Christmas Eve

MIdday Christmas Eve, Grandpa Steve came and spent the afternoon with us. We spent a little time outside, after the six straight days of rain we'd had, it was nice to be outdoors for a while.
We went to our church's Christmas Eve service, and for that brief amount of time, Hannah wore her hair down! We're always telling her her hair is beautiful down, but she hates it down and always has it pulled back into a pony tail. I managed to get this great picture of her with my Mom. Following our church service, we went to my parents house for the evening along with my brother and sister in law and two nieces. The girls are always happy to be together and tonight was no exception!Following dinner, there were gifts for the girls to open. So after they changed into matching jammies, it was present time! Hannah's really into a clothes designing game on her DSi, so it was a great gift that received a bunch of Fashion Runway stuff. Now she can design clothes on paper. All four of the girls got cute Lil Mis Matched bags and water thermoses and are stylin'. Gramma and Papa gave the girls their big present tonight, a tetherball court!!! Hannah was really excited about it as she loves to play tetherball at school. They can't wait for Daddy to put it together and play with it. When we got home, the neighbor kids had received new bikes on Christmas Eve and were riding them out in our cul de sac at 10:30 at night. LOL. Hannah joined in the fun on her scooter while we chatted with the neighbors. It was a nice Christmas Eve and spending time with the family is always much enjoyed.

Hannah's Christmas in Pictures

Both of the girls got their own initial cups.
And now I can toss all the odds and ends cups. A new scooter! She loves to scooter around. She's such a "flake". :) Who needs a Red Ryder BB Gun when
your Great Uncle buys you all a Nerf Automatic Gun! Taking inventory of their Silly Bandz now that they both acquired more for Christmas!It was a great Christmas, and despite having spent almost 12 hours with their cousins, it wasn't enough for them! Those girls love to be together!

The Age of Technology

A few weeks back on my blog, I wrote about how Technology Rocks, this is another example of how technology rocks!

This past week, Steven was gone to San Francisco for four full days of a conferences. For those who don't know, he normally works from home and is gone from home for a few days at a time about once a year. Other than that, he's ALWAYS here, with us. Here for family breakfast, here for dinner, here when the girls get home from school to get a quick review of how their day was until dinner where their day will be retold in every minute detail. He's also here for homework.

I generally try to have the girls complete all their homework before dinner, that way the evening time can be spent doing something else. But there are those days that the afternoon can be rough, particularly with Hannah and her homework. Most times her homework is put aside and we wait until after dinner when Dad can lend a helping hand with a fresh dose of patience.

Thankfully, because of technology, and the tardiness of President Clinton, whom Steven was waiting to hear speak, I was able to scan Hannah's math workbook page in and then email it to Steven for his help. And over the internet, through instant messages back and forth, he was able to help Hannah with her homework, despite being over 700 miles away! Just another reason why I love the age of technology!

Celebrity Sighting at Disneyland!

Over the years of being annual passholders to Disneyland, we've seen a lot of celebrities, especially those that are affiliated with an ABC production (owned by Disney) or those from shows on The Disney Channel. This last Saturday when we made a trek to Disneyland for Candlelight Processional, we made our way over to Flynn's Arcade in California Adventure.

Upon entering the Arcade, Hannah spotted two familiar faces. They were the main actors from the hit Disney Channel show 'Good Luck Charlie'. They were filming a promo spot of some sort for the new Tron game for the Wii, Xbox, Playstation, etc. Needless to say, Hannah was pretty excited to see two people from a show she watches every week!

Parent Conference and Perfect Attendance

Last week was parent conferences at the school. The morning of our conferences we asked the girls if there was anything they wanted to tell us about school before we found out anything from their teachers. LOL. Hannah confessed to being worried about her grade in Math and that the teacher might tell us that she talks too much. And sure enough, when we met with Hannah's teacher, while she still has an excellent grade in Math, it has room to improve, but the teacher did say she was rather "chatty". LOL. Her report card showed 4 A's (Advanced) and 1 P (Proficient). So far she's having a great 5th grade school year and is doing rather nicely in her 5th/6th grade combination class.

This morning, was our school's perfect attendance assembly and once again, both our girls were recognized. In the intermediate grades they raffle off a $50 gift card as well as two $25 gift cards for EACH grade level, 4th-6th grade. Hannah won a $25.00 gift card and she chose it for Game Stop! It was nice to have both our girls be recognized and actually win something (Rachel won another bike!) because it's sometimes a challenge to get to school on time...everyday. Living five miles from the school and dealing with the stop and go freeway and sometimes congested side streets can pose a bit of a challenge everyday, cutting it really close a time or two. So it was nice that our efforts were rewarded! LOL.

Class Performance

Because the girls attend a school with an emphasis on visual and performing arts, every school year, their class is required to put on some sort of performance. For the last few years, several classes have come together to put on one huge show.

This year, fifteen classes participated, performing eleven different numbers. Some of the classes combined.

The dress rehearsal and performance for the rest of the school not in the performance was this morning. And this evening was the performance for parents and families was this evening. The place was packed and no doubt there had to have been over 600 people in the audience.

Steven was off today because we had the girls' parent/teacher conferences this afternoon, and because I needed to take some pictures of Hannah's class for our yearbook page, he came with me and watched the performance this morning as well as this evening.

There were classes that did African Folk Dances, a class that did The Charleston, a class that did a movement piece with a parachute, a movement piece to the theme music of Pirates of the Caribbean, and a few others. Hannah's class was the final act in the performance. Her class did a movement piece to Europe's "The Final Countdown".They did an amazing job!!! Even better this evening! Hannah alway loves being a part of performances like this, but still refuses to try out for any of the big productions our school offers. At the end of their piece this evening, she had a huge smile on her face, one we don't usually get to see as she has such a reserved personality.

These performances are always so good. So much time and energy and thought goes into them. Nothing makes a Mama prouder than to see one of her kids performing. Next Up: Rachel's Christmas performance next month! That outta be cute too!