What A Crazy Week! First, the Chickens Flew the Coop.

I have so much to tell you. Where to begin?

Well, first up: H's dance recital. Remember the "Groovy," "Far Out" chickens? They were out in full force on Monday. Dress rehearsal in the morning, recital later that night. The recital took place at a beautiful theater downtown. And the chickens stole the show.

Seriously, throw some three and four year olds in costume and put them up on stage and they really just have to stand there to be cute and entertaining. You never really know what they'll do when you turn them loose.

Dress rehearsal was somewhat disappointing. Everything was behind schedule so when the girls got up on stage to practice, it was an hour later than expected and they were hungry and ready for nap time.

First, though, we touched up hair and make-up in the dungeon, uhumm, I mean, dressing room. These rooms were downstairs, windowless, and hotter than hel--ck! The hollywood style lights doubled as mini-heaters and that, in combination with so many bodies crammed into such small spaces... well, we were all fightin' for air. But we managed to get a few shots in as we held our cameras in fingers slick with sweat - and I kid you not.

Smile, everyone! Cheese! C'mon. Say Cheese! Hello? CHEESE!

And more of the same. They look thrilled.

Kids will be kids. Group shots will be total randomness.

I don't know if you can see the back of H's head of hair, but this was about the only FIVE MINUTES her hair stayed curled.

And then, as if we hadn't tortured them enough trying the whole group photo thing, we handed the reigns over to a professional and, for the record, I saw the proofs of these shots and he didn't fare much better!

Beautiful.  But where are those pearly whites?!

And finally?

Lined up and ready to go. Except they didn't really go, just sorta stood there as the music played and played. We crossed our fingers for a better performance at the real deal later that night.
H is second from the FAAARRRR right.

H had some good wing-flapping action, though.

So we weren't allowed to take pics of the actual performance, so I don't have any to share. I will have a professional DVD sometime in the next two months or so. Let me tell you: I was so proud of these kids. They went to town on that stage. Put a great big, huge, colossal audience in front of them and they light up like true divas. The entire audience was laughing so hard, especially when they turned around to shake, shake, shake their tail feathers. And they were singing at the top of their lungs... with foot mikes in front of them to amPLIFY the sound.

We made a last minute decision to stay for the entire show so H could be in the finale. So did a whopping five other chickens. The recital didn't end until 10:30. Glad H didn't have school the next day. Oh yeah. Guess nobody did since it's summer and all...

I took some pics of waiting in the dressing room. We had a DVD player going and drinks and snacks for the girls and coloring books and they actually had a pretty good time.

Awww...cute...

And below: I told her to pose...

What the heck?!
All that clucking must have gotten to her brain.


And finally, home at last...

with flowers for a job well done.

Pssst: don't look too closely. I realized afterwards that H had some of her late-night drive-thru dinner still smeared on her face.

I was so tired, I didn't even notice.

I will post about H's b-day party later tonight. Craziness.  And it all started with a jinx...