Dance Demo 2013

Today was the girls' Dance Demo (otherwise known as a recital) for their Ballet class. They moved up to a more advanced level and while Lizzie loves the discipline (and she's got great feet for ballet according to her teacher) and the barre work, Hannah (who has terrible flat feet for ballet according to her teacher) does not like anything about ballet these days. However, when you look at the video that I shot during their dress rehearsal yesterday, she is the only kid smiling. Hannah may not like ballet that much, but she loves being on stage and like she told me, "no one is going to be looking at my feet!" :)

So here's their demo. It's my usual terrible video work an I only shot half the stage because that's all I could get in, and still be able to discern Lizzie (in the front row) and Hannah (in the back row, just behind Liz). So when they are standing their doing nothing, you can be assured that the girls on the other side of the stage are dancing.


Today I got a shot of the girls on stage:

After the show with their flowers (and while Hannah IS taller than Lizzie she was wearing boots and Lizzie was still in her dance shoes):

And finally with their biggest dance boosters Shelby and Aunt Terry (and dad!):

Beautiful girls

I love Hannah and Lizzie with my whole heart and then some. I love them because they are funny and silly and sassy. I love them for their faults and their strengths. But really I love them just a little bit more because they indulge my interest in photography. Hannah's pageant is in three weeks, and in our quest to come home with a round crown we are participating in the cover girl contest. For that we had to sell ads (thank you family, for purchasing them!) and then I had to make ads with Hannah's picture on them. Those pictures will be judged and if one of the pictures is loved best by the judges, Hannah gets to have her picture on the cover of the program book at the pageant AND win the cover girl sash and ROUND CROWN.

Which is a very long way of saying that we needed photos. Which gave me a chance to get out the camera and see what we could come up with. Then because I didn't want to leave Lizzie out (and because she indulges her mother) I did a photo shoot with her, too.
So here are the photos. I posted most of these on facebook, but there are a couple extra here ... just for my loyal blog readers!
This first picture is her official head shot photo for the pageant::

I got this shot by having her jump on my little trampoline:

Taking advantage of a little breeze and her (mom made!) curls:

Hannah hates this picture and I love it. I love that she looks kissed by the sunlight and I've seen this trying not to laugh face about a million times:

Getting a serious look out of her is not as easy as you'd think, but we got one:

Out back sitting on the wood pile (where the swingset used to be...):

I think this is my favorite picture because her smile is so natural:

Sassy girl:

And now for Lizzie ... she won't win anything for these photos (no pageant for her) except my undying gratitude that she let me take them:

This is Lizzie's photo from the trampoline -- pure joy!

Lizzie sitting on a different wood pile. She has such a great, natural smile:

 And here she is showing a little sass, herself.

Here she is in front of the tree. It is VERY hard for her to give me a straight face in a photo since she's smiling all the time (in her pessimistic way, of course!):

 I love this picture of her, even though she looks like she's 25. I took it when she was holding her face up to the sun at the end of our photo shoot:

Way Back Weekly

This photo is courtesy of Aunt Brenda. I had the story with which this picture goes, but I didn't have the picture -- and it makes me laugh every time I look at it.

So here is a picture of (probably) the first time T.A. and Tina ever appeared in a newspaper. They were a little less than six months old, since the date on the article is Dec. 1, 1966. The article was written for a paper local to Elk Grove Village, Ill., and prompted by the fact that twins were somewhat rare back in the 1960s and also my dad was a Trustee of the Village.

