Butterflies and Unicorns

I had been wondering Vivian's drawings at school would look like now that the Christmas season is long behind us.

Here is the beautiful card she made yesterday.

The front cover.

The inside shows a beautiful sun-shiny day filled with unicorns and flowers.

"One unicorn is trying to fly" she told me.

The back cover.

"It says 'Mom' and 'Dad' but the letters are squished."

One last Christmas scene

The tree is down and packed away. The outside lights were quickly disseminated while the weather tried to reach 50 degrees this weekend. And my heart is heavy thinking about the anniversary of my Dad's funeral.

We took our Christmas tree down on January 2nd. The day my Dad died. Audrey even pointed that fact out and dubbed Sunday the "saddest day ever." Yeah honey, it was. However, we got through it by going to church, lighting two candles (one for Mom, one for Dad) and just living our lives as Dad would want. We even took the girls to a Red Wings game! I never put the two dates together when I took the tickets home from work several weeks ago.

So, when I came across this picture that Vivian had drawn earlier in December, I felt compelled to post it. This Christmas scene was a recurring theme in all of her artwork leading up to the holidays. The fireplace with stockings and candles . . . the Christmas tree in the center with loads of gifts . . . all of it the same every time.

We're back at school and work today. It's January 3rd.

I wonder what Vivian will be drawing today.

I haven't made Christmas Cut-out Cookies yet!

And they are Santa's favorite!!

The days preceding Christmas are flying by and I still haven't checked off

everything on my list.

- Decorate the house and put up the tree. Check. The girls were extremely helpful this year and put ALL of the ornaments on the tree. And I didn't bother rearranging a thing. I must be mellowing in my old age.

- Make Mom's chocolate nut fudge. Check

- Make Mom's 7 layer bars. Check.

- Make Peanut butter blossom cookies (also mom's). Check

- Purchase gifts for teachers and staff. Check and DONE!!

- Purchase presents for family -- including the items that the girls told Santa they wanted. Check. I think. The list keeps growing. I saw a letter that Vivian wrote to Santa at pre-school the other day asking for a Princess Barbie and a couple of other things. I didn't know anything about a damned Princess Barbie! That's the first I heard of it. She told Mall Santa that she wanted "a little teapot" (also news to me.) Audrey said she "ordered" a Nintendo DSi . . . as if she made a few clicks on Amazon.com.

- Wrap millions and millions of things. Almost check. I got a LOT done last night when my dear friend Sara invited the girls over to her house for a few hours after school. Thank you Brennen for being one of Audrey's besties.

- Make "dough balls" for Christmas morning. Ingredients have been purchased. Check.

- Make Santa's favorite cookies. ACK! I can't believe I have yet to make the quintessential Christmas cut-out cookies! I guess I know what we're doing during the day on Christmas Eve!

And instead of my mom's recipe, Curt insists that I have to follow his mom's recipe. Good enough. They all the look the same and it's the only thing he has had a strong opinion about. Except that I couldn't find the recipe.

Curt dug it up in an email he received from his mom in 2007. Lest I lose it again, I'm placing it on this blog for safe-keeping.

Christmas Cutout Cookies

1 Cup Butter 1 tstp vanilla

1 ½ Cups white sugar 3 eggs

3 ½ cups flour 2 tsps cream of tartar

1 tsp Soda ½ tsp salt

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, salt and vanilla well. Best to use mixer but not necessary. Add the flour, soda, and cream of tartar by hand. Mix by hand. Chill dough. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters or by hand. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 7 to 8 minutes at 375 degrees.

Let the baked cookies sit for a couple of minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet, as they need to firm a bit.

These are really good cookies. You can handle and re-handle the dough and the little chunks of dough that are leftover from each cutting.

UPDATED POST:

Here are some pictures of what OUR cookies looked like!!

Santa Live!

Nutcracker 2010

The girls performed in their first-ever production of The Nutcracker over the weekend. I'm sure it won't be the last.

I had the dubious honor of being the "backstage chairperson" since I'm a seasoned stage mom (with our debut in "Cinderella" last year.) It was fine, however. I was also mom to the youngest cast member (at only 4 years old!) and I figured I'd better be back stage anyway.

Vivian kept up with the 5 and 6 year olds in her Clown group and may have even stole the scene when she expertly dealt with her bow falling off near the beginning of her dance during the final (and videotaped) performance. She has great instincts, that one. although she was very upset with me when we got offstage. "Mommy, you're opposed to put my bow on tight!"

Audrey was absolutely gorgeous as a party girl. She danced and acted her way through the entire party scene with grace and elegance. And if you ask her, she had one of the biggest roles in the show. She really believes she was the star.

My long weekends of hauling the girls to separate rehearsals and then sitting in the basement of the auditorium are now over and I won't miss them. However, watching the girls light up during rehearsals and performances and seeing Vivian dance in the wings before going on stage (usually the Sugar Plum fairy dance) made it all worthwhile.

