The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Staley's Stage Kids class this semester culminated in their production of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever".  If you are not familiar with this Christmas story, it is the story of 6 rough-around-the-edges bullies in a town who inadvertently come to church and take all the main roles in the church Christmas pageant, bringing a new perspective to the Christmas story.  It has always been one of my favorite books, and the play was fabulous.

The cast

Staley was cast as Gladys Herdman, the youngest of the bully family.  It was a big part.  She had about 15 lines and cues to memorize, which was by far her biggest role in any production so far.  She nailed it!!

Gladys Herdman

I helped Staley learn her lines.  I knew she had them memorized.  I knew she had lots of funny lines and big lines in the play.  I knew she would do well, but she surpassed my high expectations.  She truly stole the show.  She projected.  She was easy to understand.  She hit all her lines and cues.  At the first performance, the girl playing the pageant narrator mixed up a few of her lines which caused confusion for Staley as the cues were wrong, but she went with it and it worked out fine.  The next performance was flawless.

Gladys as the angel of the Lord in the pageant

After the play, many people had glowing things to say about Staley's performance.  Several people who didn't know her asked if she's really ornery at home.  She must have been a good actress since loud, mean, and ornery are very different than our Staley.

Staley had so many people come to watch her perform.  She had cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, teachers.  It was so fun for her to have so many supporters in the audience.

I had gotten 2 extra tickets and told Staley she could invite whoever she wanted.  She wanted to invite her first grade teacher and his wife.

Staley's Kindergarten teacher also came with her daughter.  Staley has been so blessed with wonderful teachers!

She had grandparents in the audience...

aunts...

Zach's aunts and cousin came

as well as my aunt and 2 of my cousin's kids.

Staley always loves having her cousins in the audience.

And friends too.

My friend from work even came with her son.

Stage kids has been such a blessing for Staley.  She LOVES to perform, and her director has continued to trust her with bigger roles.  Staley was the youngest kid in this production, but she has made so many friends.  The older kids truly look out for her, and she always looks forward to going to class.  It's like a family.

Staley with Miss Kelleen, her director/teacher

Two of Staley's good friends from class, Anna and Mady.

Seeing Staley shine on stage was a Christmas highlight for the whole family.  It truly was the Best Christmas Pageant Ever!!

Holiday Cheer

We have had a fun and festive December.  It has been a nice mix of Christmas activities and events, as well as plenty of cozy time at home reading Christmas books, making gifts, baking, and enjoying family time.

We enjoyed choosing our Christmas tree and decorating it together as a family.  However, the highlight this Christmas was the Christmas train I found on a Black Friday sale.  HOURS of entertainment playing with this train, primarily by one specific member of the family.  Best. purchase. ever. 

We attended the Christmas pajama party fundraiser for Adelie's pre-school.  The kids enjoyed meeting Santa, decorating a cookie, listening to stories, and choosing which raffle prizes they wanted to put their tickets in for.  Each kid put in 4 raffle tickets.  Of her 4 tickets, Adelie won TWICE, including a free bouncy house rental which was the hot ticket item of the auction.  Had I known it was going to be her lucky day, I'd have sent her in to the gas station for a lottery ticket too.

After our Disney trip, Briggs was pretty accustomed to hanging out with strangers in costume so he had no qualms about Santa.  Even though we don't "do" Santa and Staley is quick to point out that Santa isn't real, the kids still enjoyed meeting him.  Staley and Briggs told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, but Adelie informed him it was a secret and refused to tell him.  Guess it's a good thing she's not counting on any presents from Santa. 

Staley had her school Christmas concert.  She was one of 3 first graders chosen to introduce one of their songs.  It was SO crowded in the gym and even though I arrived 50 minutes before the concert to get a seat, we still couldn't see Staley.  We could hear her, though, as she said her line confidently and loudly.

Adelie performed in the church Christmas program.  She sang a song and recited a poem.  She knew all the words and was a very active participant.  So cute!!

Staley was in the church Christmas musical.  She sang in the choir and was also narrator #1.  My little gal has no stage fright and did a great job, as always.

And while I am posting about performances, Staley also performed with her Rising Stars show choir group for a local retirement home, bringing Christmas cheer to the residents who live there.

We also made Christmas cookies.  Briggs and Adelie helped make the dough and cut out the cookies, and all 3 kids helped decorate.

Briggs quickly lost interest in decorating the cookies when he realized that he was not, in fact, allowed to eat each cookie he decorated.