Beanie looks underwhelmed and T.A. looks like he doesn't trust whatever stuffed animal they were using to try and get the babies to smile.
I won't post the accompanying article but here are some highlights:

The Headline: A Mother's Testimonial: "Babies are Fun; Twins are Great"
My personal testimonial would have been "Babies are Loud; Twins are Twice as Loud" but no one asked me.
In fact, however, I AM referred to in the story as I was apparently reading to  my mother AND practicing my spelling words during the interview, which seems kind of a rude thing to do, but my own children once had a very loud and long pooping contest while I was interviewing someone (I CAN POOP BIGGER THAN YOU ... NO YOU CAN'T ... YES I CAN... etc.) so I suppose it's possible.
Tally (or Tallaine as she is called in the story ... I am "Tresy") got a quote in there. "Gee Mommy, it's fun having babies when you're older."
I must have misinterpreted her wise words as I had my babies when I was very much older and it was not really all that much fun. But upon a closer read, Tally probably meant that it was fun to be an older sister, not an older parent. Oops.
Other gems from the story:
"The family finds the twins have brought twice the usual joy." (To clarify, Terry didn't sleep until we moved to New York because she shared a room with the twice as loud Garrity twins)
"Sometimes things get loud when "Tresy" practices cello and Tommy and Tina join in by crying" (To clarify, it was most likely "Tully" practicing her viola that made everyone cry...I played the xylophone.)
"Tom is ... sympathetic and patient," she said.(To clarify, seriously?) "He is good with all the children, especially at feeding time." (To clarify, seriously?) Just kidding Dad, we all reflect fondly on the cinnamon toast  you prepared.
"It is still difficult to get all the housework done, though, Mrs. Garrity finds. "There are times you just can't get to everything." (To clarify, FINALLY truth in journalism ... no mother of twins should be expected to have a clean house...)

Pageant girl

Three weeks ago Hannah competed in the Southeast PA Cinderella Pageant, again. This year she moved up an age group so she was competing against other 10-12 year olds.

I am happy to report that once again our girl took home the crown for talent! We also got to spend a day with my friend Carol and her daughter Sarah, who won talent for the Mini Miss division.

I don't have video of Hannah singing because my iPad microphone wasn't working, which of course, I didn't find out until after the pageant was over. Suffice it to say she was good enough to beat everyone else in her division!

This means we are going to the state pageant where (please pray) Hannah wins a round crown in something. I am hoping for talent, but I'll take anything. The girls win tiaras in the preliminary rounds and Hannah wants to official pageant girl round crown.

Here are some pictures from the day (I was sick, but still managed to have fun!) This is Hannah and I right after the show ... I was TIRED!

These next two photos were taken by the official pageant photographer. I like her formal wear photo, but I think the singing photo probably could have been a little LESS yellow, don't you?

So now we are onto the states and that means MORE practice. We also decided to sell ads for the program book because they give a round crown to the cover girl - the girl who submits the best photo -- and the more ads you sell, the more photos you can submit. Since we've already seen a bunch of photos of Hannah, here's one of Liz that I took when I did a modeling photo shoot for her (as I did for Hannah's ads -- I'll post a few from those shoots later.) She's a beauty, but there is no way she'll be in a pageant. Lizzie did a tiny little pageant last year (won a 1st place medal for photogenic!) and hated every single minute of it!

Way Back Who?

This isn't a new blog feature, this is an actual question. Does anyone on the Garrity side (and I'm looking at you, Dad) know who this chick is?
I ask because Hannah and Lizzie both looked at it separately and asked: "Mom, is this a picture of you from the olden days?"

And I have to admit, she does look like me. Like, a lot. And not just because of this woman's extraordinary fashion sense. Oh, the only thing I know about this picture is that it's a tintype and those were popular from the 1860s through the early 1900s.

For some reason I think it's Aunt Tillie, but then I'm not really sure if I even have an Aunt Tillie or if that is just family folklore because we had a painting that we called Aunt Tillie.

Anyway, here's the photo:

So does anyone know who my doppleganger is?

Easter

I need to catch up on a few things ... the first is Easter!
We had a great weekend, even though I succumbed to a cold that eventually turned into a touch of the bronchitis. I'm never one to allow a little illness to get in the way of a holiday celebrated with chocolate, so I rallied and was able to have a great day with family and friends.

