Rhonna Farrar Blog!

Rhonna Farrar has a beautiful new blog!! Here's the link!! http://www.rhonnadesigns.blogspot.com/
Go check it out for tons of yummy digi scrapping goodness!! She also has a fabulous contest posted to win some of her digi scrapping goodness!!

WE SURVIVED!! We survived our first Nutcracker that is!! Liv performed on Saturday afternoon and in the final performance on Sunday, a sold out show by the way. She absolutely LOVED every second of it!! She was the MOST PRECIOUS little party girl on the stage, especially in the very first scene when her "daddy" was carrying her in his arms through the snow to the party! Afterwards I asked her what she thought about that snow. She insisted that it was real because it was cold and wet when it landed on her face. Her brother, of course, teased her and told her it couldn't be real snow inside the theater. She very quickly told him that it WAS real snow, magic snow!!

She also requested her first nutcracker. I figured she would want one! In the car on the way home AFTER asking me for a nutcracker, she asked me, "Mommy what IS a nutcracker anyway." I explained to her that it was just like it sounded, it was for cracking nuts. From the back seat I hear, "AWWWWWW! So the SQUIRRELS can eat them easier." LOL!! Yes baby that's JUST what they are for.............so kindly people can sit on park benches and make it easier on the poor little squirrel to eat their nuts!! There WILL be a nutcracker and a webkinz squirrel under the Christmas tree for one little princess this year!!

On the way to the show Sunday Liv says, "Mommy, The Nutcracker wasn't as much fun as I thought it would be." My heart SANK!!!! This was all she had lived and breathed for WEEKS!! I asked her why not. She responded, "All the bigger girls got to do TWO parts and I only got to do ONE part Mommy!" LOL! Well then, that's a different story!! It wasn't that she didn't enjoy dancing it was that she didn't get to dance ENOUGH!! She has her parts all picked out for next year also. She wants to be either the Sugarplum Fairy OR Claire!! LOL! I think you have a bit of growing and practicing to do Princess!! She finally conceded that it would be fun to be a mouse. But NOT the one who dies...............although she did agree that the death scene was pretty awesome!! Mommy thinks the marzipan lambs were adorable................maybe she would settle for that! LOL!!

Dress Rehearsal Time..................

The princess was eager to get to her dress rehearsal last night!! She looks so beautiful and grown-up in this picture that it scares the bejesus out of me!!

These pictures are quite horrid and NOT up to my normal standards since my camera was being extremely uncooperative! Neway!! Olivia is in the center of the picture with the blond curls ad the light pick sash.

Another not so great picture..but there she is with her hands behind her back, watching Claire dance with the nutcracker.

Here she is with the rest of the "party girls." Boy did they cast her right!! By the way, don't you love that "momarazzi get that camera out of my face" look she's giving me. I'm just waiting for her bodyguard to come break my camera!!

Waiting and watching!

Yea! We survived the dreaded dress rehearsal!! We left the house at 4:45 and got home at 8:45. Yes I am exhausted but the princess is WIRED!! She is totally stoked and ready to hit the stage this weekend. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed the dress rehearsal so much that she was not only totally ticked off that they only got to rehearse once but also that I wouldn't let her stay and watch the rest of the rehearsal!! Mommy just doesn't have quite the stamina that the princess does though so it was off to home and bed for us before mommy turned into a pumpkin. Oh wait..........that a different story!!

Nutcracker Rehearsals

Olivia had her last regular rehearsal for The Nutcracker last night. I FINALLY realized that if I parked on the side of the building I could watch the rehearsal through the picture windows! Watching her literally brought tears to my eyes. You could just see, from the look on her face, how much she loves ballet and performing. She just has this glow about her. You can tell that she is enjoying every SECOND of it......from the costume fittings, the trips to find just the right ballet slippers and leotard, to the actual rehearsal...........she loves it all. I think this was MORE than apparent from the 8:00 a.m. phone messages she left Saturday morning. I received not one, not two BUT three messages from her, each one whispered into the phone so as not to wake her daddy, telling me we had rehearsal. I can't believe that, at SIX years old, she has enough intrinsic motivation to, not only remind me, but to get up that early all on her own!! The funny thing is that she DIDN'T have rehearsal because of the Thanksgiving break! LOL! I know adults who aren't as conscientious and motivated as my six year old daughter! Sweet girl! I hope she never loses this love and passion for ballet! No matter what path in life she may take, I know one thing, with her determination and spirit, she will go far be in as a ballerina or on the board of directors!

How to Make a Gingerbread Christmas Tree

First make sure you look adorable!

Then, very carefully and with complete and intense concentration, pipe green icing on the "branches" of your tree.

Add snow to your branches, only stopping occasionally to, yet again, make sure you look absolutely adorable.

Precisely place the ornaments on the branches of your tree, the ones that don't get eaten that is.

Look adorable one more time! You can NOT include too much of this!!

Proudly display your finished gingerbread Christmas tree!

Wow have we been busy!! Between Christmas shopping, returning all the mistakes I already made Christmas shopping (yeah..........LOL!), Olivia's Nutcracker rehearsals, waiting for the Comcast people (sigh), and the myriad other things, I don't know HOW we managed to fit in some time for some FUN!! But we did!! I helped Olivia make and decorate a gingerbread Christmas tree! She actually did at least 95% of the work all by herself and I "supervised." She became quite a little pro at that decorating bag! I always squish the icing out the top!