Staley and Adelie both had their class Christmas parties at school.  I helped at both, but since I was in charge of reading stories to Adelie's class, I didn't get any pictures at her party.

We've shared time with special people, shopped, wrapped, delivered goodies, driven around town looking at Christmas lights, and enjoyed the festivities of the season.

We have enjoyed our December and are ready for Christmas.

Bring it on!!!

Adelie Quote of the Day

Being the middle child, Adelie doesn't get a lot of one-on-one time and attention.  Yesterday morning I was getting ready to take Briggs to the doctor.  I told her excitedly, "While I take Briggs to the doctor, you get to go to Grammie's house and play all by yourself!"  She responded, "You mean Grammie won't be there?"

I'm guessing she wouldn't mind having Grammie and Grandpa's house all to herself for a few hours.  I'm not sure how Grammie and Grandpa (or DCFS) would feel about that.

Lasting Impression

The other day Briggs and I were playing together.  He was holding a little monkey figure and said, "The monkey is sick.  He sucked his thumb and throwed up in his bed."

I guess that's not something you quickly forget.

On the plus side, 3 weeks down and still thumb free.  Maybe monkey will learn his lesson too.

Where is Thumbkin?

It has been well-documented here that we would like Briggs to stop sucking his thumb.  We've tried a variety of strategies with no lasting success.  We started with hand socks, followed by a tied up shirt sleeve, and then the "yucky stuff."  None of those deterred him enough to stop sucking his thumb.  However, the "yucky stuff" (bitter tasting nail polish) had a lasting impression as he would still talk about it.

Two weeks ago (today), Briggs would not keep his thumb out of his mouth while we were playing.  I threatened to put the yucky stuff back on his thumb if he didn't keep it out of his mouth.  Well he didn't so I put some on.  He kept his thumb out of his mouth the rest of the morning.  I warned him before nap that he still had yucky stuff on his thumb.  Well he either forgot, didn't care, or stuck it in out of habit while sleeping.  Whatever the cause, he sucked his thumb, gagged on the taste, and then threw up in his bed.  Oops!  A nicer mom might have decided that causing your child to throw up in his bed might be a little extreme.  This mom saw it as an opportunity.  Obviously vomiting is a negative experience, so I was hoping that building off that negative experience might just be the solution we needed.  And it was...mostly.  We had one more nap-time vomiting instance a few days later, and I realized that he might be putting his thumb in his mouth without realizing it while sleeping.  We made a little tweak to our plan and continued on.

We are now 2 weeks in to a thumb-free existence.  I still put yucky stuff on Briggs's thumb once or twice a day, just as a reminder to him that it's there.  He wears a hand sock on his right hand for naps and bedtime, mostly as a sleep-time reminder not to inadvertently put his thumb in his mouth.  He never takes it off.  Obviously the thumb sucking is a strongly ingrained habit, so we're not home free yet, but this has by far been our longest lasting success so far.  I'm not saying that inducing vomiting is the best strategy to break a bad habit, but if it works...

Thumb free and happy about it.

This Girl

The other day we were looking at baby pictures of Adelie.  Staley said, "Look, Adelie!  You're naked."  To which Adelie replied, "I wish I was like that right now."

Oh, this girl.

Our Disney Trip: The End

For our last full day of vacation, we headed back to Magic Kingdom.  I wanted to make the most of our last day, so we dragged the kids out of bed early so that we could make it to the park when it opened.  It was a bit of a contrast from the first day when they came bounding into our room to wake us up.

It wasn't easy, but we managed to get everyone up, dressed, fed, and to the park a little before 8:00.

We took advantage of our early arrival by doing lots of our favorite rides without lines, like Peter Pan, Little Mermaid (twice), Goofy's Barnstormer (twice), the carousel, and Tomorrowland Speedway.  We also met Tiana and Rapunzel (for the 3rd time).  While the girls and Zach went on the Little Mermaid ride, Briggs and I got some chocolate croissants and juice at Gaston's for the family to enjoy as a mid-morning snack.  Yum!!  There was a frothy apple juice drink called LeFou's Brew that was quite scrumptious.

We didn't mind meeting Rapunzel again since she's one of our favorites.

