Our Little Annie

Anyone that knows Makenzie knows that she's not "shy" in any way. :) In fact, she never has been. She has always been very open, precocious, and a tad dramatic. hahaha Which can be challenging as a parent, but when focused in the right direction bring a lot of fun and happiness to her and everyone around her. She also loves to sing and act and is comfortable being herself around whoever she is with and not worry about "being cool". This may just be something she gets to keep. I had always assumed it would go away as she grew closer into being a teenager, but I can see that she still keeps it with her. Sometimes her friends make fun of certain things and she'll laugh along with it or she'll tell them that it bugs her and ask them to stop- which they do amazingly enough.

When we lived in Los Angeles when she was much littler she was able to do acting for movies, commercials, tv, etc. and she had a lot of fun with that. We posted one of her commercials here on the blog a few years ago. The link is here. She was so cute and little I could squeeze her. :) She was also in "Beauty and the Beast Jr." at her elementary school and I got to help a lot with that, link about it here. We have had such crazy drifting lives that she hasn't been able to do much acting since LA for the most part and she has missed it like crazy.

Anyway, this year she is in a new school that is 6-8th grade and she wanted to audition for the play "Annie" that they are hosting. She figured since she was new and that she was only in 6th grade she wasn't very likely to get the role of Annie, but still wanted to be apart of it. I took some pictures of her before her audition because she looked so dang cute. Here they are below.

Adorable right?! :)

A few days after the audition she came bounding in the house so excited to tell me that she was in the play and that she was going to be a hobo in it. I danced around with her and congratulated her. She kept laughing really hard and finally the little booger admitted to getting the role of Annie! I screamed and picked her up and spun her around the room until we were dizzy. We jumped up and down and screamed for at least 5 minutes and fell down laughing. Then we spent an hour calling family and friends to tell them. She told me that when she saw they posted the Annie list she looked at the extras and didn't find her name and almost turned away feeling sad that she wasn't in it and then decided to just see who was Annie in case it was her friend Sam. When she looked at the top of the list and saw "Annie: Makenzie Hippen" she said her brain when blank from shock and thought to herself, "Makenzie... Makenzie... that sounds really familiar" and then it clicked and she wanted to scream, but there were a bunch of 8th grade girls freaking out around her that a 6th grader had grabbed the role so she smiled to herself and quietly ducked out walking backward out of the crowd. (That is exactly how she described it and I can picture the whole thing- I told you she's dramatic- hahaha)

She has been working her tail off. Everyday she has rehearsals for 2-3 hours and Saturdays are 4 hours. She walks around the house singing the songs and her sisters join in. It's the darn cutest thing to hear little Penelope singing "Tomorrow" in her little 2 year old voice word for word perfectly! Kendyl has become famous by association at her school and is always being asked to sing songs from Annie on the bus. One of the best parts for Makenzie is that one of her favorite friends, in a grade older, got the role of Miss Hannigan! They get to yell at each other, Sam gets to pretend to slap her and call her a drunk, and Makenzie gets to pretend stomp on her foot. They LOVE it! :) Here's a cute picture of them last year before a singing duet they did. Aren't they the cutest little buddies.

Her play is in a few months and we can't wait! All this hard work is bound to pay off. We'll post pictures, videos etc. when it's done. We love this Makenzie and the bright fun light she adds to our family and the wonderful example she is to her younger sisters.