Sacramento Ballet Nutcracker

This year Lainey auditioned with her cousin Annika for the

Sacramento Ballet Nutcracker.

Over 700 children lined the street around the ballet studio to land a part in this

beloved Christmas classic.
She was so nervous!

Lainey was placed as a "cherub" and Annika as a "cook."

Lainey hadn't see the Nutcracker LIVE since

age 3 and had no memory of it.

So I took her to see the show a week before her performance

and she was captivated by it!

Here are some pictures from the 2008 Sacramento Ballet Performance:

 

 

This is a short video
of various clips from the Sac Ballet Nutcracker
show in 2008.

The video lighting is dark on this clip,

but it gives you a little taste of it.  (Lainey's angel scene was not on this video)

My favorite scene is the snow queen/king and snowflakes. 

Here are a few pictures during rehearsals at the Sacramento Community Theater

Annika marching across the stage with her lollipop

The ballerina girl Melissa Sandvig from the show "So you think you can dance" performed

with the company on opening night and "Sweet Sunday" which was very exciting for fans of that show.




Here are some beautiful pictures my sister in law Stacey took backstage for me.

Lainey is with her cast of Cherubs here.

When she would come home from rehearsals,

we would have to hear about

how grossed out she was to see men in those tights.   haha

Lainey's center angel surprised her with a special gift

I'm grateful Stacey was there to capture this special moment on film!

Lainey came home so excited to show me the porcelain angel she gave her.

Stacey said the other little girls were in awe of her getting

a gift like that from one of the angels.

So cute!

 

 

 

 

 Lainey showing Annika her angel

cousins

 cousins

Lainey and Annika were able to be placed in the same cast

and performed on Dec. 18th and 19th.  (Friday and Saturday)

We were fortunate Grandma T was still in town

and bought tickets for herself and Aunt Pat

for this Friday show.

I went on Saturday night with the whole family.

 

These pictures were right before her first performance.  She loved

being on stage with all the clouds surrounding her feet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was such a beautiful and magical show!

The scenery was breathtaking and the orchestra

outstanding.

Next year Baila and Luke

want to audition for Mother Ginger's children. :D

  It was so cute to watch

how mesmerized Luke was during the

whole performance.   Those two have been practicing

their cartwheels and listening to

the soundtrack ever since!

*pictures from the Sacramento Ballet

 

*picture from here

 

Here are some clips of the Nutcracker I watched obsessively as a child:

(from the ABT's 1977 performance with Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland)

the Pas de deux from Ballet West:

That's the way the cookie crumbles......

A few weeks ago our fabulous neighbor/HT :) had dropped off a plate of cookies for
our family to enjoy in the evening. 
Since the kids were all brushed and getting tucked into bed,
I decided to save them for the next day.

I placed the cookie plate up on a high counter,
lest any child should spot them before I could divvy them out.

My kids have the hearing sense of a bat, and the smelling skills of a bloodhound.
They could be playing in the back of the house with the doors shut,
and the slightest crinkle of a candy wrapper has them flying out of their bedroom.   

I frantically shove the food item in my mouth before they can see it
and pretend I'm not eating anything. 
"you heard something?  I didn't hear anything."
But then they smell it and I'm caught.

Do you also try to sneak food in the pantry so you don't have to share it with your kids?
I'm very guilty of this.

  

Back to the story-
The kids were off at school and it was just "busy Izzy" and me at home.
I put on a movie for her to watch while I took a shower to get ready for the day.  
When I came out of my bedroom,
I saw her little body flash down the hallway as if she were hiding something.
When I came into the living room, this is what I found:

There was nothing left but broken pieces of cookies.

Isabelle quickly ran back into the living room and said

"Mommy so good.  Try some!"

"Mmmmmm, sooo good Mommy so good."

About ten minutes later, the sugar hangover set in.

Christmas Eve

 

I'm way behind on blog posts, so I'm going back to do catch up.
My computer was infected with a nasty virus
and I was only able to be on it for about five minutes at a time
until the computer would freeze up.
After having my BIL/computer tech. (thank you Joe!)
come out and spend hours trying to locate the virus
(nothing was found on any of his virus scans),
my computer had to be wiped out.  :( 
It was very creepy to be on Youtube,
and see someone else moving the mouse cursor.
Another time after I logged in to my bank account,
it asked for personal information like pin number, SS #, birthday, etc
but it appeared to be the bank site doing it.
Knowing that I should never give out a pin #,
I called the bank and they said it was a virus mimicking their site.

