Tiny Dancer

Catherine Ellis had her first official ballet class last Thursday.  While she's taken dance every year at school, it's not been ballet focused or outside of her school.  She has been SO excited about her two picks for this semester, ballet and gymnastics (we won't start that until the cast is off) and could hardly wait for Thursday to come!

We love Children's Dance Foundation - it's a wonderful organization that serves so many in our community.  CDF has provided free dance classes to the YWCA for years now (and many other child care centers)- they take the arts to those that might not have the opportunity otherwise, so when it came time to select where we would attend it was a no-brainer.  Not to mention their ED is a grad school buddy of mine and one of the most fabulous people I know.

As time approached for class to start Catherine Ellis got a little nervous because of her arm (more on that later this week!), but as soon as she realized her teacher was her former dance teacher at Rushton the nerves were all gone.  She had a blast!  The class is full of little girls we don't know, so another opportunity to get to know our new neighborhood and community.  

 Ready to dance!

These pictures are all a bit blurry because the parents sit in the hallway in front of the classroom windows that on the inside are mirrors. Which is genius to me and I'm sure have been around for decades now, but they sure weren't when I took dance.

 Warming up

 Watching herself in the mirrors

 She smiled the entire 45 minutes!

 Giddy about learning her new "moves"

Of course Catherine Ellis made sure she was right next to her teacher - soaking it all in!  The class was adorable, I think I smiled the entire time too.  Brought back such fond memories of all my years of dance.  I was also a little relieved at the fact that we made it from school, dressed, on-time and she enjoyed it.  Our very first extracurricular after-school activity was a hit!

David doesn't get to join us, so I took a bit of video for him to see Catherine Ellis in action - you can tell she's loving it and that cast didn't slow her down one bit.  Determined little wee she is!