At the Ballet

A few months ago a friend from church organized a little group of moms and daughters to attend the Nutcracker. Last night was the much anticipated ballet. We saw a professional touring cast perform in a beautiful ninety-six year-old theater. Phoebe, Sophie, and I all loved it. I think Sophie's favorite part may have been getting to sit next to her friend Gemma, who appears in a few of these pictures.

Adornments

My Grandma and Mom each went through their jewelry while I was in California and sent some treasures home for the girls, including some clip-on earrings that Sophie could enjoy. This is Phoebe's first time wearing hoop earrings and she is a fan.

On the Go

After Phoebe, Cooper, and Topher each got a scooter as a birthday gift in the last year, Sophie was feeling left out. She had asked for one last year, but I had a hard time justifying buying a scooter in December when it couldn't be used for several months. So I decided we would get her a scooter sometime later, when it was warm outside and she could enjoy it.

That day finally arrived. We don't usually give half-birthday gifts, but this seemed like a good exception to that rule.

Bryan found the perfect scooter for our girl who loves pink.

Sophie had a pretty traumatic crash while riding Phoebe's scooter about a month ago. It resulted in two x-rays to make sure her arm wasn't broken and a wrist brace for a few weeks. When she got her own scooter she was both excited and scared. Her first ride took a lot of courage. Each time she rides she gets more confident in her ability.

A Step Up

Two people at our house graduated from an air mattress to real mattresses in their room!

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've noticed my kids tend to have a lot to say at bedtime. Full disclosure: they have a lot to say all the time, but it feels amplified at bedtime. This conversation happened tonight.

Sophie: Mom, what's your favorite color? Wait, I know, it's red. What's your second favorite color? And I'm not trying to get you to say pink.

Me: Blue.

Sophie: What's your third favorite color?

Me: Green.

Sophie: My favorite colors are pink, rainbow, unicorn, magical, sparklyish. That really fits my personality.

Art Time

The girls were both done with their schoolwork by 10 o'clock this morning, so I figured we had time for an art lesson. Our favorite art teacher (Grandma Bonnie) is all the way in California, so we opted for a YouTube video from Art for Kids Hub. The girls both did a good job.

Here's Phoebe's:

And here's Sophie's:

The Girly Gene

The girls were gifted this mirror by a family that just moved out of our ward. It's been on a shelf in their closet for a few weeks and I finally hung it up today. They were so excited that they immediately gathered all the nail polish, body spray, jewelry boxes, and anything else even remotely girly and set up their own vanity on a table under the mirror.

This girly thing really does skip a generation.

Dancing Queens (UDATED)

This week marked the virtual dance recital for the girls. It took place during their regular dance class hour and all the dancers were in full hair, costume, and makeup. We filmed our little dancers and the teacher recorded the Zoom call in order to capture the entire class dancing. I'm not going to embed the Zoom calls, it's too many small squares to keep track of, but if you want to see it send me a message and I'll get those videos to you.

Edit: For some reason (that I haven't been able to solve yet) Blogger is reading the girls' embedded dances as nothing more than code instead of the YouTube videos they should be. That means we have two options for viewing the dances. I will upload them directly to blogger, which won't be great quality. I'll also include the link to the unsearchable YouTube video for each dance. I hope at least one of these methods works!

Monday was Sophie's dance (YouTube link):

Wednesday was Phoebe's (YouTube link):

Sophie had more energy, personality, and bounce than anyone else in her class. Phoebe danced with grace and poise. I'm glad that they both kept going to their dance classes and I'm very happy to be done for the time being.

The Many Faces of Sophie

I wasn't kidding, she takes my phone all the time. Also, is she practicing to be a teenager with some of these poses?

All Dressed Up

As part of the virtual dance recital that we're participating in this year, each family was asked to take a picture of their dancer in full hair, makeup, and costume to submit for a compilation class photo. They are due today, so we took ours this week, Sophie on Wednesday and Phoebe yesterday. 

The good news is that neither girl likes wearing makeup. Well, I think that's good news, though it does make the process of getting them ready rather unpleasant. The not so good news is that I'm still not great at hair. It had been so long since I'd tried to do the dutch braids required for Phoebe's class that I was halfway through the second braid before I realized I'd done french braids instead. Phoebe was not pleased. Neither was I. It took nearly an hour to do two dutch braids, including the unintentional french braids. Thankfully Sophie's hair was much simpler with two high ponytails.

Sophie's costume is so perfect for her personality, shimmery and pink and full of pizzazz. And Phoebe was thrilled to get her very own clip-on earrings to wear with her costume.

Here are our contributions:

I'm Blue

While I was getting breakfast for the kids yesterday morning before church I noticed something new.

Me: Sophie, is there a streak of blue in your hair?

Sophie: (grinning sheepishly) Yes.

Me: When did you color your hair blue?

Sophie: Before my shower yesterday.

So, in other words, this is what it looks like after one wash. I wonder how many washes it will take for the blue to go away completely.

One Hundred

This is the first year since we moved away from Utah that we've gone this far without a snow day from school. Snow has fallen, and some of it has even stuck, but not on a school day. Now, I don't mind going without all that snow and am happy to have the rain that we've gotten instead.

