come as a surprise to NO ONE who has talked to me during the last 10 days. I HATE Nutcracker week with every fiber of my being. The week before the performance includes nightly rehearsals that run overtime and well past the girls' bedtime, homework that needs to be done in the 15 minutes or so we have between the bus and dinner, cranky and sleep deprived dancers, a late-night dress rehearsal followed by an 8 a.m. call for the first of two performances in one day, and then a cast party after a late Saturday night performance that gets us home way past my bedtime, .... and more buns and hairspray and bright red lipstick than you can possibly imagine.

However, once I am finally sitting in my seat on Sunday afternoon (the performance that I choose to watch instead of working backstage) I love the Nutcracker. I love seeing Hannah and Lizzie doing the steps they've worked so hard to learn and I love seeing them smile and genuinely enjoying being on stage. Hannah's a ham (in a good way!) with a smile that lights up the stage and Lizzie turned three perfect cartwheels today that got a cheer from the audience. Oh and we won a basket at the raffle, which is always a bonus.
Here are the pictures from this year's performance. Thanks to family and friends who came out to watch the show.

Here are the girls in their Cavalry costumes. Is it just me or does Lizzie have a kind of menacing look in her eye, holding that sword? She was not happy that I made them come and smile for pictures for me backstage:

 They were angels again this year, too. I think Hannah may be too tall to be an angel next year, but Lizzie may be an angel until she graduates high school. Luckily, they are both expert at the dance now, so they don't have to work too hard on this one:

And here they are as Polis. These are the little urchins that come out from under Mother Ginger's dress and then skip and cartwheel all over the stage being silly. They both LOVED being Polis. Lizzie had a special part where she turned cartwheels across the stage and then followed it up with a giant leap. She only did two cartwheels for the dress rehearsal and when I asked her why she said it was because her shirt flipped up (she was wearing leotard under it) and so I pinned the outfit together for each performance. It was worth though as her cartwheels are pretty spectacular:

We were so happy to have lots of people in the audience Saturday night! Here are Shelby, Aunt Beanie, Aunt Terry, Uncle Dude, Aunt Linda and Rob posing with the girls who are already set for the cast party that follows the Saturday nigh performance:

 The girls have started to really make friends throughout the process, too. Here is Lizzie's friend Sarah getting her autograph (Lizzie got Sarah's, too!):

 And here they are at the cast party where they ate gobs of food and ran around until they were thoroughly tired and weepy.

The Sunday performance was special, too, as the Kevins came to watch. Unfortunately Grandma Kevin was under the weather and couldn't attend, but we had a great time visiting with the rest of them. The girls really love to spend time with them and the three kids were going crazy running around in the basement. It was no surprise that Hannah and Liz went out like lights at bedtime.
It was a great end to the very stressful (but fun in retrospect!) week: