Dancing Queen

Last week was a busy one for Miss Tessa!

She was invited (by a friend of Aunt Becki's) to be part of the mini-minorette program at Bingham High School. There were just 2 practices before the show, which was last Wednesday night.

The Minorettes are Binghams drill team, and the mini-minorette program is an annual fundraiser they do. Girls ages 3-14 are invited.

She had so much fun! Our girl loves to dance. She's also the most outgoing kid you've ever met, and views every new person, place and activity as an opportunity to make friends. The minorettes all loved her, and I heard a dozen times how cute and fun she was. She did a great job in her dance. Matt recorded her preformance, but we were seated at a bad angle and it's hard to pick out which one she is. The fact that she's super short doesn't help much, either! I doubt anyone who's not her mom could pick her out in the video, but here it is in case you want to try. She's in the second row, second from the far end.

Grandma and Grandpa came to see her dance, and Tessa and Asher were so happy to have them there!

(BTW, I did not put blue eye shadow on her - the minorettes did that!) There are more pictures in my photobucket account - there's a link at the bottom of this post.

Matt, Becki and I felt a little disloyal to Alta, (the HS we went to) being at Bingham and having our little girl dressed in blue, instead of red! Especially since Alta played Bingham for the 5A state championship on Friday. Alta won, though - so all is well!

Thursday was Tessa's school program!

At Summit, each grade only puts on one program a year. Last year the Kindergarten program had a patriotic theme. This year the first grade program was all about Jazz music. The students learned about how it was one of the first real American art forms, about how a lot of the words (like bee bop) didn't mean anything, they just sounded fun, and about some of the greats, like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker.

(Be sure to notice the decorations - another room mom and I put them up that morning :)

They danced, in addition to singing. It was so cute! There are 4 First Grade classes, approximately 25 kids in each class. Each class wore a different color of headbands (for the girls) and bowties (for the boys). Tessa's class wore green. They didn't have as many boys as girls in their class, so Tessa is dancing with her friend, Grace. They are so adorable together - Grace is tall and skinny and super pale blond with blue eyes. Tessa is short and so dark - such a cute combination!

This video is of Tessa's class's main dance. She's right up front, just left of center.

I uploaded a few more videos to my photobucket account. To see them, go here. The first one is them singing Tessa's favorite song from the program - Aint Nobody Here But Us Chickens. She's in the top row for this one, you can't see her all that well, but the song is adorable. It gets stuck in my head for hours at a time. The second video is them reciting a bee bop poem - they do such a good job at it! The third video is of them singing What a Wonderful World, and dancing to it. Tessa's on the top row, left of center. The fourth video is the song Redmop, Tessa's on the top, left of center, again.

Aunt Becki, Nana and L'Jean were all able to come see her at school. Tessa felt very loved to have them all there. :)

To see pictures from the mini-minorettes show and the school program, go here.