Adelie's last 2 cards to hand out were for Tiana and Pocahontis.  Since we had not had a chance to meet Pocahontis at Animal Kingdom, Adelie gave it to Tiana to pass on to Pocahontis.  She promised she would.  :) 

Our (early) lunch was at Columbia Harbour House.  For a quick service restaurant, they had some good seafood options and a fairly quiet upstairs seating area.  We followed up lunch with Enchanted Tales with Belle.  We tried to bring Briggs with us, but as soon as it started, he began to cry.  Zach took him out and he fell asleep in the stroller while the girls enjoyed acting with Belle.  Staley got to be the beast (a trip highlight!) and Adelie was Maurice.

Adelie as Maurice in the dungeon

Staley and Belle taking their bows

Since Zach had to miss out on Enchanted Tales, he took the girls to see Mickey's Philharmagic while sleeping Briggs and I wandered around the park.  One of us might have enjoyed a Mickey ice cream treat while the other was sleeping.

One of my college friends happened to be at Disney the same week as us.  Our plans overlapped on this day, so we met up for a ride and a parade together.  It was so fun to see her girls and get to spend a little time together.  Of all the hundreds of pictures I took during our week, I can't believe I didn't get any pictures with them.  The only picture was from when we rode Seven Dwarves Mine Train together.

Her 2 girls (in the 2 rows behind us) appeared to be having more fun than Staley.

Briggs did better with the parade the second time around.  He talked incessantly about the dragon before the parade.  As the dragon was approaching, he frantically told me he had to go potty.  However, he made it through the dragon and was able to enjoy the rest of the parade.  Progress!

After the parade, we met a few more characters (Merida, Gaston) and rode a few more rides.  While the girls and Zach did Peter Pan and a few other rides, Briggs and I rode the Disney train again and then fit in a few spins on Dumbo before dinner.

Merida rounded out the princesses we met.  The only princesses we did not meet during our trip were Mulan and Pocahontis.

Gaston might just have been my favorite character we met.  He was hilarious!  He was as arrogant and self-absorbed as you would expect.  The kids weren't so sure how to take him, but I found him very amusing.

Dumbo was a favorite ride for the whole family, which is why we rode it so many times.

Our final Disney dinner was at the Be Our Guest restaurant in the Beast's castle.  The atmosphere is so cool.  We ate in the ballroom (where Belle and the Beast danced), and explored the West Wing and the library while waiting for our food.  I thought the food was very good, although Zach was a little disappointed with his steak.

The kids got to lead the way to our table with Lumiere.

The ballroom is just like the movie.  It's even snowing out the windows.

The rose in the West Wing

We did try the grey stuff, and it was delicious.

Eating at the Be Our Guest restaurant is the only way you can meet the Beast.  I think that was one of the main reasons Staley wanted to eat there again.  (On our last trip, everyone was tired and the line was too long after eating so we skipped meeting the Beast.)  After dinner, we told the kids we'd have time for one more ride or we could stay to meet the Beast.  Adelie wanted to fit in one more ride, so she and Zach went to do the Magic Carpet ride while Staley, Briggs, and I met the Beast.

We met up with Adelie and Zach in front of the castle to watch Elsa light up the castle once more.  I could watch that every.single.night.  I found it so magical!!

I just love Disney!!  Even just seeing this picture makes me want to go right back.

We finished off our last day with buying a special treat with the money from Uma and Papa.  Adelie picked out an Ariel playset, Staley got a Belle music box, and Briggs found a Disney train.  It was the first thing he looked at in the store, and he never let go of it.  He sat on the floor of the store and played with it in the box until the girls were done.

Briggs with his treasure.

We weren't quite ready for bed when we got back to our resort, so we walked around and said good-bye to all our favorite areas, took pictures, and just enjoyed our last night at Disney.

It was hard to say good-bye to Disney.  You know it's been a good vacation when no one is ready to go home.  I think we could have easily stayed a few more days.  Although we experienced so much in our week at Disney, there was more that we would have liked to do.  There were rides we missed, characters we didn't meet, shows we didn't see, places we didn't eat.  I didn't even get a Dole Whip.  That's why there is always a next time.  Each trip has it's own moments of magic.

It may be Tinkerbell landing in your hand,

or the crazy characters you happen upon,

or a silly chicken that lands on your arm,

or an Olaf photo bomb.

Or it could be that first glimpse of Mickey,

or riding rides you've been talking about for the past year,

or just seeing a character or a show that makes your face light up.

For me, it was all of that.  The months of planning were so worth it.  Even though we had tears and lines and things that didn't go exactly as planned, we also had so many magical moments.  I didn't want to say good-bye to Disney.  So I won't.  I'll just say, "See you next time!"