Peter"s Holiday Program at School

The week after Nutcracker, that third week of December was a whirlwind.  The kids got out for break at noon on Thursday, but A.J. still had her regular dance lessons that week and on Wednesday evening Peter had his big Christmas program with the rest of the kids in grades 1-8.

Here he is before hand, all dressed up.

We arrived early, because we were unsure of the crowds and parking and I wanted to get good seats.  Since we had the extra time we had some fun taking pictures.

Peter and one of his new girl friends.  Boy is she tall.  Hahah.

Some first graders.

Adding in the PreK siblings.  (Her little brother, and A.J.)

The show started soon enough with all the kids from grade 1-8 pack onto the stage.

There's Peter, seated in the front, just to the left of her the teacher's skirt.

I was close enough that we could see me in the audience and we kept leaning over onto his neighbor to make sure I could see him around that skirt.  Hahah.

After the first few songs they moved kids around for the following numbers.  Groups came and went.  Some sang, some played instruments, the glee club came out.  The 1st-3rd graders were all out together.  They did "Christmastime is Here" (this Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Alvin wants a hulahoop) with motions.  It was SO CUTE.

Again, there's a video, but it won't upload.  :(

Peter is in the middle-ish, third row.

The show was really lovely.  Their music teacher did a great job putting on a nice show and I was so proud of Peter.  

AJ's PreK Christmas Program: The Friendly Beasts

The same week as Nutcracker, A.J. also had her PreK Christmas program.  I guess, as I found out, the tradition is that they do the little musical play called "The Friendly Beasts."  As a music teacher myself, I am familiar with the piece.  I strongly considered it last year for out younger kid's program, except the sheer number of kids we had, seemed to make it impossible.

A.J.'s class this year, is one of the smallest they've had in awhile.  There are only 12 kids.  I don't know what they normally have, but I get the impression it is usually more like twice that.  It doesn't bother us much though, because just think how much more one on one attention each child can get in such a small class?  Seems kind of wonderful to me actually.

Except of course when they are trying to present a full fledged Christmas story.  

Not quite enough kids to do the whole thing.

So, basically, they did a the Cliff's Notes version.  We had two kids play the angels who did the introductions and set the scene.

We had 3 boys who played the shepherds.

(These same three would be back a little later, after a quick costume change, as the three wise men.)

This left us with the actual animals in the barn along with Mary and Joseph.

From left to right we had, the donkey, the sheep (with the curly horns, Joseph and Mary, the camel, the cow (with the spots of red) and..... of course, my personal favorite... the Dove.  :)

The donkey carried Mary, the sheep gives it wool to keep them warm, the camel brings gifts with the wise men (I guess,) the cow gives her hey to make a pillow and the dove coos the baby to sleep.

Each of the animals sang a solo describing their part.

A.J. was last in that part and it was the most sweetest thing ever.  One of the reasons this blog post is so so SO delayed is that I tried forever to upload the video of her singing, but for whatever reason, I was never able to make it work.  Whatever.

The other thing is, since Peter was an entsy weentsy baby, I have always kind of dreamed of  having my kids do a Christmas pageant.  But as it was, our old church, and Peter's preschool never did one. They did cute little programs, but never a nativity.  It's kind of silly to worry about such things, but I did, so it was so nice to finally see a full Christmas story played out with one of my kiddos.

And actually, it was lucky A.J. got to be the dove at all.  If she'd had a fully class this she wouldn't have been in the play at all because of her Nutcracker commitments.  It was only because of the numbers that her teachers and I worked so hard to make it work.

Anyway, after the beasts sang, Mary and Joseph did "Away in a Manger" and they they all sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

It was really sweet.  :)

Nutcracker 2015

Ugh.  I'm so behind on everything.  I have had all of the December posts photo ready (just in need of words) for weeks now but I never seem to find the time to actually write anything.  

Now I find myself on the verge of encountering FEBRUARY so I figure I'd better get my act together or else....

So.  

