Easter Party!

Hey! We want to throw an Easter Party for anyone with kids! We will have an egg hunt, egg dying, lunch and treats! Just come and chase your kids around the park for an hour and eat some food!
When: April 3rd 2010 at 12:30pm

Where: The City Center Park (by the Orem Library)
If you would like to bring a side dish/salad/chips/drinks/treats... GREAT!

You can RSVP in a comment, or on my facebook event!
Any questions email or text me!
abc_ellie@hotmail.com
 801-400-9772

Dance Competition

FCDA had their competition yesterday! Seniors took High Gold and Juniors took Gold! So proud of my girls!

2nd Impromptu Photo shoot: Tanner and Sarah's Engagement Photos

Tutu making skills

Blast them...

A fellow RBE company member asked me to make her a tutu so she could get pictures taken in it. I said yes of course. I've been doing little else since spring break started and it's kind of consuming me at the moment. Am I making any money on this? Not at all. In fact I think I've spent more on materials than I'm getting paid. Definitly eating it on this one, although it will be my best tutu I've ever made and the first time I'm attempting a platter.

I initially started making tutu's for my students who were on extremely tight costume budgets and as a teacher I knew they would never be able to buy a tutu on that kind of budget. I looked at one and said... hey.. this looks simple and I can probably do it. Which, by the way, is my motto when it comes to crafts... see something you like, and then go home and figure out how you can make it.. So I started my tutu adventure. I've made probably over 50 classical style tutus and each one of them I have been unhappy with. I learn something from every single one of the tutus that I've made. They have evolved from 4 layers of way-too-soft-tulle sewn on elastic, to 7 layers of stiff netting on a basque and panty complete with darts and everything with hook and eye closures, snap platter on top with trim. And with this evolution, something has also evolved... a hatred for sewing tutus.

I DON'T like sewing tutus. It is tedious and difficult and messy (there is netting and a TON of little tiny black strings all over my floor) and EXTREMELY time consuming.

The last time I made a set of tutus was when I realized this hatred. I decided that over the summer I would learn how to make some extremely professional looking tutus and made 20 classical tutus and 20 romantic tutus. all in white, and then I would NEVER make a tutu again. I would just rent them out to students and whoever for something ridiculously cheap (tutus are not money making for me.. it;s really all about giving people the opportunity to wear a tutu) and be completely done.

But now.. I'm not sure I have it in me to do that. I'm considering just going completely ignorant and pretending like this is not one of the skills I have and just going to back to not being able to get tutus...

Of course I am currently in the middle of making one right now... and it is EXTREMELY likely that when it's completely done and we get to see beautiful pictures of the thing I'll feel this overwhelming sense of accomplishment and charity (i know it sounds stupid but a LOT of me goes into these things) and I'll fall in love with the results and then then next time someone asks, I'll say yes.. and the cycle will continue.. such is life I guess.

Here is the tutu almost completed... now I just have to add the trunks and make the platter and I'll post pictures of the finished product when I get them. The tutu's owner is getting professional pictures taken in it but I think I'm going to ask her to model for me too so I can get some photography practice in

The amazing closure system... are those bra hooks?.. yes they are.. and they work wonderfully when I don't have time to order the real closures.

First Impromptu photoshoot: The Wayts

It was cold... it was extremely windy... and my camera overexposed every single picture... but I did what I could... we were only out there for like.. 10 minutes. Probably because none of us believed we could get a good picture.. I got several that were close.. but there is always a hair covered face, or someone wasn't looking.. or a shadow on a face... but it was my first shoot so I'm happy with results.

BTW - These are Steve's aunts family! Jonathan had just returned from his mission and it was his homecoming today and they were planning on taking some random family pictures with a point & shoot so I offered to shoot some...

BTW #2 - if you click on the pictures you can see them better... go ahead.. I dare you to click!

SLAM

wow.... I'm shocked.