The Nutcracker!

We just got through our weekend of The Nutcracker. I'm in recovery at the moment but I'll post more about it soon!

What a magical weekend for my girls!

Where do I begin?

I hate it when too much time goes by between blog posts. I feel this pressure to fill in all the holes and write about everything that happened.

Let's see . . . let me recap. Since I last wrote we have hosted, attended or participated in . . .

• Two days of dance recitals


• Vivian's Very Hungry Caterpillar performance followed by


• both girls dancing at Glacier Hills with the Provenzola boys and other Randazzo dancers


• Estabrook end-of-year Carnival


• Mom and Dad's Estate Auction (oh, so bittersweet)


• field trips and school parties


• last day of school


• Curt being brilliant in a show (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)


• cast parties and birthday parties
  

There. I feel better now.

I'm sure I'm missing something . . .

My co-workers are cool

. . . or at least one of them is.

Remember when I brought Audrey to work for "Take Your Kid To Work Day" and she set up her own office?

A week or so ago someone dropped a piece of paper in her "notes" folder. The paper illustrated how to make an origami bear. How cute! Audrey loved it.

On a whim, I took a piece of pink (of course!) paper and simply wrote "Thanks!" and put it in the same folder.

To my surprise and delight, there was another note this morning that read, "You're Welcome! Here's Another." Audrey can make a penguin now when I bring this home.

I would love to know who's doing this . . . or maybe not. It's so sweet.

All that glitters is good

The fairies are still very active in our house (although not nearly as active as Audrey would like).

They recently popped by with these cute little glittery books. Too bad mommies don't ever get fairy gifts (hint hint you guys! Mommies love glittery things!)

If you look closely, you'll see a poof of pink glittery stuff on top of the note they left . . . pixie dust. She had an ear infection requiring antibiotics last week. The fairies wanted to make sure she didn't miss another day of school. She was instructed to sprinkle the pixie dust on top of her ear.

Worked like a charm!!

Adorable Mother's Day Card

My favorite line?

" . . . she's so close to the star of the show" followed very closely by the the very last line.

Audrey's Exercise plan

Teacher Audrey

Audrey has been very busy lately.

She has also decided that her sister isn't all that awful anymore. I'm not exactly sure what what prompted her change in attitude, but I like it. This morning when I went to wake the girls up for school, I found BOTH of them sleeping in Vivian's bed! Audrey snuggled in beside Vivian.

Upon further investigation, I learned that Audrey had a bad dream about Vivian (something about Audrey going crazy and trying to hurt her) and she woke up so upset that she wanted to be close to her. Awww. Just recalling the story brought Audrey to tears.

Two days ago, Audrey decided that she needed to teach Vivian how to read. That, combined with the fact that apparently they're learning all about Microsoft Word in school, prompted her to type up several worksheets for Vivian to work on. They are provided below.

I think Vivian lasted about 10 minutes.

And never made it past the first worksheet.

Audrey's 1st Communion!

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day to celebrate Audrey's First Communion on Saturday, May 1st.

It was so special that even the President came to town! We could hear Marine One flying overhead at one point during the ceremony.

Audrey was over-the-top excited about getting her First Communion. She looked stunningly gorgeous on her special day.

Fr. Jim gave an lovely homily while he quizzed all of the communicants on their knowledge of the Mass parts. Audrey correctly answered one of the questions! Whew.

And we all settled in for some heaping piles of Chinese Food at Asia City down the street. We were given a place of honor on the stage. How did they know?

The parties continued in Ohio later on Saturday and then on Sunday when my nephew Paul also celebrated HIS first communion. A combined party was held for both kiddos. It was a windy day but we managed to have fun in spite of the threatening rain. Curt was the grill master for the event. I failed to get a picture of that. I guess I was too busy cutting vegetables and blowing up balloons. Good times.

Taking Audrey to Work

I think I've created a monster.

Yesterday was Take Your Child to Work day. And since Audrey only had a half-day of school scheduled, it seemed like a good idea to bring her along with me.

For the first part of the day, my company kept all of the kids engaged with Slide Shows of Power Plants and games like "Are You Smarter Than an Engineer?" I was worried that Audrey might be bored but she loved it all.

We all ate lunch together on the lawn out back (grilled dogs and burgers) and then the rest of the afternoon the kids were supposed to job shadow their parents.

That was all well and good but I had real work to do. And it was insanely boring.

Audrey started to take a nap on the floor of my office while playing with her DS. After a short while, she jumped up and said, "I need to walk around a bit and DO something." So, she was off. And before I knew it, she met up with some of her cohorts from the morning and they were all playing "office." Audrey found her own cubicle and set it up to do some real work.

Here's her office and the cubicle she became so fond of.

She told me she learned things about electricity and the over-use of coal. She also said she needs to come to my work at least once a week.

And my favorite comment?

"I need to talk to your boss about getting a laptop for me."

More power to you, Audrey. Good luck with that.