Ballerina Bliss

This past Sunday was Kylie's Ballet Recital with Dance Without Limits.

 Dance Without Limits is a unique Dance Program that provides dance opportunities for children who experience special needs.  They partner with Ballet Des Moines and their experienced ballerinas to pair up helpers (older girls) with DWOL dancers (younger children).

Kylie has had 2 helpers this year: Chloe and Ellen.  They are fabulous and she loves them!! They know just how to get her to do each move and often patiently wade through Kylie's moods on any given dance day.  These girls are ANGELS!!

Dance Without Limits has really expanded Kylie's world in so many ways. She sincerely loves it.

Ballet has also been beneficial for making friends, working on balance, speech, timing, gracefulness, and so many other things that our girl needs.

At the end of every session, They do "free dance" and Kylie cracks us up as she leads her helpers in a hilarious dance.  We call it the reindeer dance because that is what it looks like!  It is so funny and her helpers are such good sports at letting Kylie take the lead.

The above is a photo of Kylie's class minus one or two other students who needed to leave a little early.

Every recital, we try to do something special for Kylie's Teachers.  This recital we decided to make hand-print tutus.  I didn't know if Kylie would go for it- having to put her hand in paint, but she did really well.

We used this leotard template and traced it onto sparkly paper.  We only used the top half as we planned to make a tutu for the bottom part.

For the tutu, we first painted Kylie's hands white and then placed them strategically on the paper to form the tutu.

Once the paint dried, we added iridescent glitter dots over the tutu to give it some sparkle

This is what it looked like "in progress" so you can see the dots (When the glue dries you only see the dots when the light hits them - they are very subtle)

Then, we just embellished with ribbon and adhesive jewels to fancy it up a bit.

The last step was giving it a "frame" and some stability with black poster board.

On the back of the board, we glued Kylie's Thank You notes.

and

Kylie's teachers really enjoyed her efforts.  Here she is with Miss Monika

and here she is with Miss Julianna

Dance Without Limits has become a family affair.  We all love it and receive great joy from those who graciously serve our daughter. 

Thank you so much Dance Without Limits and all the donors from Ballet Des Moines and the Community who support these little ones who experience special needs!

(Look at that smile on her face!!)
What a GIFT you give to our family!!

A Pretty Kitty - Making Kylie's Halloween Costume!

Usually by September, I know exactly what Kylie is going to be for Halloween and usually have everything ready.  Well, this year, I had NOTHING ready at all!!  I was drawing a total blank! 

So, I began to browse websites, pay attention in stores, look through magazines and NOTHING was jumping out and me.  Kylie wasn't attached to any idea either.

We were quite the undecisive pair.

Then, on a casual shopping trip, we were in a Clair's Boutique (which is Kylie's "routine" when we are in that particular mall) and we stumbled on a cat/leopard set.  It was $12 and came with cat ears, cat tail, cat paws and a gemstone tattoo of a cat nose and whiskers (They must be sold out of it as I can't find it on the website.  I'd post the link if I could find it). 

I knew I had seen leopard print shoes at Target and my brain started churning out ideas faster than I could keep up. 

(I also scored a leopard print coat at the Take2 Sale for $2.50 - cha ching!!  I'm so excited!!)

We immediately went to the JoAnn fabric store and purchased 3 yards of Black, Brown and Tan/Gold tulle, 3 yards of elastic and then some clear (diamond looking) stick-on gems (in the dollar aisle).

I went home, measured my little one and went to work making the TuTu for her costume.

The process is really easy (and a no-sew project:  my favorite!!)

1. Measure your child's waist, Then add 10 inches extra. (This is the excess you need to tie the tutu.)
2. Mark off the actual measurement of your child's waste on the elastic with 5 extra inches on either side.
3. Then measure The length you want the tutu to be and double that number. 
4. Cut your tulle pieces 5 inches wide and make them as long as the number you figured in step #3
5. Tie the pieces of Tulle to the elastic (I like the effect of alternating the colors).  Put 50% of your piece of tulle on one side of the elastic and 50% on the other side.  Tie it in a knot.
6. Make sure you snug up each tied piece of tool to the next one (this will make your tutu extra fluffy)
7. Go all the way around the elastic until you have completed your child's waste measurement
8. Adhere your gemstones to the tulle in random order (I used a hot glue gun as the adhesive wasn't sticky enough)

Here's the finished product! (and I am sure there will be more and better pics to come closer to Halloween)

As you can tell, she LOVES it!!
She has even been practicing her "meow" - so much fun!!

Happy Halloween!!

Amy