Back to Blogging - VEGAS!

Well hello there! I have been reminded by my loyal readers (two of you!!) that I've been a total slacker in my blogging, so I'm going to try and do better. Unfortunately, facebook has been my place to put pictures and stories lately, but this is supposed to be the "permanent" record. So, first let's start with where we left off -- and that would be VEGAS!
Expect lots of photos, but the short story is that we went, had a good time and Hannah came home with no crowns, but lots of great memories. This is the pageant part of Vegas ... next post will be the other stuff:

This is Micah (a PA-state emcee) playing Little Sally Walker with the PA delegation just prior to the Prince Gilbert Party. Cindy girls are OBSESSED with the game, but as you can see, Hannah is horrified at Micah's dance:

 This is Leigh, the PA Cinderella Woman playing with Payton, a Cindy tot at the Prince Gilbert party. One of the best things about the program is that the big girls are always happy to play with and entertain the little girls:

This is the PA Royalty at the Prince Gilbert Party. Top row is Leigh, Daniela (teen), Hannah and front row is Madison (mini-miss) and Adriana (tot.) Oh, and in case you were wondering Prince Gilbert is a frog who, after being kissed by a Cindy girl turns into ... a bigger frog. 

 The king of the castle and his two girls. I think this was before the farewell banquet.

 More Prince Gilbert fun. Hannah took about a million selfies with the other girls. This is Payton (but a different Payton from the one who is chasing Leigh, above.

This is Hannah with Francesca, the 2014 International Miss at Orientation. As you can see in most of these pictures, each delegation wears matching outfits for the different parties. It's a lot cuter than it sounds:

This is Hannah with Charli, the international teen:

 We partied with the delegations from North Carolina and Florida just prior to the disco party. Hannah made a TON of friends so I had to give her her own facebook page to keep up with them:

 Hannah and Daniela at the farewell banquet with Sabrina, another PA emcee (and former Cinderella Woman from Arizona):

Hannah and Alivia at the farewell banquet. Alivia was 2nd runner up for PA state overall title, but won in the beauty category. She also won an international photogenic award:

These are the three PA Misses (Anastasia is the third - she won talent at states this year and got a special award at internationals for her contortionist act, too) In this picture they are getting reading for casual wear modeling:

THis is Hannah at the Cindy Fair luncheon (did I mention there are a LOT of parties?) where she won these cool shades:

 Hannah and a bunch of Miss contestants prior to their beauty wear modeling. I have no idea who they are, but I bet Hannah does!

Hannah and the state tot, Adriana. Adriana didn't win anything at Internationals either, but her baby sister Annalisa is the International Infant!

This is Hannah just prior to talent. She's posing with Taya, a Mini Miss contestant from Utah who we met at the Welcome banquet:

 Hannah and the PA girls ready for talent, posing with one of the Keeno girls:

 Hannah with the outgoing International Tot, Macie, at the Welcome Banquet:

 Hannah with Leigh and Leigh's sister Cassidy. Cassie is the PA 1st runner up mini miss and talent winner and also the PA State Miss America Coed. We love the Quinn girls and are really happy that they don't live that far from us!

In case you didn't believe me about Sally Walker, here are a group of strangers playing it before casual wear ... :) THat's it for now. I'll most more about the non-pageant aspect of the vacation later:

Dancing and Singing in Pictures

Here are some pictures from the pageant and the dance demo. If they look familiar some have been on facebook, but I like to give my loyal blog reader(s) a little something extra!

This is right after the dance demo when Lizzie got her flowers for a job well done -- and she did really well, so they were deserved. Hannah wanted to wear her crown and sash to the demo, but we compromised on the blingy shirt. I had no control over Bob's hat:

 Lizzie's modern dance outfit. She did not care for modern dance at all, but will probably take it again next year. She's kind of an old-fashioned girl.

 This was the dance from one of her three ballet classes. It had a tango theme and was really cool. She liked this dance a lot!

This is a little in reverse, but I took this picture just before she left for the demo. Her hair is pretty much down to her waist these days (depending on humidity which curls it up!) so I am always very proud of myself when I get it all into a bun!

And now onto pageant photos, which are in NO particular order because it was taking too long to move them around. In this picture Hannah is receiving her crown case. Truth be told Lizzie was holding it for Hannah and dropped it and it cracked, so now I'm on the lookout for a new crown case, although the superglue repaired it nicely and you can't really even see the crack. Hannah was so tired when it happened (and it was so clearly an accident) that she didn't even complain:

 Newly crowned new royalty on stage with the previous year's royalty.

