Cate's holiday recital

This year, newly obsessed with all things Top 40, Cate decided she wanted to sign up for hip hop. We switched her to a better dance school, and she immediately learned the proper "b girl" stance among other things that cracked us up. She loves the class and the teacher and couldn't wait for recital day. The costumes aren't nearly as adorable, but the recital was actually entertaining and all the kids looked like they were having a blast.

Here's Cate and her fellow performers hanging backstage. She's definitely growing up- told me she didn't need me to stay backstage!!

Her routine "Deck Them Halls- remix" was super-cute. They are almost old enough to remember the routine, but not quite there yet. Part of the entertainment is watching the different interpretations from each kid :). Cate is 3rd from the right in the top pic, and second from the right in the bottom pic.

Cate had a big fan club- aunt ray ray, aunt alli, seb, grandma and mayensi all came to cheer her on! Isaac perfected his  Sonic Jump skills on his itouch for most of the recital, but hit pause long enough to watch his little sister perform :)

After her routine, Cate got to watch the rest of the routines from the audience. She was mesmerized by the older girls and clapped and cheered excitedly as each one ended- anxiously awaiting her chance to go back onstage for the finale. When the last song started, she jumped into the aisle and stood by the stairs, corralling her classmates, telling everyone to get ready to go back on stage.

Finally she got her queue- and ran up to join the rest of the company in a final number, before a lot of cheering and bowing. (She's the little face peeking out behind/to the left of the nutcracker in front.)

After ward, she gratefully collected her flowers and reluctantly left the theatre, clearly sad it was over. She glowed all through her celebration lunch, and when she woke up from her nap later and had to clean up her room, she expressed her disappointment and told me "it's not nice to make someone do this on their recital day" ahh- a star is born :)