Things got started on Saturday when the Garritys showed up. I have to say that Hannah and Lizzie always have a fun holiday when their partners in crime arrive from New York. Here are the four of them getting reading for an Easter Egg hunt:

And they're off:

The adults must have hidden about 5,000 eggs and we're pretty sure the kids found all of them except one, which we found the next day. Although last year we found an egg about a month later, so it's possible there are still some out there in the front yard.

The eggs were filled with candy, toys, and little notes that said things like "You can stay up an extra 30 minutes." Those notes were put in the eggs by Aunt Ann, but found by MY CHILDREN, so now I am honor bound to let them stay up 30 minutes later one night. Luckily the note did not specify a year...

Here they are with the loot (and Uncle TA):

And some of the toys I put in the eggs. In fact I put at least a dozen cute little duck/bunnies in the eggs which made Brenna very happy:

 And Tommy, not so much...:

It was soon after they left for the evening that I started to feel really badly, so for some reason I did not take a photo after the Easter Bunny left the premises. Suffice it to say that he left behind MUCH candy and a couple of stuffed animals. And more candy.

The next morning Rob and the girls went to church and then out to breakfast. I stayed home and blew my nose.

Mid-afternoon (after a loooong nap and lots of advil) we went to Aunt Terry's house for the Easter dinner. It was delicious and that's not the advil talking! The girls had fun with their cousins again, and Aunt Ann and learned how to make flowers out of paper napkins, so it was a wonderful afternoon. Aunt Beanie came to eat, too, so that was a super bonus. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I took that afternoon, so there is no photographic evidence of the delicious meal or the person who prepared it (sorry, Terry -- maybe next Easter!)

After this picture was taken we came home and I went to bed and woke up two weeks later all better....

Talent

As you may have read, I coordinated the talent show at the girls' elementary school this year. I found out about my ascension to the throne about a month before the show was supposed to happen. It seems that when you say you'll be a member of the committee and no one else volunteers to be on the committee, you actually get to be the coordinator.

In previous years the previews had to held at a time when a school administrator was available to vet the acts and make sure no one was wearing spaghetti straps or singing songs about alcohol, but when I talked to the principal about open dates, she told me that she TRUSTED ME to handle it by myself. Oh. My. Gravy.

 So, that's how it happened. I did eventually get some help from PTA members and my girl scout troop and my husband (who had no choice) and I have to say that while it was a lot of work and somewhat nerve-wracking (one of the kids decided to do his own little comedy act on stage when he was supposed to be singing....) it ended well and that is all that matters.

Lizzie stopped piano lessons (insert huge sob here) in September and she couldn't get a song together in a month to be in the show and she didn't want to participate anyway. Well, the joke was on her because since I was the coordinator and the only person at the try-outs, and Rob was unavailable to stay home, she ended up going to every single try-out and every single rehearsal. And then I made her put names on the performers' chairs on the night of the show.

Hannah, on the other hand, had a cold but previewed one of this year's pageant songs. I went back and forth on this choice for the pageant, but she loves it, so I let her sing it. Here's a youtube video from the show of Hannah singing "On My Own" from Les Miserables. She actually sang the second verse first and then again the second time. I was worried it would throw her off, but she said she didn't even really notice she'd done that. I had technical difficulties so a friend of mine videoed this on her phone and posted it to youtube for me.



I also asked my Girl Scout Troop to do the decorations so they colored in the letters for the school, and then I bought a huge pack of stars, stuck some stickers on them and strung them in twos and threes. On the night of the show I had some help, so I didn't have to climb the ladder to hang the stuff up. So no ambulance was needed.

Here's a picture of my best helper though. Rob was very busy that week, but he came through in the clutch and was my stage manager. YAY!!!

And here's a closeup of Hannah in her outfit. Unfortunately soon after this picture was taken I decided to dye this green and ended up ruining the dress (which did not take the dye at all, but did get all wrinkly and ripped) so we ended up getting her a peasant girl outfit that she'll wear in the pageant.

 I have already been asked to coordinate again next year and I said absolutely not, no way no how okay. But the good news is that I know about it already so it won't be as hectic. Really. I'm sure of it. I think. I hope.