Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Cinderella! Picture blog

The first weekend in December found Audrey on stage and under the lights while I was hidden in the "cave" (as the mothers affectionately called the basement of the auditorium at Ypsilanti High School).

Audrey and her cohorts performed in the holiday ballet production of Cinderella produced by the Ypsilanti Area Dancers. The production was beautiful and Audrey had a BLAST! I was worried that the crazy schedule (and let me tell you, it was CRAZY) would leave Audrey with a bad taste in her mouth for future ballets, but that didn't happen. She is pumped and ready to do The Nutcracker next year!

Audrey posing with the leads after the final performance.
Front row: Audrey and Spring Fairy
Back row: Cinderella, Fairy God Mother, Summer Fairy, Winter Fairy, Fall Fairy

Lots of tears!

No tears for Audrey. She's all smiles. Here she is with fellow butterfly, Hannah.

The stepsisters backstage (without their wigs, of course).




The bugs are lining up to head upstairs and onto the stage!

Audrey loved the Wicked Step Mother

Here's what they spent MOST of their time doing all weekend. This group is watching Disney's Cinderella!!

Comparing notes on their Nintendo DS systems.

Two of my buddies all weekend. Nobuko and Beth.

Elvis Lives!

No . . . no . . . this is not a left-over Halloween photo.

Audrey's class celebrated their 50 days of school a few weeks ago by researching the 1950's and attending an in-class sock hop.

Audrey's assignment was to find an object from the 50's and then write a report about it discussing it's significance and how this object might be used today.

For some random reason (because that's just how Audrey rolls) she picked as her object, Elvis Presley. She even did research as you'll read in her report below. She also desperately wanted to dress up as Elvis for the sock-hop party the next day. While all the girls in the class were sporting skirts and ponytails, my daughter wanted to wear an Elvis wig and a white T-shirt.

I managed to remember to snap a pic of her before she left for school that day (mornings in our household are pretty chaotic!)

She wore the wig the entire day!

Vivian's family portrait

Vivian handed me this drawing when I picked her up at pre-school one day this week. It's a lovely picture of her family.

We appear in this order from left to right: Vivian, Mommy, Daddy and Audrey. Notice that Vivian is the largest figure. And Daddy has no hair (LOL. THAT's a laugh.)

Also floating above my head is Cookie, the kitty.

All is a blur

The holidays are zipping by and I want to get a few pics posted of Halloween before the snow flies.

Oops. I think I'm already too late for that deadline.

Anyway, as usual, a gathering was held at 201 N. Wallace on October 31st to celebrate the tricking and treating for all the little ones. We were blessed with pretty nice weather and a wonderful backdrop of yellow leaves in our backyard for some photo opps.

The gang hangs out on the play structure waiting for "go" time!

BFFs!!

Parents trying to get a group shot!

What a mess.

Getting ready to hit the streets.

Ursula stops by!

and then there were none

Due to city budget cuts this year, Curt and I were forced (er . . . had the privilege) to BAG all of our leaves instead of merely raking them to the curb like we've done since the day I moved into our house. [And it was quite literally, the day I moved in. I purchased the house in October of 1992.]

Please don't mention the Ypsilanti City Manager's name to Curt in casual conversation. That is, unless you enjoy seeing the veins popping out of his head.

All total, we filled 80 lawn bags full of leaves. EIGHTY. The pic below only shows 62. But the pic below that shows how many more leaves we still had to go.

And I won't mention that the city did not supply us with any bags and that I had to go to three different stores one afternoon to find some.

I just kept thinking . . . "gee, this is good exercise!"

And then there were none (finally).