Nutcracker Sweet

SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: Though Bee's ballet is officially over for winter session, I had her signed up for a special, one-class event called "Nutcracker Ballet" this morning. Though it was at the same place (the Magnolia Community Center) and with the same teacher, it was a big departure from her typically-very-regimented regular class. It was a fun-filled 90 minutes where the girls got to try on different costumes, watch a video excerpt from "The Nutcracker," do some coloring and drawing and there was even a gift at the end - a pretty little nutcracker, of course.

It warmed my heart when Annabelle walked out of class, walked right up to CJ and handed her prized nutcracker right over to him. She knows he has quite a thing for nutcrackers of all shapes and sizes. He was so pleased and thanked her repeatedly and spent most of the rest of the day with the green nutcracker in his hands. Throughout the day he asked Annabelle different things about what she'd done in class and asked her to show him how a nutcracker dances. She demonstrated a few moves, and we also checked out a few videos on YouTube of various performances of The Nutcracker.

DUTCH TREAT: Our mailbox today held a couple of great surprises. One was an oversized envelope with funny looking stamps, which intrigued the kids. Inside was a Christmas card with unfamiliar words printed on the front and inside. What was familiar, however, was the photo on the cover. I held it up and asked the kids if anything looked familiar. They both recognized that it was a picture of our aluminum Christmas tree - and wanted to know what the "funny" words on the cover said. Mercifully, there was a note tucked inside that translated the Dutch for us. It said (sic), "The text on the front can be translated as: ..wishes you cosy holidays and a mentally healthy 2010!"

I'll second that notion!

So, it was fun to see a leftover photo I'd parked on Morguefile.com find a "home" on the front of a non profit health organization's holiday card. It's a small world after all! Speaking of which, of course then we had to get a globe out and locate The Netherlands.

GIMME FIVE: Also in our mailbox today was the first issue of a magazine that Gma & Gpa bought the kids a subscription for - "High Five." It's a product of in the "Highlights" line, and based on our initial leaf through, it looks like it's going to be a terrific resource for MPA. There are stories, games, fun looking math exercises, craft and recipes ideas - even a bilingual story. We're looking forward to exploring every last page! Looks like there's even an audio edition and a parent/teacher (that's me!) guide online!

COYOTE TROT: It was a decent (translation: not freezing and no torrential rains) afternoon, so we took Kirby and the Street Sharks (action figures) to our neighborhood park for P.E.. Before we left, CJ remembered that last time we were there (well over a week ago) he wanted to draw Lost Lake (not sure what the genesis for that) so we brought some chalk along and did just that. On the way home the kids, as has become their usual routine, the kids looked for signs of our "friendly" neighborhood coyote.

STICKY SWEET: Believe it or not, at separate times today, each of the kids asked me where maple syrup comes from (CJ asked while eating pancakes this morning, Bee asked upon spying maple leaves at the park). So, when we returned from the park, we hopped on line and learned about maple syrup (including by watching a video about production at the Canadian Organic Maple Company). It's a more complicated process than I thought it was. I thought they just tapped a tree and the stuff flowed straight into bottles, which were then carted to the store. ;)

GOOD v. EVIL: All day today, CJ kept asking about angels and devils. At first I blamed it on the Veggie Tales (he'd picked one of their DVDs from the library recently), but as it turns out, Tom & Jerry are the genesis of his ponderings. He explained to me that in the cartoon "that gray cat" sometimes has little people sitting on his shoulders. CJ explained the shoulder sitters "both look like him," but one tells him to do good things and the other tells him to do bad things. CJ thought one was an angel and one was a devil, which is one way to look at it. I'd always thought that shoulder sitting device used in cartoons represented an internal struggle of conscience. ... Anyway, we had a several short conversations today about angels, devils, and trying to do the right thing even when someone's trying to get you to do the wrong thing.

AND BY THE WAY: The sun didn't rise above Queen Anne hill (to our east) until 8 fricking 30 this morning. Boy, I'll be glad when the days start getting longer.