Tessa sang and played the recorder for the Third Grade Pine Tree Elementary concert at the $40 million High School (fancy place).
All 250 of the 3rd graders at Pine Tree sing and play recorders at their winter concert. They sounded AMAZING! The music program here is very impressive!
The girls made their own holiday cards for their teachers. Who needs stamps when you can hand cut out everything and make each card individual. Yes - Dagny's teacher is Jewish - she made him a dihedral - impressive skills. I have to stay with the stamping...
Tessa made three cards - this snowman, teddy bear and bongo drums (her teacher plays the bongos). Both girls are far beyond my creativity skills - I am dealing with how much of my fancy Stampin' Up paper they cut the middle out of to make these cards. On another positive side - it keeps them entertained for hours and those that receive the cards love them.
For Dagny's holiday party her class did a Talent/Freak (for those without talent) show - her teacher is very creative and fun. Dagny - also creative - decided to do an origami star box. Good thing she can fold paper fast...
No matter how fast you can fold paper - fifth graders can get restless watch paper being folded, so Mr. Barlow grabbed his guitar (as he frequently does in class - he is a song writer) and played background Origami music - my favorite line of the song was "Origami rhymes with Salomi"> He is wonderful - no wonder Dagny thinks so highly of him.
My Brownie Girl Scouts are now officially Brownies. We know the pledge and history of scouting, so we did our Investiture and got Brownie pins and seven Try-it Badges - what a super fun night. The girls were so excited! I can't wait until the January meeting to see them all with their badges on their vests. BTW - I am the tall Brownie in the middle in the red shirt.
Right before the Investiture we learned "Scouting Ways" and sewed "Sit-in" to sit on while camping to keep your backside clean and dry. I was very impressed with the sewing skills of 3rd graders and no one got hurt during this activity.
We did a 4-H fund raiser of selling kitty and doggy treats in front of the Stop and Shop Grocery store. IT WAS FREEZING! The kids thought I was crazy when I made them dress for sledding, but good thing they did - burrrrr! The kitty treats were even a hit with Pixie - she is pretty much a cat food eater - so we were impressed she ate them. Only the best for our fat cat - range feed chemical free chicken treats - she eats better than we do and she gets no exercise and sleeps all day! What a life!
Joel's birthday - he said it was his best ever! He didn't even get much since he went to two World Series games. We still had a wonderful time celebrating him. I made calazones from scratch (yes I had to get off work early for that one). We ate cake and ice cream with the purple shovels we got from Ben & Jerry Ice Cream Factory in Vermont in July. The make ice cream taste even better!
Yes - he did blow all those candles out and nothing caught on fire - we did eat some wax, but that is all in the name of fun at birthdays. All those work out are paying off for the birthday boy!
Dagny performed at the 5th grade concert. Music is elective after third grade. Dagny plays Viola in the Orchestra and sings in the Chorus. Their are over 100 kids in each of the 5th grade orchestra, band, and chorus - amazing. Dagny says there is only one kid in her class that is not in one of the three music programs. It is incredible to see all those kids on the stage from a single grade in one school - different than what we were use to in Idaho. The High School orchestra here is Nationally ranked and have even toured Internationally and you can tell that competitive passion for music starts at an early age. After buying Dagny a beautiful silver holiday dress from Justice (the girl would have everything from Justice - if I could afford it), she informs me she has to wear the white top and black bottom. Good thing Target was open after Girl Scouts and had something she could wear. Fun times having kids - sorry mom for the headaches - at least you only had one Christine :)
4-H meeting the girls learned how to design boats. The girls has spent a lot of time working on their boat designs and painting them. There will be a raingutter regatta in the Spring with several competitions for the boats. Good thing for 4-H to teach our girls such skills since we are not very handy folks.... Look how great Tessa and Caitlin (also in Tessa GATE/EXPAND program) are at sanding.
Dagny believes she has found the optimal shape for the fastest boat at the regatta!
The kids favorite NYC experience - Ice Skating at Bryant Park. The great thing is it is across the street from the hotel (so we can see if the line is very long) and it is free if you have your own ice skates (which we all do - we are such East Coast people - without the accent and attitude). Tessa shows us her moves from Ice Skating lessons. Typically there are hundreds of people on this ice - this is what it looks like at 8am when it opens.