 It was the year of the Latina at Cinderella. Hannah's here with the teen winner (who is Mexican) and then the tot winner (who is not Latina but absolutely adorable!)

 Hannah and Daniela again, this time posing with the Mini Miss winner Madison. Madison can DANCE ... she was amazing. I heard Daniela was, too (she's a ballerina and trained with the ABT) but I was almost always dealing with Hannah when the teens were performing:

 One of my favorite pageant photos (and I took it in almost no light!) of Hannah's first official wave.

Lizzie thought for about 30 seconds that she might like to do the pageant next year (since Hannah won't be competing) and she certainly could -- but then I reminded her that she'd have to talk to people (her least favorite thing) AND wear dresses (her second least favorite thing) so that dream died pretty early:

The top three girls in the Miss category giving each other a hug for luck before the grand finals. One of my favorite things about this pageant is that sportsmanship is really stressed and the girls really do root for each other!

Susan was 1st runner up in the Woman category and she and Hannah got to be good friends throughout the weekend. Here they are at the disco dance:

 The girls all introduce themselves during casual wear. This is Hannah on the big screen:

They had fireworks during the disco party (it was the resort not the Cinderella people, but we did have a great viewing place outside the party!) Rob and Lizzie watching:

 Hannah at the disco party with Adriana (who became the Tot). Everyone who knows Hannah knows she loves little kids, so a bunch of them always seek her out at the Cindy stuff.

 Time for an ice cream break, after the casual wear competition. (Hannah couldn't eat hers until we got back to the room and she changed out of her outfit!)

The Miss contestants (there were 13 this year) in their casual wear.

Rob and Liz at the disco party:

 Hannah's friend Alexa is one of the few people from our side of the state. They live in West Chester and we'll probably get the girls together for a playdate over the summer sometime. They met at last year's pageant:

One of Hannah's official portraits (looking a little tired, I think - it was an exhausting three days!):

 My favorite photo, taken by the Cinderella photographer, seconds after Caitlin crowned Hannah (Sabrina Auge is the adult -- a former Cindy winner herself). I love how joyful she is and Caitlin's bittersweet smile. And so begins our year...

Dancing and Singing!

The past two weekends have been CRAZY and I've been able to see how talented both my daughters are (as if I didn't know!)
First up is Lizzie's dance recital. This was her first year on pointe and she was wonderful (in my humble and totally correct opinion!) Here's a video of that performance. It's a little hard to see her since all the girls sort of look alike! In the beginning of the video she's the girl on the far left wearing the dress (as opposed to a tutu). When they start doing the turns she is the first girl to cross the stage and during the double turns she is in the first pair, in the front.  She finishes the dance as the girl second from the right. She was very very very nervous before she had to dance, but she really rose to the occasion. She also danced in two other ballet pieces and one modern, but I didn't video those (we get a video of the performance which is probably better than mine!)  but wanted to make sure we ahd a record on the blog of the first toe-dance!
Here it is:



 Last weekend was Hannah's pageant. She won the overall title, so her new official name is 2014/15 PA Cinderella Miss. My new name is Queen Mum!
The Cinderella scholarship program isn't a once and done thing. Hannah now needs to represent PA in Las Vegas in July and then she has duties throughout the year. The program emphasizes poise, good manners and a well-rounded person as their winners. Talent is 50 percent of the score.
Hannah sparkled all weekend long. Here's her song though -- I'm pretty sure this put her over the top. More pictures of singing and dancing in a subsequent post but I wanted to get this up here for all you non facebook types:

Bouncing Beans

As some of you may remember we lost our swingset a year or so ago to a freak windstorm that took down several trees -- one of them right onto the swingset.

We loved that swingset even though it was never used for it's actual purpose. It was something to do in the backyard and it served a variety of jobs; most significantly the leave-mom-alone-for-a-few-minutes job.

But we couldn't justify another swingset with two 11-year-olds. So instead we got a trampoline
Yes, you read that correctly. I got a trampoline for the two girls who can break an ankle jumping on their beds.

Here's a couple of photos. Since these were taken we did put the enclosure around the thing, to make a little safer. But I've still got the ER on speed dial!

High-Five on the trampoline!

 How high can you go? (Really lots higher than this!)

Happy, tired girls!

