Week in Review

On Sunday evening, I enjoyed a fabulous few hours with these beauties. I'm blessed with some awesome friends.

This was the girls' last week of school before Christmas break.

The photo here makes me happy and sad at the same time. It represents the first Christmas celebration at school that I wasn't able to help with or even attend, for elementary school, and it was Violet's last one.

I love her teacher, but she didn't want parent helpers at the class party. And she doesn't send photos of classroom activities, as most of Violet's teachers have done. 

Here, Vi is exchanging gifts with her kindergarten "buddy." I lucked out that another mom and I were chatting, and her daughter is IN the kindergarten class that Violet's class is buddied with. She graciously took this photo for me, so I can use it in Violet's 6th grade yearbook.

We gave Violet's buddy beyblades (a toy), and he gave her a very nice art kit. She was very appreciative!

Signs of the season - the trees on my favorite Summit walk are again decorated for Christmas!

On Wednesday night, Violet's KidZone/Pioneer Club group had a bake sale to raise money for charity. These two cuties sold a lot of cookies!

On Thursday, Violet's class performed their hip hop routine, as the end of their hip hop unit. A special teacher had come in weekly for the last few months to teach them.

The kids seem to either love or hate this experience. Both of mine hated it.

But Violet was lucky - her group did one routine all together as a class, and then her group of four kids did another short routine on their own. 

When Cora did it, the whole performance was MUCH longer, and the kids were called up individually in a sort of "dance off" fashion. 

Family Photos

With Cora's two big performance weekends behind us, I realized that it was DECEMBER and we hadn't taken any photos for our Christmas cards! 

Thankfully, our family photographer is available short notice, and we were able to get these lovely shots done up on our hill.

The last time Grandpa took nice photos of us was three years ago, when I was still taller than Cora, and Violet was so much smaller.

I am so, so blessed to be their mom!

And they are so lucky to have Stace for a dad!

Did you know we've been a couple 20 years now? Eeek!!! I'm the lucky one here, too.

And their relationship! They laugh together, show each other things, generally enjoy each other.

 

Gatsby Clips

I videoed Cora's main scenes - here they are, in order. Enjoy!

 

The Great Jordan

Cora's experience in theater class has been interesting this year, with some stops and starts and a long-term substitute teacher.

It was mid-October that the students got administration approval to do a student-led production of The Great Gatsby. Cora - the only freshman in the cast - then was chosen to play Jordan, one of the leads. She also was picked to understudy Daisy, the other female lead. This in itself was all quite an honor, especially given Cora's limited acting experience. 

The students had only five weeks to put the show together.

Cora helped a lot with the sets, and she and I had a fun evening together looking for 1920s costumes at a vintage clothing store in Burbank. 

The dress found... Oh. My. Goodness. Look at her! It was absolutely perfect.

Cora seriously rocked her role.

I know I am a biased mom saying it, but as my actor sister said, her instincts for the character were spot-on. She wasn't merely reciting lines, and then quietly waiting on stage for her next line. She WAS Jordan the entire time. 

She stole her scenes, and had many people coming up to her after show show saying that she was their favorite character. People she didn't even know were saying this to her! (And to be honest, that part was HARD for her. She wanted to crawl into the wall of the set, rather than accept the praise from people she didn't know, and even people she did know.)

Cast shot, taken by Grandpa! 

The actors got permission to wear the clear plastic masks you see here - SUCH a blessing to see their mouths!

I pitched in by making this cast photo board.

This was one of Cora's longest scenes - she's basically narrating the history of Daisy and Gatsby, who are on the right side, acting it out. Cora is telling this history to Nick, her love interest (who is played by a girl, because the cast had only one male! Crazy.)

We are all SO proud of our Jordan! 

A final huddle with Jarod, the sub (who is an acting coach) and Ben, the student director.

 

Nick and Jordan

Cora had several friends attend, including Cami here, and also Anna and Zach.

Cora was beyond honored that Kelly and Yass came to cheer her on for the last of the three shows, along with Auntie Mel. These three actors all said Cora was the best most natural talent on the stage. 

It was strange for me and Stace, seeing her excel to such an extent, when she has so little experience. Like Peter Parker's friends realizing he's actually Spiderman, Cora has a secret super power!

(But, it's not completely unexpected - she was a great Dorothy in first grade, she loved her GATE Musicals in elementary school, and she's acting every time she plays D&D, complete with accents.)

We look forward to more to come in Cora's future!

Show Choir - Elf!

 This weekend, Cora performed with her Show Choir in Holiday House, the annual Christmas performance that is set up as an "open house," where the guests go from room to room at the school, seeing a different part of the story with different performers. This year, they put on the stage musical "Elf."

Cora danced in the finale room. Here, she's wearing a hat and is behind the girl in the brown coat.

And here, she's in lilac, nearly in the center of the photo.

These next photos are from a professional photographer who happens to be a show choir mom! She generously offers her album to the parents for free downloads.

Back to my rather sad phone camera...

Melanie wasn't able to come to Cora's first Show Choir performances in October, but this was an Ellie-friendly event, so it was easier for her to come. We attended the final show of the night, so we had a chance to say hello when it was over.

Here is Cora's performance! I focused on her, so you might not get the whole idea, but you can see our favorite elf.

Connect 56 Christmas Party

On Friday evening, it was our turn to host the Connect 56 kids. We wanted to do the December event so we could do a Christmas party. 

First, the kids had some pizza, and then painted Christmas scenes on wood "slices." This was Violet's idea, and thankfully Rigo was able to help us by bringing the perfect size slices from a recent tree-trimming job.

Then, they headed into the back yard to play Left Center Right, a dice game.

 

Here were the finished scenes. Violet's is the bottom left. It shows pinecones with pine needles.

It was a fun evening, and so nice to hear all the laughter from the kids.

Apex and Loft at School

Another last... on Thursday, we had our final Apex fundraiser at Violet's school (our last, not the school's last.) This year, we were back to a fun run, as we did a few years ago when we first worked with Apex. It's a lot of fun for the kids, and the Foundation did really well surpassing our goal this year.

Here's Violet, with Melanie behind her.

Since I don't get to volunteer often, it was fun being on campus around the kids again. I helped mark off laps in Sharpie pen on the backs of the kids' t-shirts as they ran the course.

I stayed around to help with another age group, and found these two when they were out at recess.

Later, Stace came back after school to finish off the loft. I worked upstairs, moving large piles of books into the new bookcase he built downstairs.

Isn't it absolutely lovely?

Stace created this bookcase at home, and thankfully, it fit well!