Where's Rachel

The other night I went in to check on Rachel and when I saw this I thought oh I have to get a picture of this.  She is so funny because depending on how long she is in her room before she falls asleep sometimes all the stuffed animals end up in bed with her.  So this is like "Where's Waldo" except it's "Where's Rachel".  

And a close up so you can see her just a little bit easier.  :-)

Cultural Event

Last night Rachel and I went to a cultural dance recital with Rachel's dance instructor.  Meridian is Rachel's dance teacher and also the daughter of one of my friends.  So I told Kristin I would only go to this if she was there to help me with Rachel.  I knew I wouldn't be able to keep Rachel under control by myself especially since it started at 7:00 at night and that's usually when we start Rachel's bedtime routine.  So we headed down to the Boise YCMA.  Rachel hadn't taken her nap today and so of course by the time we got down there she fell asleep in the car and I let her sleep for about 25 minutes.  We got into the building and Rachel was really scared at first.  She clung to me for awhile and finally warmed up once the drums started going and more people showed up.  Meridian talked awhile about what exactly happens with the drums rhythms and what kind of dances they were going to do.  We learned African words and some dance moves tonight.

 I'm not ready to come out of my shell yet I want to be shy and cling to someone.  

This is my friend Kristin.

 She finally warmed up and decided to go sit by these people instead of me and Kristin.  She was so cute and just loved watching Meridian and the other dancers.  Meridian was talking to that side of the room and so Rachel had a better view from over there so we just let her be.

 These were the three dancers.  Meridian is in the orange skirt.

 Rachel ended up taking all the scarfs that the dancers used for the 1st dance and was using them the rest of the night.

 One of the funny looks while holding all the scarfs.

 Dancing with Meridian out on the dance floor.

 She loves trying to do what Meridian was doing.  She was Meridian's little shadow all night long.  It was pretty cute.  There were a few times though that she was so close I thought Meridian was going to knock her over or end up getting her with her arm movements.  Meridian was great at missing her so I'm guessing she's done this a few times with little kids that don't sit down and watch. :-)

 Rachel was intent on seeing this one up close and personal.  I thought that Rachel should get away but Meridian told everyone that part of the dance was the elders giving their knowledge to the younger generation.  So after that I didn't worry so much about her being right there with Meridian.

 Finally getting to get close to the drums.  We tried to keep her away but when one of the drummers said it was okay there wouldn't be a problem with her drumming on it we let her have free rain at drumming them.

Drumming on the drum.  She loved the sound of the drums

Here is one of the video's of her starting to dance around with the last little bit just the

 dancers and their African dance.  

Cultural Event #2

So in this video Rachel goes to town dancing to the beat.  The dancers are also getting people out of the audience to participate.  Rachel is of course just doing her own thing.  It's safe to say she likes to dance. Well I couldn't get the video to upload to this page so here is a link to it on YouTube.  This is the best I could do with having issues with blogger video.
http://youtu.be/C1WdhXS9ccc

Cultural Event #3

So we finally were able to get a picture of Rachel actually drumming on the drums.  We were nervous with her around them because the drums are about 400 dollars a piece but one of the drummers was like she is fine let her drum.  So we did.  Here is her video drumming.  She was pretty good at it and stayed on beat.

After we finished around 9:00 we headed home.  In the car Rachel said to me, "Mommy I had alot of fun tonight.  I had fun dancing."  It was super cute and made my day that she had so much fun.