Model Citizens

As most (all!) of you know, I take a few pictures of Hannah and Lizzie here and there. They get annoyed at me AND I don't have to be in the photo, so it's a win/win. :)
However, with the pageant coming up I decided to pay someone else to take photos and to even get me in a couple. I wanted to see how someone else saw my daughters and what he or she could get out of them in a photo.
We got great pictures ... not necessarily greater than the pictures I take of them, but it was exactly what I wanted - a different perspective on them.
AND Lizzie wore a dress, so that was a bonus.
Here are the pictures:

First, my two favorites. This one of Lizzie took my breath away. I am always telling her how pretty she is and she is always disagreeing with me. But even she had to agree this is a great photo of her (and the real her -- the sort of intense, deep, tomboy her):

And this is Hannah, smiling, happy, always game to have her picture taken. She said she felt more like a model when he was shooting her, and wasn't sure if she liked it. When I shoot them, I just try to make them laugh so they look natural. But I do love this setting and the barn-wood against her coloring. 

Hannah, in black and white.

And in living color. It's hard for her to look serious in a photo, but Randy did manage to capture this one of her looking sort of pensive. Or pissed:

Okay maybe this one is my favorite of Lizzie  -- I call it her Mona Lisa pose. Hannah hates it because she's blurry and that makes no sense to her fashion diva self:

Lizzie looking all artsy. And it's a great shot of the dress. She loves it, but when she wore it on Easter she complained the whole day (THE WHOLE DAY) that it itched her.

 Lizzie in black and white:

The girls ... I love this photo and it made the whole session (an hour of walking around St. Peter's Village) well worth it:

Anyone recognize this chick?

So that was our adventure in modeling. I may actually pay someone else to take picture of us again in the future and Rob can come to and we'll have an actual photo of ALL FOUR OF US. Wow ... :)

Holy Smokes!

Was the last time I blogged really March 15? Wow.
Okay, so it's time for some catch-up.
First up ... the Lincoln Center Weekend.

Lizzie's dance company was invited to participate in an event at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall waaaaaay back in March. She rehearsed for it every weekend and she made the trip by bus while the rest of us Rasmussens were in the car.
It was ALMOST like Lizzie was with us, though, since she texted me about 15 times and sent me TWO videos of her on the bus. She called me a few times. For those of you doing the math -- this was all in the 2ish hours it takes from our house to NYC.
She was most impressed with the bathroom and the televisions on the bus. Oh, yeah, and NYC was kind of cool, too.
We arrived a little before the show started which was good because while Rob parked the car 17 blocks from LC (he had a coupon!) he also dropped me off about a mile away from the entrance. So it took Hannah and I a good 20-minutes to find our way. I did have to ask a subway cop how to get to Avery Fisher Hall (much to my chagrin he did NOT say "practice.") because we had taken so many twists and turns.
And I got a blister.
It was worth it though. Lizzie had a great time, looked beautiful and the other performances were good enough to hold my interest.
AND, we got to spend the rest of the weekend with the New York Garritys!
Here's the photographic evidence:

Lizzie, guess where? :

These are the somewhat iconic fountains at Lincoln Center. (And by iconic they were there when I lived in the city in the 1980s!)

 Here's the Lincoln Center Gang. We gave Lizzie the elephant Beanie Boo for her collection because we were going to Somers after the show:

Hey, who are those people waaaaaay up there outside the third balcony?

 It's these three. Lizzie and the rep company watched the show from way up here, while Rob, Hannah and I had orchestra seats.

 Did I mention it POURED the whole time we were there. (Even in the fountains picture above, you can see her squinting into the rain!)

And then it was on to Tommy and Brenna's house (as I was told 14,000 times during the show...) Here everyone is eating homemade waffles with chocolate chips.

 And being generally silly. It always amazed me how much taller Tommy is than the girls since he is only 5 months older than they are!

 Hannah, getting her hip hop on for the TALENT SHOW!! Yes, even though Aunt Anonymous was not there to coordinate (and you'll see how much we needed her, in a few pictures...) the kids sallied forth with a talent show:

The dog was already scared and it hadn't even started yet!

 There was a sword fight:

 Tommy constructed something (i have no idea what) from legos while Hannah did some sort of interpretive dance behind him:

 Lizzie was the emcee for the show:

 Brenna provided the cuteness and a few songs (and possibly a magic trick):

 But then suddenly, it all went horribly wrong:

I have no idea what's going on here ... but we did make the kids promise to never again attempt a talent show without Aunt A. :)