Nutcracker 2017: Sugarplum Luncheon

As a fundraiser for the 2017 Nutcracker, and to get interest in the community for coming to a showing of the Nutcracker, the Loudoun Ballet Performing Arts Company put on a Sugarplum Luncheon. In past years, the event only had older dancers taking part, but this year Natalie and her friends were able to as well!

Natalie had two roles, as I will showcase in my next post. However, for the luncheon she only danced one of them: her tea dragon role. Here she and some of her fellow tea (umbrella dancers) are, posing so nicely for me.

Isn't their makeup awesome?! I got to be on the makeup team this year (as you will also see more about in a future post), and doing the tea makeup was definitely one of my favorites.

As I mentioned, Natalie was part of the Chinese dragon (that came on stage during the tea dance).

This dragon was truly impressive! The girls loved running with the dragon on stage. There are actually 6 girls who are part of the dragon; only 5 came to the luncheon.

Once the girls were prepping to go "onstage", Natalie was being a bit reticent about letting me take her photo. But I did manage to get this one, and I think it was my favorite of the entire day.

Natalie's 10th birthday

In December 2017, my oldest turned 10. How is this possible, that I have a child in double digits??? And such an amazing one at that. Happy 10th birthday, Natalie!

Her birthday fell on a Sunday, so we started the day with breakfast out at IHOP (her choice).

We then went home to open gifts. I had picked out this aqua unicorn blanket for her from Evan and I (she loved it), and she very much enjoyed this silly cat thing that I recommended Evan's parents get for her. The cat looks sweet until you squeeze its ears, and then it makes this angry face.

 

Around lunch time I had to get her ready for Nutcracker rehearsal! Just like last year, she had a full dress rehearsal on her birthday. She was excited to see all of her friends, though, and to have the opportunity to put makeup on on her birthday.

I brought cupcakes for all of her friends, and when we started singing the entire cafeteria got quiet, and everyone chimed in. Not a bad thing, to have dozens of people sing to you!

I then went to be with the makeup team (more on that in my Nutcracker posts); one of the other moms who stayed in the cafeteria took this photo and sent it to us. Silly, goofy girls!

Natalie was also excited to receive her birthday "surprise" that I arranged - some Jamberry nail wraps just for her, from one of the trade groups of which I am a member. Nothing like getting your own mail!

N

And, finally, after a very long birthday, I went into her room and found her asleep like this. I love that she wrapped herself up in her new blanket hoodie! Sleep well, big kid.

Celebrating Christmas with Carrie

A few years ago, Carrie and I started a holiday tradition of spending a day together prior to Christmas (typically sometime in December), and shopping with one another - picking out gifts to give one another, with the main goal of just spending the day together.

This year, we did it a little bit differently - because of schedules, it was hard for me to find a day when I could meet up with Carrie solo. Also, Carrie wasn't going to be able to make it to our house for Christmas (we were going to be hosting a houseful - more on that soon!), so I asked her if it would be ok for me to bring the kids with me this year. She said ok, and we figured out something fun for all of us to do for a day.

We started off with a bit of shopping (and photos in front of the mall tree).

 

 

After shopping and dinner, we headed over to our main activity of the day: seeing the holiday lights at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond. We were looking for something "Christmas-y" to do, and this seemed to fit the bill. Neither Carrie nor I had gone before, and I'm very glad we did! I think I would make this a Christmas tradition.

Every year they do a different theme; this year was "Story book tales". Everything was absolutely beautiful. I can't begin to guess how many lights there were (millions), and the work that went into setting this up. I took all of these photos on my iPhone; I think it handled the lighting very well!

Don't let this photo below fool you - there were tons of people around. But I managed to get a shot of the kids in this plaza with no one around (ever so briefly).

We also had a full moon that night, which made for some very cool shots! See a few of them below too.

In the middle of the gardens is a giant lake, which made for some very cool reflections in the water.

Here the kids are recreating this "Hansel and Gretel" light display.

We asked a random passerby to take a photo of the 4 of us.

This was one of the coolest parts of the entire garden - The Giving Tree. The story alone is enough to make me tear up, and the lights they did on the tree were simply stunning.

We ended back near the front of the gardens in the greenhouse. We needed a bathroom stop, and it turned out there was a lot to see there as well. I love these lights arranged to look like large flowers!

Inside the greenhouse were a number of displays, with the most eye catching being this giant Christmas tree made entirely of (fake) flowers.

