Lanie and Millie’s

2025 Dance Fundraiser

As many of you know, our Lanie and Millie are competition dancers and spend most of their non-schooling hours at the dance studio. In 2023, we switched studios to join the most competitive and elite studio in southeastern NC (best decision ever!) and both girls are thriving. They seriously cannot get enough of the studio and both of them would be there even more if we could get them there. Their skills as dancers have grown by literal leaps and bounds —they seriously impress us every day!

Their dance studio, Evolution Dance Complex, is in Wilmington and is a 45-60 minute drive each way (depending on traffic in Hampstead) and is quite a family effort for all of us. Kenan is still involved in sports (he still lives and breathes football) so we are often balancing his practices and games with the girls’ dance classes and rehearsals.

Both girls have dance class 4 days a week, and both take more than is required of them completely by choice—and with much begging on their part. They also attend private rehearsals and extra tumbling classes on Friday nights (yes Friday nights!). They are on the competition team (they attend 4-6 competitions each spring with about 5-7 routines each) as well as the performance team (a junior dance/pom team with ages from 8-14 that performs at local high school and college basketball games). They also have classes on Saturdays twice a month. Phew!

When they are not in the studio, along with Kenan, the kids practice their skills at home and weight train. Lanie, specifically, has started to take her overall health and fitness very seriously, and has implemented a gluten free diet because she realized she felt very poorly when eating gluten and she dances better when she fuels her body better (its not like we didn’t tell her that very same thing, but self realization is a powerful tool!).

Clearly, we are insane…and have let dance take over much of our lives. Probably!

BUT dancing is our girls’ dreams come true right now, and dance is also all of their future aspirations. Both Lanie and Millie want to be on a college dance team — the UNC Carolina Girls — with possible professional dance beyond that. The athleticism and artistry it takes to compete at such a high level is mind-blowing! Dancers work SO HARD.

Lanie also wants to be a dance teacher eventually. She is already the most amazing big sister teacher to Millie. Millie has such an advantage with Lanie helping her remember counts and choreography at home, as well as being able to point out technique corrections.

Our biggest stipulation with dance, football, or any extracurricular activity is that academics come FIRST. They are not allowed to do anything extra unless their grades are where they need to be.

Currently Lanie is in 8th grade, and has maintained straight As through all three years of middle school (not one single B!). She is also in the National Junior Honor Society, as well as part of her school’s 8th grade service organization (by invitation only).

Kenan also has straight As in his first year in middle school (6th grade) and was ranked 1st team Academic All American for Pop Warner Football in 2024.

Millie is in 2nd grade and currently reads at a 4th and 5th grade level and has been designated academically gifted in both math and reading.

Our big kid London was Dean’s list his first year at UNC-Charlotte and now co-owns a construction business along with his landscaping business that is still thriving.

OH MY. That last bit was a HUGE parent flex and not something I would normally post on social media…because bragging (well, maybe at graduation time I might LOL). So generally speaking, unless you ask us directly, or talk to their Gram (haha), this isn’t information we tend to offer up on public forums, and you may not be aware of all these details of our kids’ lives.

This is where the

2025 Lanie & Millie Fan Club

idea was born!

We were directed to run a fundraiser to help offset the huge competition fees this year (like everything else— comp fees have gone UP this year) and the cost of their custom solo and duet costumes, but we also wanted to be able to give back to those who love them enough to contribute to their (very expensive) hopes and dreams.

If you care to donate, then you can join their FAN CLUB and get exclusive updates, pictures and videos from their competitions this spring. This will include family pictures (especially if family is able to attend any competitions). We’ll set up a private webpage that we will email and text out to you, as well as create a sponsor fan page to post before all of their competitions. Personal fan sponsors will be mixed with corporate and business sponsors on public posts but only personal fan club members will receive private text updates and pictures.

What does the FAN CLUB donation go towards?

COMPETITION FEES. Each competition costs about $500 per dancer (x2 for us!) and then several competitions are also conventions, which include 2 days of master classes along with the competition fees and those classes are $300-400 per dancer (x2!). Several competitions are travel based, so there are hotel fees and other costs associated with traveling out of town. This year, we travel to Myrtle Beach 3 times (2 hours away), Richmond Va, Columbia SC, Rocky Mount NC, and then have 2 local competitions which do not require travel. Each travel competition costs about $2000 in total for our girls. We limit the number of group dances to mitigate the competition costs, but it is still a very expensive endeavor!

COSTUME FEES. Lanie and Millie are VERY lucky to have an in house seamtress (their mom! with Gram consulting) and do not have to pay any labor costs. Lanie has 2 solos and 1 duet that require custom costumes, and Millie has 1 solo and 2 duets that need custom costumes. These costumes average $300-$800 per costume, but thankfully, we only have to pay for the bases, fabric, and rhinestones (sooo many rhinestones) which roughly cut the costs in half for them (with TONS of free labor earned through blood, sweat, and mom tears).