Dear Oliver,
My third, my youngest, you are always being told what you can and cannot do, what you are and aren’t, by your big siblings and by me. But despite what we say, you do as you see fit. You dive deep into things that interest you and don’t give up until you’ve mastered it like solving the Rubik’s Cube in under 40 seconds and listing every single country in the world in under 6 minutes. You kinda love dance and you kinda like flag football, absolutes mean something to you so you are rare to use them. But your friends, your entire crew of fourteen boys, your girlfriend, your cousins and aunts, and us, absolutely think your funny and clever, smart and sweet, thoughtful and sincere. In some ways I am easy on you and in some ways the hardest and since you are fourteen sometimes you want nothing to do with me and sometimes want me to be everything for you. When I look at you and see how much you’ve grown and how much you are changing, I sometimes get sad because you are my baby but not a baby anymore. And I’ll ask you to cuddle with me and you’ll say “No Mom, that’s weird” but then you’ll relent and give me a hug for as long as I hold on.
By my third you’d think I’d have figured some things out but I still make mistakes, I say the wrong things and I try to define who you are and what you can and cannot do. But luckily you hear what you choose to hear and you know exactly what you can do.
Creative Dance Center’s annual Nutcracker In a Shell The Remix is our community fundraising performance of the year. This year marks Creative Dance Center’s 26th annual performance, Oliver’s first, Penny’s fourth and Lucas’ last. 
They did it! But wait, this journey for Lucas actually started seven years ago. DanceMakers was the first dance convention he attended when he joined Creative Dance Center’s competition team in 5th grade. It immediately made an impression on him. We’ve attended many dance conventions and the format is largely the same; high caliber faculty, classes in many styles of dance, competition against some of the best dance studios in the nation. What has stood DanceMakers apart from the rest is their vision; to make every person who walks through their doors feel welcomed, loved and supported. Those first few years Lucas stood out for his hip hop while he learned ballet, jazz, contemporary, tap, ballroom and musical theater. Then class by class, year by year, his confidence grew. His trust in the dance community grew. His belief in himself as more than a hip hop dancer grew. The community, the faculty and the Collective of DanceMakers played a big part in the safety of this growth. For the past seven years we’ve attended a DanceMakers regional event and for the past three years we’ve attended their Nationals. The mutual trust and respect between our studio and DanceMakers has grown tremendously in the past few years with our coaches and dancers all feeling a bit more at home, every year.
Our Everyday 