The Nutcracker 2022

 Rebekah had a wonderful time performing in the Nutcracker this year. The experience, performance quality and overall organization of the studio was a vast improvement over last year. She got to perform eight shows in two different venues. I was so glad to see my girl happy again. Last year was such a nightmare in so many ways. We put on a brave face...but it was just ridiculous. We are all so glad that she has found a new dance home that is challenging and rewarding at the same time. 

Rebekah is hidden behind the young man.

Rebekah is front left/center.

Rebekah is a party parent that is sitting in the chair in a red dress to the left. 

Her quick changes were so fast that she wasn't able to get photos of all of her costumes.
This is her mouse king head (the rest of the costume isn't shown).

Her snow costume.

The young ladies are really nice at this studio, too. They accepted her with open arms. 

I am hoping that when more pictures are released to Instagram I will be able to find some more photos of her costumes. She was the Mouse King, Hot Chocolate, Flowers, Snow and a party parent. It was a great run. 

Merry Christmas, everyone, 

Dawn

Decking the Halls and Giving to Charities this Year

Our home is ready for Christmas. We always decorate as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are washed. It is a tradition around here. I love Advent and want to be able to enjoy every drop of the season. Our local live tree stand stays open on Thanksgiving, and we were there to pick our tree right after Thanksgiving lunch. I love a real tree. Rebekah really wanted to do a pink theme this year when she saw tons of pink bobbles at the thrift store and the guys relented. We got our wrapping paper at T.J. Max. 

Yes, we are already done shopping and the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. I think in our worry that we wouldn't be organized this year (with my new job and two weeks of Nutcracker performances), we went into organized overdrive. However, it is nice to be done and just able to enjoy the season. We have a book and sock theme going for gifts this year. Just about everyone asked for books of some kind, and we are crazy sock people that just love fun socks. 

One of my real goals with our living room was to be able to move around the furniture very easily to accommodate different activities throughout the year. To make room for the tree, we reversed the sofas and  moved the game table to be in front of the book cases. We did not pull out all of the Christmas decor this year, because we just felt too busy. Plus, we also have a huge exciting event coming just days after Christmas that meant the house needs to be a bit streamlined this year. 

The Advent house has chocolate in it. 

My snowmen are scattered through my "pretty things" shelves this year. I really like them there and wonder why I never thought of it before. 

I didn't get a picture of the nativity this year because it is in the rec room, but it looks the same as every year. Most likely there are a few figures lying down at any given moment because of cats walking through it. Good thing the figures are made of resin so are hard to break. 

Our Charities this Season ~ 

We decided to make our charity giving more monetary this year instead of our typical volunteer and making charity boxes. We did decide to do a reverse Advent calendar this year...each day the kids put into the basket an item of food before getting their chocolate out of the Advent house. By Christmas Eve we will have 24 food items to drop off at the local food bank. 

In addition to that, Rebekah really wanted to do something for Ukraine and we decided to make a contribution to UNICEF.  Elijah really wanted to purchase an animal from Heifer International and not just any animal -- a water buffalo. The water buffalo was a bit out of our price range with everything else we wanted to do, so we decided to buy a few shares in a water buffalo. 

Lastly, we decided to send small checks to the first three local charities that reached out to us, which ended up all being animal shelters in a 50 mile radius.  

I hope to post another update next week with all things Nutcracker. We are deep in Nutcracker season and college finals week around here. So far, we are all healthy. I hope that holds.

Blessings, Dawn

Before Five in a Row ~ Jesse Bear ~ Preschool

 The little guy I nanny for is bright as a button. He isn't two until late January, but he is obviously ready for some preschool activities. So I pulled out my Before Five in a Row curriculum. We decided to start with Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? by Nancy White Carlstrom.  I made him a teddy bear out of cardboard with paper clothes to dress his very own bear. He loves to be read to, and we have read this book together about 30 times over the last two weeks --  I kid you not. We followed the BFIAR curriculum and played I Spy, talked about loving relationships and how to show love and identified patterns and shapes. 

We also talked about foreshadowing (what do you think is coming on the next page?) in the book. For example, when Mother bear comes out and is holding Jesse bear's bib, you know that it is time for Jesse bear to eat and that is then depicted on the next page. 

This curriculum includes lots of rhyming games. He loves rhyming with made up words and initiates rhyming games. We also learned Wee Willie Winkie, Hickory Dickory Dock and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. 

Lastly, we talked about how tidy Jesse Bear's room was and how it is more comfortable to live in a tidy home. We played the clean up game (which I had been teaching him for weeks). He is much more interested in having a tidy home like Jesse Bear and his parents say he is now initiating clean up time before transitions. 

What a delight to work with this little guy. We are starting Goodnight Moon next.