You make me feel like dancin.......

These are the coolest kids I know

Alright, so I've been meaning to post about this past weekend's transgressions, but I had to go out to Colorado for a few days for work, and I'm just getting around to it. I apologize. So this weekend was the year end dance recital that 4 out of our 5 kids were participating in. Scarlett was taking ballet, tap, and gymnastics. And Tori, Cole, and Gavin were taking hip-hop dance classes. Altogether it seemed like we had at least one kid in just about every dance number.


A little back story here: If dance class is a hot fudge sundae, then the recital is just the cherry on top. The real fun started 5 months ago bringing the kids to and from dance. On any given day, we would have to drop off kid A at dance while we brought kids B and C to baseball or softball while kid D was napping in his car seat and kid E was complaining. (And for the record, I think I like referring to the kids as designated letters. It's easy to remember, and kind of reminds me of a standardized math question.)


So if the recital is the cherry on top of the sundae, then getting ready for the recital would be the meticulous churning of the cream for 17 straight hours. Leading up to the recital, the dance place gives you this laundry list of items that you absolutely HAVE to have; new white footed tights, new black footed tights, black leotard with pink stripes, pink leotard with black stripes, solid white leotard, 1 pair of dickies that are just a little too small, 1 pair of dickies that are a little too big, 1 set of black suspenders, 1 tiger costume with ears, 1 plain red t-shirt, 1 elephant costume with ears, 1 plain blue t-shirt, 1 white v-neck t-shirt, 1 pair of dark jeans, etc, etc, etc........(I actually only made up 2 of those items. If anyone can guess which 2, I'll give them a 1 year free subscription to this blog)


And of course, in true King family fashion, we wait until the day of the recital to make sure we have all of this stuff. Hey, I said this was an adventure, right? So Sunday morning we head off to church. (Yeah, that's right, church. I keep praying for peace, and He keeps giving me patience. Go figure) But we don't go to the early church service to make things a little easier. Oh, No, we go to the late service that starts at 11. In my defense, I was up and ready to go to the early service. I was, honestly. I even got the kids ready. But Rach and I kept having this conversation:


Me: (whispering) Rach......Rach........Rach.........


Her: (sleeping) Hhhmmmmmm??????


Me: (whispering less) Are we going to church?


Her: (still sleeping) Uuummhhhhh-HUUUHHHH (sounding like a yes noise)


Me: (not so much whispering anymore) Well we gotta get up then.....


Her: (still sleeping) UUHHHH-Uummmmhh (sounding kind of like a no noise)


Me: (just shaking my head, puzzled)


Rach may dispute this story, but it is coincidentally the same conversation we have every morning, just replace the word 'church' with the word 'gym'. I love my wife, I love my wife, I love my wife. (Shhhhhh, she can hear me!)


So anyway, after late service, we go run errands to make sure we have all of our supplies. And when it comes to running errands, I'm about as useful as a third nipple. So let's just say I kept the kids company in the car. We make 19 different stops getting various items, including getting a bucket of chicken for the kids to eat before the recital, (Which for some oddball reason sounded like a good idea at the time. Did I mention that our kids are driving us insane?) only to get home 27 minutes before we were supposed to be at the auditorium. At this point, Jaxon was sleeping in the car, so that gave us one less thing to do. But we still had to get the other four kids in costume, hair-did, makeup on, and out the door. And when it comes to doing hair and makeup, I'm about as useful as an anorexic girl in a pie-eating contest. Needless to say, I just sat there and ate the bucket of chicken that no one else had time to eat. Ha! Jeff: 1, Chicken: 0


Amazingly, my lovely wife kept her cool the entire time she was getting the kids ready. There definitely was NOT any threats of bodily harm with a hair brush. And I can neither confirm nor deny ballet slippers being thrown across the room. At no point did anyone even get that evil look where she lifts up one eyebrow and pierces your skin with her eyeballs. I love my wife, I love my wife, I love my wife. (Seriously, she can hurt me)


But, just as in true King family fashion did we wait until the last minute, we were also able to get everyone there on time, in costume, with makeup on. And we're all still alive. Kudos to you, Rach.


As for the recital, I'm posting some clips from each one of the dance numbers. At some point, I'll put the whole performances on here, but I was only able to upload half of each performance because that's all that the free version of the video conversion software would allow me to do. You have to pay for it if you want the whole thing converted, but I'm too cheap for that. Or I could just download a pirated copy of the software, but I'm too lazy for that. So let the battle of cheap and lazy begin; and trust me, no one wins.


Anyway, here's the first one. I may have to post the others in a separate post. And for the record, I just got something in my eye during Scarlett's solo. It must have been from looking into the camera lens for too long. Or probably something really manly happened, like a shard of glass got in my eyeball. I definitely wasn't crying.