Here Comes Santa Claus...

At 6:45 am on Thanksgiving morning, while many of you were still in bed. We were out in the dark, in the rain.... doing this...


So, they could do this (ignore the title of the clip... they're really on there)...




at 8:11am.

Yep... that's Alex and Clara in their maroon Santa shirt outfits!!

Pre-performance group shot...
I only had my 85mm 1.8 lens with me so I couldn't get the group shot... hopefully someone will share their photo with me.

The Tin Soldier getting ready to start things off...
Clara bouncing... ready to run out there...

The little girls run out to join the cast...
Alex goes out now...





They had a fabulous time. I have to say that the cast of this show is incredible! So much fun to work with and so great with the kids. They're having a blast.

Okay.... I came down with some kind of crud after the parade yesterday so I'm going to go drink my OJ and blow my nose :-)

catching up a bit...

wow.... it has been a whirlwind of activity around here. I'm so glad both kids are in the production so at least we were only going one direction!

Thursday night was the final dress rehearsal and I managed to sneak in a couple of photos before I went backstage to help with the kids and their costume changes.

Here are the kids from the opening scene (the pole is now a banner)....
Alex as "Jake" in the department store scene....
(he now has knee socks and a hat to keep his red hair a surprise)

Clara as "Sally" asking for her skates...
After the end of the department store scene Clara is done until curtain call.

So that night the kids played hangman on the white board...
Friday night was the first preview and I was backstage for that. The kids thought it went well and had fun. Saturday was a tough day... two previews with some rehearsals in between. Jeff and I were able to watch the matinee and it didn't go as smoothly as it could, but thankfully it was a preview. From what little I saw (and what I heard from others), the evening show went really well. I was backstage again, but I get to see bits and pieces as I take the kids in and out for their scenes.

Sunday was the big press opening. I was pretty worked up about it, but the kids were totally calm about the whole thing. It was so exciting for them backstage before the show... several of the cast members had gotten them little gifts or cards.

The mother of the little girl with the lead role insisted that Jeff and I go in and see the show since "your kids will only have one first opening night". That was so incredibly kind of her to volunteer to handle the kids backstage so we could go in.

The show went fabulously! Even after seeing it so many times in rehearsals, it amazed me like I was seeing it for the first time.

After the show, there was a little reception in the theatre's lobby.

Here are the kids with the artistic director and the girl who played the main role...
The kids from the cast...
Either I need a different point and shoot camera or I just have no clue how to work the one I have... I had other photos from last night but they were so incredibly bad that they are beyond fixing. I had one cute one of Alex with his stage dad... but alas, it was one of the unfixable ones. I will have to get another photo of the red heads soon.

Okay... I've got to keep going if we're going to make it through today... our weekend wore us out!

are you ready for this?

I will admit that I wasn't sure I ready... but we went for it anyway.

What is it that I am talking about?

Well... yesterday my boy became a RED HEAD!

One last shot of my shaggy blond son...



He wasn't so sure about the whole thing when he first saw himself in the mirror...
But he's beginning to get used to it...
It's going to take me a while to get used to having a red headed son....
I'm afraid that I might lose him in a crowd because this sure isn't the head of hair I would recognize...
Honestly... it looks really good and natural. He was a HUGE HIT last night at rehearsal. The hair color matches that of his "dad" perfectly.

Speaking of rehearsal, I took a couple of pics.

Here's one of them rehearsing the opening....
I hope to take a lot more tonight!

success!

Given that the boy will have to have his hair dyed red soon for the play he's in... I made an extra early attempt at our Christmas card photo this year. It usually takes a minimum of three separate shoots for me to get the photo I want for the card.

However... this year it only took one!!! I am completely totally in love with the photos I got in the 15 minutes we went outside on Wednesday to make our first attempt! Seriously, I love them... they make me very happy. And what else makes me happy... I finished my card design too! I just have on thing left to do... I've been including a photo collage (our year in review type of thing) and I haven't done that yet because I'm going to *need* to include a photo of Alex as a red head :-)

Since I'm not going to post the card photos until I actually manage to get the cards mailed... I'm including my favorite outtake from our little photo shoot....
... no clue what's going on here.

In other news... both kids are in the play now! On Saturday the director asked if Clara would like to join the cast and, of course, she did! I'm excited for them both and, selfishly, it has made my life so much easier... so nice going only one direction instead of constantly going two!

Hmmm... other than that... we've been pretty boring... just rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals! Next week will be even more hectic as the show previews a week from today!!! Yikes!

Happy Halloween!

... a day late! :-)

We had another fabulous Halloween last night! It started a little iffy... but ended well.

First of all... Alex had rehearsal for the holiday play that he's going to be in. I haven't posted about that yet, but we found out just last week that Alex was cast in a role in a holiday play with 26 shows! Last night was his first rehearsal.

I had planned on waiting with Alex while Clara and Jeff went on to meet friends at the nursing home we go to every year. However.... here is where things went slightly awry. We had planned to get to rehearsal slightly early so we could go over the paperwork we needed to sign... but with all of the costume prep... we barely got there in time. They told us that his rehearsal wouldn't be long so Jeff and Clara stuck around. Alex was done in only 30 minutes instead of the hour we had expected... so all was good.

We stopped by home to drop off paperwork and take a few photos....

Charlie Brown

He did have a bald head thing with the little Charlie Brown curlicues drawn on the forehead... but it was an adult size so in the process of cutting it down to fit him, it ripped.


And... the "funky witch"...
We had finally finished her skirt at about 10pm the night before.




We then jumped in a cab and rushed to the nursing home to meet our friends.

BUT... when we got there the party had been canceled due to H1N1 and them not wanting to expose their residents (which we totally understood). Now to figure out where are friends had gone. While trying to figure it out... we started trick or treating at some of the businesses along the way.

We still hadn't heard from our friends so we started walking towards the house of another set of friends we had planned on meeting up with....


Finally I remembered that the number that the first friends had was our home, not our cell. So we checked our home messages and were able to arrange for them to meet us at our house.

We met up with Clara's friend and her family and trick or treated through the neighborhood. The kids had a BLAST!!! There were so many houses that had just gone above and beyond with their decorations!!! The kids got a ton of candy too.

After they were done trick or treating... everyone came to our house for pizza. To settle everyone down we covered our family room floor with sleeping bags and pillows and put on Monsters vs. Aliens for them to watch. They all seemed to have a really good time.

Earlier, when I said the kids got a "ton of candy"... I meant it....
Alex was so excited that he hit "jackpot" level this year...
It's obnoxious, isn't it?
:-)

Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween!!