On Saturday I worked and B took the kids to our friends' dd's First Holy Communion party. It was at a nice restaurant a few blocks away from our house. They had a great time - DJ, dance floor, big Italian buffet, tons of kids. I was sad to miss it, but all my Saturdays off are slotted for the big dance stuff. It's ok - I happen to have the next 3 Saturdays off, lol! This weekend is the big recital rehearsal, May 19th is a local competition, and May 26th we'll be away at the weekend-long performance team rehearsal and photo-shoot. Sunday, the kids went to religion class and then I drove with the girls out to see a local play starring one of our homeschooled friends.

Yesterday we had a wonderful art class with the homeschool group. The theme was watercolors so we stopped at Michaels Craft to buy of new watercolor paints - we bought the flat tablet kind and the squeezy kind in a tube-, brushes, and watercolor paper (really thick and feels like homemade paper). The kids learned and practiced "wet-on-wet" painting, creating a landscape background first, then letting it dry while we ate lunch, and then going back to it to add things in the foreground. Everyone also brought a piece of fruit and made watercolor still-lifes learning about how to observe where the light hits it and how to convey that in your painting. Everyone's paintings were hung up on the wall and each child got to go up and talk about what they made. So cool.

Today J has her first voice lesson with a woman who just had a callback for a Broadway show last week! J is so excited and can't wait. She's hoping to be ready to sing at Nationals in July.

...We're back from the voice lesson. Wow. This is exactly what I was looking for. J took to her right away and feels comfortable enough to belt out a tune and do those funny sounding exercises without being self-conscious, lol. The vocal coach (VC) was surprised J was only 10 with that voice and foresaw a promising future for her. They worked on diction and articulation (...he thrusts his fists upon the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts...), breathing, scales, and several Broadway songs (Maybe, Castle on a Cloud, etc). I loved what I saw, J loved it, and we decided to set up weekly lessons. K and J will also both be auditioning for a kids Broadway cabaret in July (for an autumn show). So K wants to start lessons soon as well. VC is very close to home, reasonably priced, and totally knows what she's doing. Yay!