Christmas Ballet Recital

The annual Sugar Plum Tea Party Performance was December 13th.  Each of the ballet classes danced to a song from the Nutcracker.  Ashlee's class danced to the "Party Girls" song.  Ashlee was chosen to be Clara and she did a great job in the spotlight!

Ashlee with her friends, Rachel and Mariah, before the recital...

My darling Clara...

Landon makes sure Ashlee's flowers smell good...

Making her entrance...

Welcoming the guests to the party...

Let the dancing begin...

And curtsy...

After the classes performed, the Sugar Plum Fairy from this year's Cache Valley Civic Ballet's performance of the Nutcracker danced.  This year Ashlee's teacher, Becky Erickson, was the Sugar Plum Fairy.

As soon as I get the video of the performance from my friend, I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

Ward Christmas Breakfast

A couple Saturdays ago we had our Ward Christmas breakfast at the church.  We ate, sang Christmas carols, sat on Santa's lap, and got balloon animals from one of Santa's elves.

Brynlee tells Santa she wants an American Girl doll...

 Ashlee wants an Easy Bake Oven...

 Landon asked for Bakugan stuff...

Trevor, well let's just say Trevor was absolutely terrified of Santa...

But apparently Mrs. Claus is okay.  Hopefully Santa wasn't offended and will still keep T on his good list...

Brynlee and her "monkey on a tree" balloon...

Trevor's Last Day of "School"

This last semester Trevor was in the 2 year old class at the USU Child Development Labratory.  For those who don't know about this awesome place on campus, it's basically a little "school" where college students in the FCHD program are the teachers and you can go and observe, etc.  The two year old lab meets Tuesday and Thursdays from 8:30-11:00 (yes, that means I was free as a bird those mornings!)  Oh, wait, I volunteered in the other kids' classrooms during those times so maybe not so free?  Yesterday was his last day.  This morning as the older kids were leaving to go to school he says, "I go to school, too.  I LOVE school!"  Sadly, he won't get to go to "school" again until next Fall when he *hopefully* will get into the 3 year old lab.

His teacher told me this is one of his favorite places in the classroom...

Teacher Tasha (the head teacher) asked Trevor to be her helper and hand out the shaker eggs to the other kids...

Then they got their groove on and shook away to the "Freeze" song...

Shake it down low...


This theme this week was "Animals"...translate "Trevor was in HEAVEN!"  They had a special visitor...a guinea pig (wish I got a better picture, but I couldn't get Trevor to go back over to it since his mind was on going outside to play)...

Playing in the sand...perfect castle making sand since the snow had just melted...

I kept trying to get a picture of the sand castle but he would stomp on it as soon as I took the plastic form off.  So a teacher helped me out and told him to count to 10 and then he could stomp away.

Waiting so patiently...

Eight, nine, TEN!

Tasha is a great teacher.  In spite of Trevor claiming he LOVED school, there were days when he was not so happy being dropped off.  But once he got in the classroom, he always had lots of fun.  Tasha and the other teachers knew exactly what made Trevor happy...and yes, it always involved an animal.

Happy Hannukkah

I thought it would be fun to break out the dreidel for family night, since we are in the middle of Hannukkah right now. I didn't go all out and fry up donuts and latkes, and I'm pretty sure those aren't kosher marshmallows in the pics down below, but it was still fun.

I found the Hannukkah story, and we read that with the kids, talking about what the various symbols on the dreidel mean.

In Hebrew, the word “hanukkah” means “dedication.” The name reminds us that this holiday commemorates the re-dedication of the holy Temple in Jerusalem following the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.E.

In 168 B.C.E. the Jewish Temple was seized by Syrian-Greek soldiers and dedicated to the worship of the god Zeus. This upset the Jewish people, but many were afraid to fight back for fear of reprisals. Then in 167 B.C.E. the Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus made the observance of Judaism an offense punishable by death. He also ordered all Jews to worship Greek gods.

Jewish resistance began in the village of Modiin, near Jerusalem. Greek soldiers forcibly gathered the Jewish villages and told them to bow down to an idol, then eat the flesh of a pig – both practices that are forbidden to Jews. A Greek officer ordered Mattathias, a High Priest, to acquiesce to their demands, but Mattathias refused. When another villager stepped forward and offered to cooperate on Mattathias' behalf, the High Priest became outraged. He drew his sword and killed the villager, then turned on the Greek officer and killed him too. His five sons and the other villagers then attacked the remaining soldiers, killing all of them.

Mattathias and his family went into hiding in the mountains, where other Jews wishing to fight against the Greeks joined them. Eventually they succeeded in retaking their land from the Greeks. These rebels became known as the Maccabees, or Hasmoneans.

Once the Maccabees had regained control they returned to the Temple in Jerusalem. By this time it had been spiritually defiled by being used for the worship of foreign gods and also by practices such as sacrificing swine. Jewish troops were determined to purify the Temple by burning ritual oil in the Temple’s menorah for eight days. But to their dismay, they discovered that there was only one day's worth of oil left in the Temple. They lit the menorah anyway and to their surprise the small amount of oil lasted the full eight days.

The letters on the dreidel, Nun, Gimmel, Hey and Shin, stand for the Nes Gadol Haya Sham, which means A Great Miracle Happened There. They are also symbolic of the four nations that subjected the Jews to their rule.



The story goes that the dreidel was used, along with other games and toys, to teach from the Torah in a covert way.







It was a little more rousing than the first picture might show. Ashlee kept getting the shin for some reason and wasn't very happy about it, but she showed the Hannukkah spirit later when she accompanied us on her recorder while we sang The Dreidel Song.

All the while Percy sat content on her bed of ads.

Halloween 2010

Did I really forget to blog about Halloween??  Weird.  Alrighty, here's how our Halloween went down...

Carving Pumpkins

Ready to go Trick or Treating...unfortunately in the rain!

 Rob and I dressed up the weekend before for a party with some friends...

The Goods

 

Georgia On My Mind...

I forgot I never linked to Mary Anne's post about my trip to see her in Georgia.  She sent me pictures but I am too lazy to make up my own post.  So to read all about my fun trip, go HERE.

I've been thinking about my trip to Georgia since I found out this morning that they will be in Germany by Christmas.  I am SO glad I got to spend time with her and strengthen our sisterly relationship.... did I just make that phrase up?  Dusty completed Army Ranger school at Fort Benning, Georgia and although it was in the plans to go to Germany next, they didn't think it would be so soon.  I was hoping to see her around Christmas time when she planned to come to Utah with her family, but I guess that just may have been the last time we get to hang out for awhile.  Until  next time....in Germany!  LOVE YOU, MARY ANNE!!  I'll start saving my pennies now!