Pickle's Ballet Recital

This past fall, right after Pickle was potty trained, she expressed a huge interest in ballet but I thought she was too young to start. Just for fun, called a local ballet school and was surprised to hear that they start as young as three--so I signed her right up!

And she has LOVED it!! She goes every week and never misses a lesson, plus the neverending amount of cute ballet outfits and kept her very happy (and us in the Poor House).

A couple weeks ago, the session ended with a very over-the-top ballet recital that featured the whole school in very ornate costumes and dramatic music. It was right up Pickle's alley! Apparently she loves performing on stage!

Here are a few pics of her Big Night:

Here she is dressed and ready to go. I realized this looks very "Tiaras and Tantrums" but she had to wear makeup for the stage lights. As you can see, she loves makeup...

Here she is at home before her performance with Gooser:

And here's one of Gooser because he looks so handsome!

And here she is after her performance with her bouquet:

Finally, here is the actual performance! Pickle is the one that barges out out of the line and ends up third from the right. She's also the one that shouts out the line "Quiet!." It's pretty cute...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxMhTCotM8Q

P.S. I know I keep harping on how irritating Blogger has been lately--but I'm really hoping someone can help me with this! When I upload (download? I can never get that straight...) photos and try to arrange them in the post, I used to be able to click on the pic and then drag it down if I put the cursor on the "down arrow" of the little window. Now it won't do it so it's nearly impossible (and way too time-consuming) to get the pic where I want it. Any advice??

Oh, the Guilt!

I can't tell you how guilty I feel for abandoning my blog. Let me say that part of it is the nature of what's happened to Blogger and how DIFFICULT it was for me to add pics which, as you know, is a big part of the blog.

When I was trying to do that last post for L.A., it took HOURS to get it done because of the new makeshift system for photos and I basically gave up out of anger. I don't know if it's better now and I'm almost afraid to try. I also doubt anyone is still reading...and I don't blame you!

It seems my comments are taken over over by weird Asian characters and that makes me sad, bt tonight I got a comment on a long ago post (about the weird caterpillar I found in my backyard) and I was going through old posts to respond, I was reminded of all the fun posts I used to write! It was like, wow--this used to be good! And then I felt guilty...

So I'm about to run out the door for my oil paintimg class but felt impelled to write something even though I know no one's reading. In fact, that might be a good thing, as I can be more stream of consciousness and just punch some stuff out which is maybe just what I need to get back into this...

I am also taking an "illustrated journaling class which is fun but requires a lot of writing which, frankly, I have been WAY out of practice with.

I'm not going to promise to keep up with things here--because it seems like when I do that, I never post again! So I'll just say that I do miss writing and I need to get back in the swing and there are a LOT of fun/cool things that have happened since that last post in L.A. that wish I had written about.

Must go to oil painting now! Miss you all!