First day of school!!! 2015-2016

Monday was a big day for entire family! Bryan had an important meeting at work, Emma started the Older Toddlers class, and Clara started Pre-K for 3 year olds and I started teaching we well!

Bryan and I did absolutely everything we could to prepare ourselves the night before, but we knew even despite talking up the "special school outfits" (aka uniforms), Clara was going to have a melt down. The precious child LOVES to pick out her own clothes. She wants to accessorize, and match and clash and wear mommy's shoes or non-matching shoes, and a hat with a bow on top. She is such a free spirit and I love that about her!  But even free spirits sometimes have a to wear a polo shirt, sadly.

We were right. It went something like this:

BUT! Mommy got her a brand new backpack with her name on it and ballerinas, which made the whole world a better place. Plus she was allowed to pick out her purple bow (I didn't care in the slightest that her bow and shoes didn't match). I asked to get a first day of school photo of HER, but she really just wanted to keep touching her pretty new backpack :)

my heart

I love that they are wearing identical smiles!

Ready to go! Sisterly support! Solidarity.

To appease Clara I took a picture of their new backpacks - ballerinas and zebra

 Once I dropped off the girls and pulled into the parking lot at my own school, I snapped this:

The first day of my 7th year of teaching! hehe

In case you were curious what my classroom looks like this year:

Most of the student desks and English wall

My nook

Drama wall

Front of the room

When I picked up the girls, Clara was so happy and just absolutely gushed about her first day of school and all of her new friends and her new teachers and her new backpack and how she was gonna change her dress ONE MINUTE after we get home :)

Emma's new teachers sent these two pictures to me during the day:

Playing outside

Painting

They told me that although Emma doesn't look happy with arts and crafts time she was only upset because they paused the music for a moment and she wanted to keep dancing and painting at the same time :)

It's been 3 days now and I can safely assure you that both girls adore their teachers and their classes. Such an answer to prayer!

I hope all of the first days went as smoothly as ours did!

Retirement Party(!!) & Swimming

We're getting caught up!!! Slowly but surely! On Monday Clara and I watched The Little Mermaid until Emma got up. 

girlfriend loves Ariel

Then we played outside for a little while and Emma paid verrrrryy close attention to Clara riding on her 4-wheeler. 

Then I dropped Clara off at school for a short day while Emma and I hung out for a little while. 

As always, we read lots of books. 

Shoes are so fun!

Then Lulu swung by to pick us up so we could go get Clara to go to Papa's Retirement Party!!!

Lulu's shades

 Clara was super excited to go to Daddy and Papa's work.

"Mommy! There are DEERS at the party!!"

Love this :)

 Daddy showing Clara all the cool fish and birds inside.

In the picture below, Clara just told me: "Hey look! It's Papa in theres!" hehe :)

Papa gave a speech and was honored. It was a tremendous party and I'm so pleased we were able to go! I'm so proud of my Dad and how much he is loved and cherished for his contributions to the field and to these people. 

Clara wasn't so much proud (sorry Papa) as she was super excited about the "ice cweam with sparklies and red juice" :) Priorities.

They were well behaved almost the entire time. No tantrums or tears, just a little sugar high.

Papa & Lulu

 The girls thought all of the water was way cool.

Ohhhhh

Blanket thief 

Clara was so happy she got to take home some of the balloons! 

 Thank GOODNESS Lulu drove and picked us up to go because my eye was miserable, and I couldn't see hardly anything. She took us over to their house and the girls put on their "baby suits" (love) and we went swimming! (I think water is going to be the theme of this summer.)

Too stinkin' cute

 Clara is LOVING the water and is doing super well. I got them signed up for lessons, which you'll hear more about in a later post. 

Here are some short videos of Clara flying through the air in slow motion:

Then we had pizza for dinner, which Emma chowed down on.

And I got to have a one on one chat with my Dad which meant the world to me. 

And Emma got some lovin's:

:)

 And Clara wanted MO' ICE CWEAM on the way home and decided to see if the ice cream cone they made at school would suffice. 

Ewwww

SO proud of you Dad!! Love you so much! 

"Alice" in Wonderland, our high school play!

Most of you are already aware that this semester I directed Legacy's first ever theatrical performance. I formed a group called FOIL: Fellowship of Inspired Lions, picked a show ("Alice"), paid for the rights to use the show and video it, held auditions for cast and crew, and then we practiced every Monday and Wednesday morning from 7:45-8:30am. 

I used the one-act adaptation by Lindsay Price, available through Theatre Folk (https://www.theatrefolk.com/products/alice)

We fought several uphill battles regarding use of facilities, zero budget, being lower in priority than athletics, and having students out sick or tardy to rehearsals. HOWEVER, we pulled it together with the help of 2 other instrumental teachers (thank goodness for them!) and our students stepped it up and made the magic happen.

Thursday's dress rehearsal was interesting. After our first run through I was terrified that the play was going to be an absolute disaster. (I won't go into all of the reasons, haha). Thankfully the second time through went better and by the third time through I was sighing in relief. We could do this!!

Getting microphones and scenes set up.

Making sure the blocking was correct

My job - "voice" sound effects and helping with sound and lighting

Lining up for bowing practice purposes

After the tech rehearsal the day before, I learned that I needed to organize the transitions between scenes a little more. So I created these pages for each person involved. Lights people had all of their cues highlighted, cast members knew exactly which prop they were in charge of between scenes, they knew which microphone they were supposed to get and pass on (although a few students forgot about that part during the actual show), and reminders of costume changes, as well as a reminder of when they would come out to bow. It helped SO much the day of!! Our scene transition times were cut in half. I will do this before the day of next time!!

Cast pages laid out, ready to be picked up

An example

I was so bummed out at the thought of not seeing my girls all day, so my Mom and Bryan brought the girls up to school to hang with me during our last rehearsal so I could love on them a little bit before they went home. Thank you again Becky for watching them!!

 I had a really interesting afternoon before the play. A trip to Target went a little wonky and I ended up at Urgent Care getting a shot in my bum. Luckily my cast and crew and support staff helped me SO much and I didn't have to do more than I felt physically capable of. 

Girlies up at school to support their mama

Hair & Make-Up

Roses for sale (fundraiser for next year's play)

Tech crew!

Admissions crew!

Concessions crew!

Pre-show prayer circle

Full house!!

Not enough chairs, so spill over onto the bleachers!!

A Key, a King, and a March Hare

Fabulous chorus members, ready to be trees :)

Alice herself! ready to go on

Cheshire Cat(s)

Backstage

Love the green and purple lights we were able to use

Here is a video version of the show. The Praise Band is not included, Mrs. May's speech and Mrs. Manning's prayer are not included, but my speech and the performance and Sarah's wrap-up speech afterwards are included. I was just given another copy of the show, and will try to learn how to work iMovie this weekend. We ended up having a few glitches with sound (which I'm sure you'll notice), and a few other glitches (which I won't tell you about because I doubt you'll notice :)

I hope you enjoy it!

The only cast shot I have on my computer right now

Was it perfect? No.

Was it fantastic? YES!

I am so proud of these kids. I love them dearly!