We had our big adjudication this last Saturday and we were lucky to be one of the last to be adjudicated. (FYI this means that the guy that runs this festival we are going to in Washington in May came out, and watched some dances and he gets to choose which dance we perform when we go.) We initially were going to adjudicate Heathers ballet which you saw if you went to my concert in the fall, and Flash, which is Shaylas piece she choreographed for Choreography Design Project. We had some issues with some members of the company that made us unable to perform Heathers piece for adjudication which really sucked... especially since we had spent so much time cleaning it. At the last minute, Shayla had to change which pieces we were adjudicating. She chose 2 pieces that are really cool. (btw... they sound like they are coming from a comic book, but I think it's pretty cool.)
1) SLAM. This piece is choreographed by Chris Petticort. (sp?) He is an emerging choreographer and and old friend of Shayla's who she brought in to set this choreography.  This dance is 4 girls. Only 4 girls. I am one of them. We are on stage 100% of the time. And it is CRAZY intense movement.. It practically kills me every time I do it! It's very cool...

2)Flash - Shayla's piece... jaw-dropping amazing. Neon costumes, black lights, live music, and absolutely AMAZING choreography. I'm in this piece as well and it is seriously the COOLEST dance you will ever see. It's fast and exciting and the theme is so original and well done. This dance includes 8 female dancers and 1 male.

 Guess what the adjudicator chose.

Of all the crazy... who would have thunk it things that could happen, Nicholas Ade of PNB chose SLAM to go to festival in Washington. And not only that, but put our performance in the most honored spot he possibly could. It's sort of an "unsaid" tradition that the best pieces perform either first or last. Well, we are performing on Saturday (the last performance) and we are the 2nd to last performance of the evening. (FYI the host company which is the company that is in Washington gets to choose for themselves where they want to be in the performances and they chose to be very last....)

can we say STRESS????????

Car Troubles....

Ok... our cars are the epitomy of our stress right now! We currently own 3 cars... 1 is working at the moment.

We have the Yukon. It was a great car for a LONG TIME. It has major transmission problems and has reached the point at which fixing would cost more than the car is worth.. it just needs to be junked. Now, I am all for calling a junkyard and having them come pick it up tomorrow.. but Steve on the other hand is not ready to give up his baby. It has (apparently) a really nice sound system in it and he can't let it go with it in the car, but he doesn't know how to take it out and Best Buy won't do it for him. I keep pushing him to figure it out, but I think he's just feeling a little nostalgic about letting his car go.. which I understand!

We have my car, a Suzuki Aerio SX... never heard of it? Me neither till I bought it. A little advice.. if nobody knows anything about a car you are thinking of buying... DON'T BUY IT! I was dumb and thought that no news is good news.. and that I was getting a really good deal, but that's not really the case. It has had some RIDICULOUS problems and it's been hard to fix even just regular things on it because nobody has the parts. Currently it is our only running car, but it  needs some work on the breaks VERY soon.

We have a Honda Accord... Now this car is a champ! We love it! It's fairly new to us, but it's been VERY reliable for us so far! It is older than the suzuki so there are things that are going out on it just because of age, but I would expect that... Right now it's the starter that needs replacing which is what Steve is working on right now. Wish us luck with it!! We really like having 2 working cars!

2 working cars = more sleep!

 

**Update**

Steve fixed the car!!! It's running now and I'm so proud of my husband! He fixed it all by himself! YAY!

Our Sunday.. in Pictures

 

We went for a walk outside today.. a very quick walk because she LOVED splashing in the puddles and slipped in one of them! It was still fun to watch her walk around outside though. I can't wait for spring to come so we can spend more time outside!

 

 

We made cupcakes... we like cupcakes at our house! I like to get the plain white frosting and then change the color and put some flavoring in them. The blue cupcakes are lemon, and then the brown ones are just yummy chocolate!

I made Lilly and I matching aprons today (you can see it in the cupcake pictures) Lilly sat on my lap for a lot of it and tried to change all the buttons and even got under the sewing table and pushed the pedal.. (I was quite surprised)