The end of the school year festivities are piling up fast and furious. And I know I'm not the only one a bit overwhelmed. The other blogs I read have been full of it lately: school programs and plays, concerts, karate tournaments, dance recitals, hamster juggling demonstrations...anything to get the kids on stage.

Last weekend, we were at the twins' school program: The Inoui Inuit Show. This weekend, we'll be at the "African Dream" show being put on by the dance school that my three girls attend. The rehearsal schedule has been crazy, but we've just about arrived at the Big Day. Thank God.

Yesterday was the first dress rehearsal, so I had to get my girls ready to go. The teacher had specified "tribal makeup" and a messy chignon, full of rafia bits. I couldn't resist adding a few feathers.
My policy is: less is NOT more.

I have to say that I rather enjoyed myself and that I rocked the hairdos!
Here's Mal's:

Tragically, the teacher had also specified that the girls HAD to wear the 'special' headgear she created for them. Valentine posted about this topic and I have to agree with her: This is just Not Right.

Poor Mal looks so depressed.

We had determined early on that the round things were the bottoms of the feet and the animal was sitting on a big drum ( like in the circus. KWIM?). The twins then colored them in accordingly.

All of the other little girls, however, had interpreted this really awful drawing as an elephant standing on it's back legs, wearing a gaudy skirt and and XXL pasties.
In short: hoochie mama elephant.

I have to say that the idea had certainly occured to me- but I had quickly eliminated it. But now all the other girls wonder why the twins' elephants have on grey bras. (I told them to say that they used to be white, but got accidentally washed with the dark clothes- an attempt at some mom-type laundry humour. Only Tya thought that was at all funny)

Here's how Al's hair turned out:

Finally, here's Tya. She dances the part of a village woman and doesn't have to wear a trashy pachyderm on her head.

I'll do a more pro job on Saturday- I have some stick-on jewels and such. They aren't reusable, so I couldn't use them for the rehearsal.

There's one more dress rehearsal on Friday night and the big show is at 8pm in a huge auditorium in Annemasse - a huge auditorium that nearly burned down on Tuesday night.
True story!

I have some friends that were there last night for a (what else?) school program and just before the final group performed, smoke poured out of all the air vents and the alarms went off. The place was evacuated and scores of fire engines arrived. Three kids had set fire to the kitchen at the back to the building.

Crazy!

The back looked pretty bad yesterday when I had a look and the whole place reeks of smoke...but the show must go on, right?