However, I've discovered that I do miss the snow days. I miss the chance to stay indoors and bake and watch movies and play games and maybe even sleep in. Our school district has so few days off that I've come to rely on the snow days to break up the year.

On the bright side, because we've had no snow days the kids have already had their 100th day of school. Part of Sophie's homework for last week was to bring in something that had 100 components to display in their classroom 100 Museum. She asked if we could glue 100 of items to a shirt. I thought of the button collection that Bryan's mom gifted us a while ago. Sophie liked the idea and selected the buttons. I wielded the hot glue gun, but since parents were supposed to assist with this project, I figured that was fine.

We think it turned out pretty well.

Phoebe didn't have to bring anything in, but she decided to make a necklace with 100 tiny beads. In the end, only one other kid in her class brought something in, so it was good that Phoebe had made the necklace so her classmate wasn't alone.

Practice

After some mild freaking out and an inability to remember how to start, I decided I needed to figure out french braiding before I could really understand dutch braiding.

Then I attempted the dutch braid again.

The key? I used gel this last time, it made her slippery hair (that she inherited from me) much easier to hold onto.

Princess Ride

The girls and I were invited on a princess carriage ride with a good friend from our neighborhood. Thankfully we're having an unseasonably warm winter, so we didn't totally freeze as we rode around town. All the girls had a grand time. Queen Elsa and the girls even got to sing Let It Go together, as captured in the final picture.

Peppermint Patty

Yesterday Bryan, Topher, Sophie, and I got to see Phoebe perform in two Thanksgiving themed reader's theaters. She played a senator in the first and did a great job. She played Peppermint Patty of Peanuts fame in the second. She stole every scene she was in. She had fantastic stage presence and hilarious line execution.

Bryan recorded both performances, so if any grandparent (or anyone else) would like to see those, let me know and we'll share them. Otherwise, enjoy these short clips that I filmed at home last night. These are the two phone calls that Peppermint Patty makes to Charlie Brown. She's even still in costume.

Nature's Highlights

Yesterday morning the girls came into the kitchen while Topher and I were eating breakfast. Each girl clutched her precious Wellie Wisher doll that Bryan's mom gave them a few years ago. In their game, the dolls were the daughters and the girls were the moms. That's when this conversation took place:

Phoebe: (holding up her doll to me and acting as a ventriloquist) Hi Aunt!

Me: Wouldn't I be grandma?

Phoebe: What? No! You're not a grandma! You only have (pauses to look at my scalp) one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen (pauses again, perhaps deciding she doesn't want to count the rest) white hairs!

True story.

Dancing Queens

On Friday night, after we got home from the recital, we washed the makeup from the girls' faces, but we kept their hair in place. I had used so much gel and hairspray that they only looked a little messy in the morning. A short time with a curling iron and hair product brought them back to performance ready.

The studio had informed the parents that the doors to the house would open every four dance numbers and we were encouraged to retrieve our dancers and bring them in to watch the show. They even provided one free ticket to each dancer to use themselves. In theory, this was a good idea. And I admit I'm glad the girls were able to see most of the show. But each time the door opening arrived, the house lights would come up too. Then a horde of people would go filing out of the theater. Entire families would leave after seeing their dancer. It was so disruptive and pretty awful theatre etiquette.

What was that? You want to know about our own little dancers? Of course.

They were splendid.

Phoebe glowed and was so graceful. She had practiced at home several times during that last week before the performance, and it showed. I got kind of teary eyed watching her on stage.

Sophie had so much spunk and personality, she was a delight to watch. I loved her whole dance, but my favorite part was at the end. When the song was over she curtsied, then proceeded to blow kisses the entire walk off the stage. The audience loved it.

We celebrated the hard work the girls had put in throughout the year by going out to dinner as a family afterward. They were both shocked that we let them keep their makeup on at the restaurant. Once we were home, we went through the process of washing off all the products from the show. Sophie's hair kept its ponytail shape even after the hair tie was removed, thanks to all that gel.

The girls are already looking forward to the next recital.

Broadway Babies

Tonight was the first performance of the dance recital! Phoebe was nervous beforehand, Sophie was not. We're seeing the show tomorrow at the matinee, so I didn't see the performance tonight. I took them backstage, then waited until their numbers were over. After they danced, both girls were full of energy and excitement. They loved being onstage!

Also, Sophie had the best curls in her class. It's good to know that more than twenty years after being in show choir, I still know how to make curls stick.

Five, Six, Seven, Eight

This coming weekend is the girls' dance recital. They're both excited. Last Saturday was the dress rehearsal for their cast. It was good for them to be on stage and get out some of their jitters. It was also my opportunity to film them. Phoebe changes her location several times during her dance, so I didn't zoom in and it's kind of hard to see. Sophie's is much tighter since I knew she stayed in the same area on stage. If you really want to see the dances (so basically if you're a grandparent), I'll send them to you. For the blog, I'll just share a few pictures.

Here's the best shot I got of Phoebe. I think her eyes are covered because she was trying to find us in the audience while the teacher worked on staging. At least you can see her costume. I'll try to get a better shot this weekend.

I got more pictures of Sophie because she went second and I had had a chance to delete some stuff from my phone, so I had room for pictures. She had a lot of spunk during her dance, which should come as a surprise to no one. She LOVES her costume.

We're looking forward to the show!

Photo Bomb