Our artistic daughter

I sure wish I had some photos of her from today, prancing around with her little jingly hip belt doing "arabesques" in belly dancing class! She really likes it, almost as much as me! I'm LOVING this class!! It feels like such a natural and beautiful way for women to move and I have so much fun. It's great to be doing something physical and really working the muscles with the isolated moves found in belly dancing. Maybe I'll bring my camera to class next week!
In the meantime, here's a little clip of Aloka and Nile jammin' on the drums in 'Still Eagle', a cool little hemp clothing shop in Nelson.
On Saturday night, we also went to a really fun and high energy performance by the African drum and dance ensemble I previously filmed at the Garlic Festival, called Malicounda. This was so much fun and Aloka and I danced and danced. She is really immersed in the arts here in this town, I love it!
Some fairly big news for us; Aloka is starting Waldorf Preschool this week! She will be going two days a week to start, from 9-12. I'm a little nervous about it. She seems totally ready, but I've never been apart from her for so long. It will be a great thing, but it's also a big deal for her to be totally on her own with neither of us. The teacher is wonderful, and said she comes over to the childs home to play for an hour or so to get aquainted. Aloka will show her all her toys I'm sure, feeling more comfortable and familiar with her (her name is Dena). A great idea I think! We've already been to the school once, where I stayed with her. Waldorf School is so amazing, and so child focused. Thursday (the day we went) is "soup day", where each child brings a vegetable from home and they all chop veggies and put it into the soup. They then have it for lunch with the bread they baked the day before. If feels very wholesome, creative, lively, and full of wonder.
And on a seperate note referring to the photos, is the Playdough gingerbread girl and the little "sculpture" Aloka made a few days ago. For the past few months, she's been drawing people with a big round circle for the body, and then stick legs and arms coming out from the body. She puts eyes, mouth, and nose on the circle. Well, the other day I made her Playdough, and she was quietly playing with it. She called for me from her little fort, and I came over and saw that she had made a 3 dimensional rendering of her stick person drawing! I couldn't belive it! It was her first interpretational sculpture! It seems like a little thing, but boy are Josh and I proud! I'm also including a photo from earlier that day. She also made her own "gingerbread girl", complete with buttons on the dress and eyes and mouth, and some kind of patterned texture on the dress.