festive free dress 2021

it seems to have become a tradition at the kids school - where on the last day of school, they have what is known as "festive free dress" giving the kids a chance to wear their christmas shirts, santa hats and anything else they like. it's so fun!

these two love it and get right into it, so as soon as the christmas shirts appear in store i am straight onto finding them one to wear. joseph's ones this year were especially cool, a pizza triangle tree with "merry crustmas" and a gingerbread man with a broken leg that said "oh snap." maddie was just thrilled to get to wear the shirt again that nanna found her last christmas with the elf on the shelf on it. it's her favourite!

i was so happy to be able to get a better shot of joseph with miss salomon today too as last nights one was not his finest. we were soooo touched to see that she was wearing the earrings we had bought her from josph as an end of year thankyou gift. it was so special.

maddie's sweet little class. she is already wondering who she will be with next year, but only time will tell! 

 

ahead of the game - step up dance academy concert 2021

after weeks of practice and stage rehearsal and dress rehearsal, our step up 2021 end of year concert: ahead of the game, went off without a hitch. this year madeline was in three dances and i was so proud of her, she did an incredible job!

in her ballet class, she was placed front and centre for their "dance of the sugarplum fairies" and danced like an absolute superstar. all her hard work has paid off and grandad's insistence on putting her in ballet was clearly worth it. she has such a natural grace and it shows so well in ballet. it may not be her favourite, but she is so good at it.

her contemporary dance to "take it to the heart" was stunning. our girl had a little solo part and was lifted in the middle of the dance. i honestly don't know where she gets her grace from, as i am so uncoordinated, yet she moves with perfection.

the girls have had the most amazing teacher in miss amelie and love her so much. it's so fun to see.

seeing them all smiles back stage before they went on was the best. they all love dancing in their little squad.

their last dance for the evening before the finale was their "singing in the rain/ umbrella" jazz mash up.

❤

side of stage all ready to go with the lovely miss amelie.

the time came for presentations and we snuck in the back door to the empty top seats to watch. 

kaz and i were thrilled to see our girls take out a class trophy each and a medal for their lyrical troupe.

madeline took out the jazz technique trophy and was thrilled to pieces - as jazz is her favourite! she was so happy to be recognised for her efforts.

well - another year is done and dusted. i am sure madeline and madison will be dancing all through their break - but we are officially on break - until school starts next year! ❤

festive free dress day

i love that for the past few years at our kids school, the last day of school has been what they call a "festive free dress" day. our kids love dressing up in christmas shirts and wearing christmas hats (which i am certain last about 4 minutes once they are at school in the aussie summer heat haha) but they look so cute!

maddie is stoked with this cute as sleeping beauty t-shirt i got her after christmas last year on clearance (yep, always after the bargains) for like $5 from big w and doug and i think it's hilarious because at one stage (long ago) we had considered the name aurora for a girl. when we first got together, i somehow contracted viral pneumonia and was sleeping all the time, so he would refer to me as sleeping beauty as a joke.

our little star wars lover (thank you to weeks of the stay at home orders, where we covered many many movies including all 11 of the star wars movies (rogue one and solo included here)) was stoked with his star ward christmas t from kmart and never wants to take it off.

the three merriest and cutest kids i know. 

and just like that - schools over for another year. 

as alice cooper once said: school's out for summer!

 

ellen stirling primary school open night 2020

we had the blessing of being able to attend an open night at our childrens school this evening. we are constantly mindful of those still suffering from covid-19 issues and lockdowns and not being able to live their usual life. we have been so blessed to be living in "wait awhile" wa and have been so sheltered from much of the issues - and tonight was a classic example of that. without the exceptional effort from our state as a whole, we would not be having an open night at all. it was well done and easy to be there, each learning block had a one way movement through the classrooms so there was an entry and exit only point as you moved through, a sign in entry point as you came into the school and hand sanitiser at the entry point of each block. the school had certainly been mindful of the best way to make it happen.

there was also a special red carpet area for those who won classroom awards to walk in, have their photograph taken by waiting parents and have their chance to shine. it was fantastic.

maddie has loved her classroom this year, she's been blessed with not one, but two amazing teachers who shared their teaching days and she adores them both.

maddie with her teachers mrs. bateman and mrs. conduit.

and showing off some of her favourite classroom work

the kids were also loving this gorgeous artwork one of the classes made up and displayed as a photo wall on the side of their classroom for the open night. so cool!