Dagny is skating backward crossovers (the move she broke her arm with). Luckily no problems this time - good thing since her arm is still in a cast here (right one that she is waving). We found gloves that would go over it, so we hid it so she could stake at Thanksgiving time. The girls skated everyday the four days we were in the city. The love it there. It was the first place they ever ice skated - not it is a real love for them.
Your eyes are not deceiving you - that is a giant Smurf on 6th Avenue - the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade changed routes this year to go right in front of the hotel. Thank you Mayor Bloomberg for making Broadway pedestrian friendly so the parade had to move. This picture was taken from our two bedroom suite on the 34th floor. The dead trees on the right of the smurf is Bryant Park where the kids skate. Joel and Tessa went skating Thanksgiving morning and then could not get back across the street to the hotel. It took them an hour to get back - after riding the subway uptown to Times Square to get on right side of the street and using my name to let the security staff at the Courtyard let them cut through their lobby. Luckily they made it back for the amazing breakfast with an omelet station that was set up for the guests that bought a $1,500 package to see the parade from our 3rd floor meeting room. The kids sat in the windows on the 3rd floor and were eye level with the balloons - very amazing view. I need to get those photos off my Blackberry - they are on Facebook. We ate a pot roast in the room (there are crockpots in the rooms, but no stoves) then Joel and I went to see Jude Law in Hamlet - Thanksgivings in NY are definitely different that two dinners with our families and making a dozen pies... That weekend we saw four Broadway shows. Race, West Side Story and we took the kids to Bye Bye Birdie.
Dagny is sporting her new glasses. One eye is perfect and the other is near sighted. It was only a matter of time with both parents being blind. She looks super cute in the new glasses and so grown up.
4-H horse days had all sort of horse activities, including horse back riding. Every girls dream! I brought my inhaler - horse allergy - discovered several years ago thanks to the jousting show at Excalibur in Vegas. We signed the girls up for Horse riding lessons. They are super excited to get started after the first of the year. Dagny has wanted riding lessons since birth...
Sporting the hats that they made all by themselves. I am very proud at how quickly they finished them. Dagny did hers with her cast. I took a 4-H leader class on how to make them and showed the kids and now they have been making them for several people - I have a green one.
On Friday October 30 we went to a wonderful PTA fund raiser at the elementary school. We played Bingo and there were raffles that you put your tickets in the items you want to win. The kids put most of their tickets in the S'more maker and we won it!!! All the other people at the event were so jealous. We love making s'mores with it. It is a great family activity. As if all the Halloween candy and holiday goodies is not enough to get us chubby this time of year...
Sunday November 1 at the first Basic 5 ice skating class, Dagny broke her thumb and wrist while doing backward crossovers. She had to sit out this session, but will be set for the next class in January. She did like her fashionable dark blue cast and enjoyed having everyone sign it. We decided paying the $30 that the insurance did not cover for the waterproof cast was worth the money. This month we spent a fortune on doctors for Dagny and she still thinks we should get her Christmas presents. Spoiled child! Luckily she only had to wear the cast for four week.
4-H horse days had all sort of horse activities, including horse back riding. Every girls dream! I brought my inhaler - horse allergy - discovered several years ago thanks to the jousting show at Excalibur in Vegas. We signed the girls up for Horse riding lessons. They are super excited to get started after the first of the year. Dagny has wanted riding lessons since birth...
Sporting the hats that they made all by themselves. I am very proud at how quickly they finished them. Dagny did hers with her cast. I took a 4-H leader class on how to make them and showed the kids and now they have been making them for several people - I have a green one.
On Friday October 30 we went to a wonderful PTA fund raiser at the elementary school. We played Bingo and there were raffles that you put your tickets in the items you want to win. The kids put most of their tickets in the S'more maker and we won it!!! All the other people at the event were so jealous. We love making s'mores with it. It is a great family activity. As if all the Halloween candy and holiday goodies is not enough to get us chubby this time of year...
Sunday November 1 at the first Basic 5 ice skating class, Dagny broke her thumb and wrist while doing backward crossovers. She had to sit out this session, but will be set for the next class in January. She did like her fashionable dark blue cast and enjoyed having everyone sign it. We decided paying the $30 that the insurance did not cover for the waterproof cast was worth the money. This month we spent a fortune on doctors for Dagny and she still thinks we should get her Christmas presents. Spoiled child! Luckily she only had to wear the cast for four week.
