This Weekend

Round one of Christmas was completed Friday night when some of the relatives came over.  Grandma and Grandpa were on their way from Indiana to Kansas City, and stopped at our house, plus an aunt and uncle came by.  We all had dinner and exchanged gifts.

Thalia had a chance to show off her new hat:

Yes, she is aware it looks rather like a chicken landed on her head.  She found it at an estate sale, and realized it would be perfect for Eulalie MacKecknie Shinn (Music Man).  Actually, it'll also be good for Elsa Schraeder.  Or, for that matter, Hello Dolly, Easter Parade ... lots of posssibilites for about $10!

Annabeth stuck with the more traditional Santa cap:

That party broke up late, we all got to bed waaaaay too late.  And were up the next morning so Annabeth could go to a dress rehearsal of the Christmas musical her choir was in at church.  And Thalia worked at the Christmas tree lot at church (required service hours for kids going on the trip to the Dominican Republic -- in addition to raising the money to pay for the trip, getting all the required immunizations and paperwork, and all the other falderal surrounding traveling overseas, they have a bunch of service projects and meetings they're required to attend).

Then zoom home, grab sandwiches to eat in the car, and off to Thalia's ballet class in a drastically different part of the county.  Followed immediately by a trip to a Panera's in yet another part of the county so Thalia could meet with some kids from her history class -- they're going to be debating feudalism in class, and were getting their arguments lined up.  They're the pro-feudalism team, in case you wondered.  I spent the time talking to another mom who decided to hang out there.

In the meantime, Annabeth and Daddy went to the climbing wall and indoor pool.

After that, it was home, order pizza, watch Christmas movies (White Christmas followed by Rudolph) and generally collapse.

And up the next morning to get to church for the Christmas musical!  Except what we didn't realize is that the music director (who is also Thalia's new voice teacher) had decided Thalia should be song leader.  Well, Thalia knew it, but hadn't bothered to tell us.  So she was up there doing a great job of leading everyone in "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly" before the musical started (particularly crappy picture since I wasn't sure about the etiquette of snapping pictures in the middle of worship -- I'm pretty sure  it's considered bad form):

Then on to the show, Arrest These Merry Gentlemen.  Which, by the way, is a cute musical.  It's sort of a send up of Dragnet.  Annabeth played Jo Sabbath.  She had watched some Dragnet videos to prep for the role.  Really, all the kids did a great job.  They did it for 2 services, by which time some of them looked sort of exhausted (the little girl in the white dress behind Annabeth's elbow was one of those  starting to fade, but she sang an absolutely awesome solo and totally stole the show by being so flippin' adorable).

Then lunch at Elephant Bar to celebrate a successful show.  Followed by more climbing wall and pool -- the climbing wall is now closed for the rest of 2011 for maintenance, so it was important to get those last hours in, you know.  The girls spent the evening babysitting for the neighbors.  Rick and I planned to spend the time planning and executing on Christmas gifts, but instead spent the time researching washing machines, since our 10 year old machine has started randomly filling with water when not in use.  A festive end to the weekend!

And now plunging into another week ....