And we finish with a couple of my more "artistic" shots of the grounds.

The kids visit B-Line Medical

On the first day of the kids' Christmas break, I took them into the office with me. While at that point I was primarily working from home, the kids had been asking about where I worked now, and really wanted to see it. Since they were going to be home with us for a LOT of the nearly 2.5 weeks they had off for Christmas, I figured why not take them in for a day?

I asked my colleagues to set aside any work they had for them to do; our head of accounting had some paperwork for them to sort through and put in alphabetical order. I had to help out a little bit, but they spread it all out on the floor next to my desk and were good little workers!

One of my colleagues in support made these great certificates for them.

There wasn't much other work set aside for them, but we had brought activities for them to do. Books, tablets, and drawing. Here is a drawing of 4 alien brothers that Henry made.

I walked with the kids to get lunch at a nearby Panera, and we ate with my colleague and buddy Carlos (along with a few others on our development team). After the kids occupied themselves for a bit longer, Carlos and I took them over for a walk through Dupont Circle, as it was a nice day and it was good to get out of the office for a bit.

While the kids were not quite as self-sufficient at the office as I might have liked, I think they did have a fun time. I may try this again in the future when we have a bit more things for them to do - we shall see! Now that I'm working from home pretty much full time (when not traveling), we'll have to see what works out.

Observation Week 2017: Everything else

And now we have all of the other classes that Natalie takes! Mondays are actually her busiest day, with 3 classes nearly back to back (she has a 30 minute break for dinner, but otherwise dances from 3:30-7:30 every Monday). Her first class is Jazz IV, and I thought I had some photos from that but I couldn't find any that seemed to fit, so maybe I don't? But I have enough from the other classes so it's ok.

Right after Jazz, Natalie goes with Aly to Musical Theater. Last year they performed "One Short Day" (in the Emerald City) from Wicked - can't wait to see what they'll be doing at the recital this year!

 

After their dinner break, the girls then have a 90 minute Beginning Contemporary class. This class is new this year, and is pretty much Natalie's favorite. The girls adore Ms. Candra, and the lessons she is teaching them go even deeper than dance - they go to channeling emotions, and expressing themselves. Valuable lessons for pre-teen girls!

Also, how to be powerful. Look at that strength!

But even with that strength, they are still girls that will sit and chat with each other :) 

One of the activities the girls were asked to do in class was to choreograph a duet together based on an emotion. I *think* Natalie's and Aly's was joy, but I may be misremembering now. Either way, what a gorgeous job these girls did.

On Friday, Natalie takes a beginning/intermediate lyrical class. More powerful stretching to start off the class!

 

And body movements on the floor. In this class they were also tasked with dancing in pairs, but those photos didn't come out as well. I like these better!

Christmas Decorations 2017

Gah - I put these decorations up over 2 months ago, and they've been down for a month, and I'm only now posting pics of them! I guess I can look at this as a way to go back and celebrate the holidays again? I should get used to that, as I have about a half dozen Christmas 2017 posts coming up... buckle up!

I try to take photos of our Christmas decorations every year, as we always add a little something (even while keeping most of the decorations the same). This year, I put particular effort into decorating as we hosted the full Macbeth clan (plus a few!) so I wanted to have the house look extra festive.Evan and Natalie have their tradition of going outside to do the lights - Evan still hates the cold, but he has more fun doing it when Natalie is with him!

And here they are on nearing sunset. Our addition this year was Evan's polar bear! He'd been wanting one for a couple of years, and we finally got one.

Moving inside...I love decorating our dining room table!

And the mantel (shown during both day and night).

I decided upon viewing these photos that I really need a Christmas cross stitch hanging up there during the holiday season, so I'm working on one now! It won't be overly Christmasy, but definitely more so than the magnolias. Can't wait to have it up there next year.

As always, the kids have small Christmas trees in their rooms. Natalie's was new last year; we found a new pink one to replace the tiny cheap one she'd had since she was 3. We found the green one this year and moved Henry's silver one into our room, since we had nothing Christmasy in our room. Henry also got to pick a new strand of lights, and chose larger 70s style bulbs.

And, the Christmas tree itself! Located in our living room as always.

The kids love lying and looking at the tree (I did too when I was a kid!), so I let them have a sleepover in there at least once during the holiday season. Who doesn't love falling asleep to the glow of the Christmas tree?