joseph was so so lucky to have this incredible woman as his teacher this year. at the beginning of the year, he was reeling from having lost his grandfather and really wasn't coping well at all. she was everything he needed and changed him completely. he learned to cope with going to school each day (even when he did not want to) and she just didn't pander to his crap. he likes to push it to see how far he'll get, but she was having none of it. miss salomon you are a real life angel, you've done wonders with our boy. she was so amazing with him in fact, that even though little things caused him to have a melt down at the beginning of the year, she was made associate principal for the final term of this year and it was such a non event, that he didn't even tell me! i found out almost an entire week into the term that they had a new teacher, and not from him, only because the school emailed about it. talk about hilarious! doug and i were gobsmacked.

so for this term, he has had the lovely mr. romanelli on a single term contract. he's been delightful and very approachable while also not taking our kids crap hahaha. we have been so lucky each and every year with amazing teachers at ellen stirling since we began, 5 years ago!!!

joseph also loved showing off his work in his classroom...

and i am in love with this amazing inside out picture he made in class. aunty dom's favourite gif to use is the one of anger spraying flames out of his head, so i am think we may have to frame this for her for christmas. it's so fun!

they are just quite simply the best bunch of people there are! emma (miss salomon) spent ages talking to us tonight and even told us on the downlow she's teaching year two next year and she's asked for joseph to be in her class again, so we are thrilled to pieces and keeping our fingers crossed it happens. it would be the actual best to have her two years in a row!

daddy and his older kids. they loved having him here this evening, he misses a lot of school things because of his long work hours, so he got his own mini tour.

it was really a great time, especially because alex wasn't there to run amuck, thank goodness and thank you to people who love us enough to give us a little break sometimes.

i am so proud of this kid. he's come up in leaps and bounds this year and is amazing us with his resilience.

and this girl needs to stop growing up, she's so pretty it's ridiculous. she loves school - to learn and socialise and to be the life of the party. 

i am one heck of a lucky mum. ❤

the gift that keeps on giving

yesterday we had our end of year primary activity at the local water playground. it was just hot enough and lovely to run about in the water and on the grass. we didn't have all the kids, which is to be expected in december as everyone always has so many plans, but those who were there enjoyed themselves, especially with the bbq dinner at the end.

i am a member of an lds primary presidencies group on facebook and over time have seen so many amazing ideas on there for things that can be done with the kids to improve their spirituality and relationship with the lord. one that really struck me was that one ward had ordered a copy of the lds friend magazine as a year long subscription to be delivered out to each family for a year! best.idea.ever. i jumped on it and put it to our president and bishopric who also loved it and that was our gift to all our primary families. quite literally the gift that keeps on giving, all year long! 

we handed out their subscription cards at the activity and some at church and the last few to letterboxes, but all the parents loved it and were super stoked with the gift. i'm hoping this is the beginning of something amazing and we can do it each year if it continues to be so well received. 

merry christmas to our primary peeps!

 

step up end of year concert: lights camera action - filming

our end of year concert at step up is happening a little differently this year. the studio owner is (rightly) concerned that at any stage covid could rear it's ugly head and shut down our end of year concert, so they came up with an alternative to make sure it's drama free! each of the class routines were filmed one by one and will be made into a virtual concert for us to watch at ace cinemas at the end of january once it's all cut and edited and ready to go. 

madeline is especially excited as they'll get to watch the concert along with everyone else for the first time ever! we wrapped our section of filming today and it was so lovely to see all the girls downstairs in their makeshift changeroom ready to go so excited for each section.

it's been a rough year for the studio, with covid closures, class cancellations, zoom classes, youtube tutorials, but they've made it work somehow and here we are!

biggest shoutout of all to the costume store though, it's been a hard year for everyone - and they went out of their way to reuse, readjust and do everything they could to keep the price of costumes under $ for every single class. legends. for example, the tutu maddie has on here is last years ballet costume with the lace swirl removed and a new piece added on. they are such beautiful tutus that it seemed a real waste to only use them once, so all of us mums are thrilled!

ballerina madeline ❤

with bestie madison

and with her friends isla, gracie and madison

serious as always haha. i love watching them laugh before going on to dance deadly serious. it's so funny.

intermediate jazz

with madison again 

and lyrical troupe. we are definitely getting our moneys worth out of this cute sunny costume. i love it!

thank you step up! we are so thrilled to be part of your studio. you've gone above and beyond to make sure no one is disappointed this year and for that we are forever grateful.