Holiday Performances

Experience the boys' holiday performances in under 40 seconds. Carter's is a performance of his after school music program at our town's annual marshmallow roast and Santa visit. He is on the far left in the back row. John is is front and center at his daycare performance.

John's Christmas "Show"

Like they do at Thanksgiving, John's school rolls the babies through the audience at the Christmas performance. This time, Thomas did attend because there was a parents mixer afterwards. Apparently, there were only two parents (me and one dad) that did not attend this momentous event for our babies. I am glad to have the pictures, and I'm thankful for Thomas for going.

Most of the babies rode in the crib in bumbo seats

But John got to be carried by Ms Gloria

Ms Gloria makes sure we're taking good care of John

Choir

Carter has been rehearsing with the Preparatory Choir at church and generally seems to enjoy it.  He sings the songs at home, was very excited to get a practice CD with their songs that he played many times, and rarely complains about have to go to rehearsals on Sunday nights.  This past Sunday was their first performance during the service on Sunday morning.

As some of you may know, Carter has some serious stage fright, though he does not appear to realize it.  Remember this recent event.  Thankfully he doesn't get too nervous and after the fact swears he had a good time.  So he was all smiles when it was time to head to church VERY early.

New shirt and his first tie!

(The tie was all his doing, he wanted one at Target and picked it out himself.)

The choir warmed up in the small chapel and Carter took a liking to the altar and prayer book. Not sure what it means that he didn't seem nervous up there in front of all the people in the room!

Final practice in the big church before the service.

Obviously there are no videos or pictures of the actual performance, but while he didn't sing much, he did sing a few words here and there, stood mostly still, and looked very handsome.  All in all a successful performance that we celebrated at the Varsity with slaw dogs, chili dogs, and orange drink!

John's First School Performance

The daycare/preschool we use has programs for thanksgiving and Christmas every year. All the classrooms participate, even the babies. The babies just get rolled through the auditorium to up the cuteness factor. We didn't go to the program this thanksgiving, but our friend Stephanie got some photos of John's role/roll. We'll plan to attend these things for John when 1) he starts to have any idea what's going on or, 2) when we can take Carter along to watch. In the meantime, it's good to have friends who can capture the cuteness!





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Poem

I was going through some books recently, and I came across an old favorite: a book of children's poems called If I Were in Charge of the World by Judith Viorst. To my delight, Carter has really enjoyed having me read the poems to him. When I suggested that he memorize a poem, he readily agreed -- and had it memorized in one night. (Regrettably, that led him to stay up reciting it at the top of his lungs when he should have been sleeping). The poem he learned is:

NIGHTMARE

Beautiful, Beautiful Beverly
Has asked me to a dance
And I am dressed
In all my best
My purple shirt
My buckskin vest
My cowboy boots
And my... [I'll leave the final line for him to reveal in the video]

Shy Boy

It's hard to believe that the boy behind "Shake your booty; hit your boo-oo-oo-ty" is shy, but he definitley seems to be, at least in large groups.

For the Thankgiving program at Carter's school, the kids were supposed to dress up as farmers. We sent him to school in a floppy straw hat, and he spent the entire performance yanking the brim of the hat down over his face.

For last week's Christmas program, he didn't have a hat, so he spent the entire performance yanking his shirt collar up over his face. In private, he often shouts his big line from the Christmas program, but in front of the audience, he was just shirt-faced.

His behavior at the Christmas program reminded me that he used to do the exact same thing in gymnastics class earlier this year. He was in a class of 5-6 kids, but ALL the classes warmed-up together (LOTS of kids and lots of activity). He did well in the class itself, but during the warm-up, he'd just stand there with his shirt over his face.

For his next performance, I'm making sure his costume has a hat -- or a mask.

Christmas Program

Here are some photos of the Christmas program at Carter's school (he's the tall one in green in the middle) and the much more important post-Christmas-program snacks.

Hello Mr. Turkey

Yesterday they had the Thanksgiving program at Carter's school. Here is the 2 year old contribution. Ours is the tall one in the yellow shirt waving throughout most of the video. Carter watched this video about 300 times last night. Everytime it ended he would say, "More me!"


We're headed to Arkansas early in the morning and will be without internet till Sunday. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!