Tori's Dance Recital 2011

Another year - another dance recital. :) Tori sure loves everything about dancing - especially getting all dressed up for the recital. Below are pictures of her class in their tap and ballet costumes.

I've included probably more videos than anyone except for Grandma will watch. The first video of them doing their recital dance in the studio I like the best since you can really see Tori and her facial expressions. I was impressed with how she can move her hips - I thought it was very fun to watch. :)

Here is a picture of what Ellie was thankfully doing while I was video taping (James as you can see in the video was not sleeping).

Siri and Tori right after the dress rehearsal. Below James wanted to be in a picture, too.

Jaci, Tori, Claire, & Siri striking a pose right before the dance recital.

Proud, but sleepy family after Tori's recital (it didn't end until after 9pm).

Mall and Dance Costume

John and I celebrated our birthdays by taking the kids to the free carousel night at our mall (where you can go around about a million times for free). I think the most I've ever been able to stomach in one night was 9. Then we went out to eat at Red Lobster and stuffed ourselves with crab. Tori and James love the carousel and eating out so they made our birthdays a lot of fun.

Tori got her dance recital costume this week at dance and was super-excited to try it on, so I took a fun pictures of her doing some poses.

More Dance Videos

Here are a couple of videos of Tori doing some dances that they practiced during Christmas time. She still loves to dance and it's fun to see her learning more and more actual dance moves.

Dance Christmas Party

Tori's dance studio had a Christmas party where they got to talk and dance with Santa. Tori loved this - especially the dancing part.

Above, Tori is coloring her Christmas picture while waiting to see Santa. It's interesting - lately, Tori has gotten very wary of strangers (a good thing in many ways). She was the little baby and toddler that loved sitting on Santa's lap, would talk to or smile at any stranger we passed by. She's a bit more reserved around strangers now and as you can see in the video below - she will hardly even look at Santa, even though she was really excited to get to see him. I guess this is what happens when you start getting older and more aware.

Halloween Dance Class

Tori's dance class did a tap and ballet routine for Halloween in their costumes and parents got to come in and watch. Below is the video - she just loves to dance, especially in a big fancy costume.

Dance Recital

We survived another dance recital. Tori had the time of her life and loved getting roses from her dad after the show. James even enjoyed some of the dancing (when the music was really loud and fast he would stand up in my lap and watch the girls on stage dance while he bounced up and down).

These are a few pictures of Tori and her friends during the dress rehearsal.

Above RoWan, Claire, Tori and Megan are watching some of the other classes practice their dances.

Above is the picture of Tori's dance class.
Below are pictures of all the family after the show.

Below is some more video of Tori doing her recital dance - this is video of the dress rehearsal on stage since we weren't allowed to take videos during the actual recital.

Dance Recital Practice

Before their actual dance recital they have a dress rehearsal in the studio where they get to wear their costumes and make-up. I think one of Tori's favorite parts of the recital is getting to wear make-up. She talked about it for days and she constantly wanted to put on more lipstick.

In the picture above from left to right starting at the top row:

Tori, RoWan, Claire,

Grace, Megan, Kiley,

Bella, Siri, Laila

In the picture below their teacher Miss Megan posed with them. Tori absolutely loves and her and she is a really sweet teacher.

Above are all the girls from her class that also go to church with us:

Tori, Megan, Claire, RoWan, Siri and Megan's older sister Anne.

Below are Tori and Megan and Tori and Siri.

Christmas Parties

Tori was a very lucky girl and got to sit on Santa's lap three times this year. We were just very glad that she was consistent when she told him what she wanted for Christmas - a Tiana doll (the newest Disney princess from the Princess and the Frog movie). Above is a picture of Tori at the dance studio's Holiday party for the 3-4yr old kids. Below is Tori and some of the other dancers eating so of the treats after dancing and sitting on Santa's lap.

Here is Tori with the very silly dance party Santa. Tori loved everything to do with Christmas and Santa this year. She loved seeing him, talking about him, making him cookies, we wrote him a letter and an email (he replied to both). This is Tori's first note to Santa that she wrote all by herself (just a little help with spelling the words from me):

"Dear Santa, This is your note. I want a tiana doll. Love, Tori."

Above is Tori with Santa from the church Christmas party.

Below is James also enjoying the Christmas party.

Halloween Dance Lessons

Tori's dance class in their costumes:

At Tori's dance lesson during the week of Halloween they got to wear their costumes and they performed a dance to the "5 Little Pumpkins" song that they had been working on. It was fun to see how much better Tori has gotten just over the past few months - I thought she did a really cute job in this video. Tori is actually going to be Ariel for Halloween, but that costume isn't the easiest to dance in so we let her pick another dress-up to wear for dance. I also included a few pictures of Tori in her cute new dance stuff that she got for her birthday below.

Dance Recital and Dress Rehersal

These are a bunch of pictures of Tori in her dance costume with her make-up for her very first dance recital. With how much she loves dance this will probably be the first of many. One of the things she was the most excited about was getting to wear lipstick.

These are pictures of Tori and her friends in dance class during the dress rehearsal at the dance studio. Above - I asked Tori to pose for me and that is her pose.

Above from left to right - Tori, Megan, Claire, Anne, Lauren.

Below are all the girls from the 3 dance classes Tori's age that did the recital together.

These are pictures after the recital was all done. Tori was soooo excited to get real flowers - especially her roses from Dad. I was really excited to be at the dance recital because it was just 4 days before my due date with James (luckily he came right on his due date).

Below are videos of the recital and dress rehearsal right before hand. I included both since during the actual recital Tori had a hard time finding a spot so she starting dancing a little late (their instructor told them to find a dot on the ground to dance on, but I don't think there were enough dots, but Tori was determined to find a "dot" to dance on). I'm just proud that she kept on dancing and did such a good job remembering all the steps.

Our little Tinkerbell dancing

Here is more video of Tori dancing. This time in her Tinkerbell costume. She can dance a little better in this costume because the shoes are a little easier to dance in than the Cinderella costume.

Our little Cinderella Dancing

Above is a video of Tori dancing in her Cinderella dress (sorry it's quite a long video, but I didn't really know how to cut it more and of course I think it is all cute). Recently, anytime I put music on in the house Tori immediately wants me to dress her up in one of her princess outfits so she can dance to it. My favorite part is when the music gets slower she slows down her dancing and then speeds up again when the music picks back up. Tori loves to dance - we often go with John to the Stake Youth Dances and Tori has a blast dancing to every song (I don't know where she gets the energy).

Dancing

So, one of Tori's absolute favorite things is dancing. The video above is her dancing to one of the songs from the musical, Mama Mia - "Honey, Honey" (a new favorite song). Unfortunately, she inherited my rhythm as you can tell. We've taken her to a couple of Stake youth dances at our church because of John's calling and she just loves them. She will dance non-stop for over an hour straight until we drag her home to bed while she yells, "More dance, more dance!" Personally, I can't get enough of watching her dance.