The beginning part of December, in large part, was all about Nutcracker.  Especially for A.J.  With performances the second weekend of the month, everything before that (outside of school, which actually had it's own Christmas program the very same weekend) was final rehearsals and costume fittings.

Naturally I found a few spare minutes in there somewhere to rhinestone the snowflakes on A.J.'s
performance sweatshirt.  Because procraftination IS a thing and its a very real problem for some of us....

This photo is from a second act run through the week before the show.  One of the teachers posted it on Facebook along with a comment that her favorite director's note of the evening had been directed at the angels:  "Don't eat the candles!"   I'll give you exactly one guess which angel had been the guilty party.  That's what they get for giving my always hungry 5 year old a vanilla scented candle.  She said it smelled like a cupcake, and that she "only took a small bite."

Obviously, I worked nearly all the tech and dress rehearsals back stage and during the performances I couldn't take pictures.  So most of my photos are from backstage.

A.J. with one of the lead angels.

Angelic

The angels lining up to go on stage during the fist performance.

A.J. in her Bon Bon outfit.  She's making a weird face.  

Mostly, I was assigned to the little girl's dressing room.  That is when I wasn't getting called off to go help sew costumes that weren't done or needed fixed or something.  It was a constant flutter of little girls and changing costumes and coloring books and lipstick and blush and OMG WILL YOU PUT THAT MAKEUP AWAY YOU DO NOT NEED ANYMORE OF THAT STUFF ON YOUR FACE.  (Actually not  my child, for once.  She's too little for that yet.  But the little bit older girls,  Goodness me.)

SO sweet.  

I snapped this from the wings during the Friday morning show.  We'd come up short one collar and I'd frantically located a bit of lace and some fabric and pinned it around A.J.'s next just before she scurried out onto the stage at the end of the Snow scene.  A.J. loved that snow.

Her dance teacher took these of A.J. during one of the dress rehearsals.

Her costume wasn't even done yet.  It was missing the bottom ruffle which I wound up
sewing on later that evening once she switched to her Bon Bon outfit.

I did snap a few photos of the TV monitors back stage whenever I found myself having the chance.

A.J. is the 3rd little Angel from the left.

Here's some of Mother Ginger and the chefs and Bon Bons.

A.J. is looking to the left, beside the chef on the right.

She's kind of weird in this one too.  

The last little bon bon in the chain running off.  She's looking back at Mother Ginger.  She found him hilarious.

This is how she spent her Saturday before the evening show.  Like literally.  She was there all day.

This was what happened in the car each evening of the long weekend after performances.

Napping in the dressing room after falling asleep n the way to call on Saturday.

Doing puzzles in the dressing room

Having fun with make up 

A.J. and one of her amazing teachers who was dancing a snowflake part to fill in for somebody who got injured.

A.J. and Gwinnie who played Clara.

A.J. and her friend Gabby.

One of the things I love most about A.J. dance experiences is the mentoring she receives from the older girls.  

A totally random picture of her dirty hairspray and gel coated mop of hair Sunday morning....
you know, right before I put her hair back up again for the final show.  

More backstage coloring

Love that sweet little face

Not such a sweet little face, but I still love her

Backstage sillies

This might be the ugliest selfie ever taken

Perhaps I spoke too soon

A.J. and one of the chefs

A.J. goofing around with her Bon Bon partner Kai

On Sunday, write before the finale, A.J. had her first and only meltdown.  I have no idea what it was about but suddenly, randomly, 5 seconds before she was supposed to skip back out one last time during the Finale she didn't want to do anything anymore.

I have no idea why.  In any case, she sucked it up and went on with the show and funnily enough when she came back to me again 2 minutes later, she was fine again.

This posted in the wrong order, but I'm too lazy to fix it  This was with Gabby again (this time in her Solider Doll costume,) after we were all done and she was changed to go out to dinner.  (We opted for a family dinner out instead of the wrap party.)  

And finally, just to put like, a nice end cap on things.  I took this one of A.J. as she came back after bows on Sunday.  I told her she was done.  That was it for Nutcracker until next year.  Everybody was happy and congratulating each other.

That's a wrap!  Great Job everyone!!!