We are not sure how the virus found it's way into my computer.
The only programs 

downloaded around that time were iTunes and Silverlight,
and I had virus protection that

alerted me right away and gave instructions on how to best remove it.  

After deleting off the program it found, 

the damage had already been done.    

I'm still in the process of re uploading all the programs,
but my computer is finally normal. 

*******************************************************************************

Luke will not let Christmas end.
He was given a gift card to Borders and chose a
Christmas Tree on super clearance for his bedroom.
His wish list every year is for Christmas villages, Nutcrackers, trees, snowglobes, etc.
He begged me to keep the decorations up longer,
and I had already left them up until January 7th.
I get scolded  every time we go into the garage
when he sees the boxes up on the shelves.
We've never seen a kid more in love with Christmas than him.  

*Lainey age 9, Luke age 7  

 On Christmas Eve we draw names and go secret Santa shopping for each other.

  This year we chose to buy Christmas pajamas for each other
(normally I would pick them out) and a $5 item for our secret person.

 


 

 traditional photo in front of the tree in their jammies

I took Lainey and Isabelle with me and Travis had Luke and Baila.
We headed over to the outdoor mall,
which had a nice variety of stores with Christmas pj's. 

When I was in Marshall's,
Lainey found this beautiful glass blown dolphin hiding behind
mens sleepwear on a shelf.   She was very excited about her find and said
"I know Luke will love this!"      It was only $3.99.    Score!

We eagerly wrapped our secret Santa presents upon returning home
and placed them under the tree.

This is always the most difficult part for Baila.
Bless her heart, she has consistently let little clues slip out about who she has
and what present awaits whenever there is a special event.
She is also a big movie spoiler so you don't ever want to watch a movie
for the first time if she's already seen it.
This drives her siblings crazy,
but it's so adorable when she does it that we can only laugh.

  (we had several discussions about the importance of keeping it secret for the surprise, 

and this was the first time Baila has overcome her temptation to reveal the gift.  :)

When it came time for Luke to open the present Lainey picked out,

it turns out that he had found the glass dolphin while shopping with Travis.  

He wanted to buy it for me but Travis told him it's not something I would want.  

Luke knows how much I love dolphins and begged him for it.  

When the answer was an emphatic "no",  

Luke took the dolphin and hid it on the mens sleepwear shelf so nobody else would buy it.  

Later that day Lainey had found it without knowing anything about it! :D 

 Luke couldn't believe his luck!

 





 


 

Every year we have a special Christmas Eve dinner of King Crab Legs
before we open presents.

 Nana stopped by at the perfect time and joined us this year.

Isabelle saying "cheese"

*age 2

 



After dinner we headed over to my Dad's house for dessert.

We had planned on driving around to look at Christmas lights, but when Travis was packing up the car with presents for my Dad, his little dog "Sophie" escaped.   She took off down the street and was long gone before my Dad noticed.   We spent over an hour driving the neighborhood trying to find her.  Thankfully a nice couple found her while they were out walking and my Dad was able to pick her up from them.   We were in separate cars and didn't know she was back home until I drove by my Dad's house and saw her little face peeking out the front window.   What a relief!   

It was pretty late when we arrived home and I knew we had a lot of work ahead.  Luckily this year, Travis was able to help me wrap gifts so I didn't have to stay up all night long.

Every year we put on "The Christmas Story" movie marathon while we wrap gifts.   Usually we end up falling asleep on the couches with the movie playing in the background.   The kids all camp out in the same bedroom with tents and sleeping bags.  It's so fun to hear their giggles and anticipation for the next morning.   Surprisingly, our kids never get up earlier than 7am.  What is wrong with them?  When I was growing up we would come downstairs at 3am just to get a glimpse of all the presents under the tree.  My parents would always make us go back up to our rooms until they were awake, but we would persistently keep coming down the stairs.  Christmas memories are the best.  :)