We haven't seen Ging Ging in awhile so I found this photo to share with you. I am nearly certain that it was taken at my Aunt Mary and Uncle Al's house in Massachusetts, but I'm not sure of the time of year. My guess is that it's sometime in the fall because we are all wearing long sleeves, but the table is so nicely set (and I am wearing a tie, after all) that I'm thinking it must have been a holiday of some sort -- Thanksgiving maybe? Of course my Aunt Mary always had a beautiful house and a beautiful table so that's not really a clue.
The only date on the picture is December and I do recall one or two get-togethers around the holidays in Massachusetts. Of course this photo could have been developed in December of 2002 for all I know.
I was rocking the 70s shag and Aunt Anonymous had the Laurie Partridge look, so my guess is that the year is about 1970 or 1971 making me 12 and Aunt Anonymous 13. Oh and those two beautiful kids on Ging Ging's right are my cousins Mary Kay (who seriously looks exactly the same now as she did as a kid!) and Aunt Tina, who in this picture is probably around 5 making my estimate of 1971 more accurate.
Oh, and for those who were having trouble posting comments I removed the captcha (where you had to type in the right words to prove you weren't a robot) so now you should just be able to comment ALL the time. :)
I have no idea why the Hippo song didn't post, so I'm going to try again here. This is the 4th grade chorus only, singing I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas:
Wednesday night was the French Creek Elementary Winter Concert and Hannah and Lizzie were supposed to perform. Unfortunately Lizzie was felled by what turned out to be a pretty bad case of bronchitis, so Hannah had to carry the load alone (with about 100 other 4th, 5th and 6th graders!)
Here are a couple videos from the show that I took to show Rob since he was home with Liz (I'm not going to tell you who lost the coin toss...)
This first one is just the 4th grade chorus singing "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."
This one is "Winterlight" which has the entire 4th, 5th and 6th grade chorus singing:
Did you know I write a blog for Adoptive Families Magazine? Well, I do! It's about adoption (surprise, surprise) and is sometimes even mildly controversial.
Feel free to go take a look at it.
This link should get you there:
but if it doesn't go to www.adoptivefamiliescircle.com and search for double vision in the blogs area and you'll find my last several posts. I try to post monthly, but by the time they actually get on the blog is more like every 5 or 6 weeks.
There's a new one up today about adoption related things that still surprise me, but probably the most controversial blog is "The Numbers Game" which is about adopting an infant when you are an older person.
This is a holiday questionnaire (called a meme in cyberspeak!) that's making the rounds (again) so I thought I'd share my answers with you. If you've got a blog, feel free to post your own answers (or you can even copy and post in the comments if you'd like!)
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? See right off the bat I've got a problem. I love them both. If I have to choose I think I'd choose my own homemade eggnog (which I can't make because you use so many raw eggs everyone would be sick with salmonella) or pretty much anyone's hot chocolate.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa does not wrap at all. Mrs. Claus, however, wraps things until she is tired or bored or both.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored, although (and this will come as a surprise to no one) Rob prefers white lights. We have compromised by having NO lights on the outside of our home.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Yes, but it's fake.
5. Tacky holiday sweaters: yea or nay? I have a couple and I love them. Although I do not believe they are tacky..
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Cranberry bread with cream cheese. I only make it during the holidays.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? The year I got my unicycle...oh wait, I never got that gift. :) So instead I'd say it was the first Christmas we spent in Somers and we went to the tree lighting and every child there got a "big" gift from Santa. I got some sort of tea set. Then we had hot chocolate and sang carols.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Wait... is Santa a girl? A vampire? A Republican? What truth are you talking about????
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? My parents opened theirs on Christmas Eve, we opened ours in the morning. Now Rob and I and girls all open on Christmas morning.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? It's prelit so we put it together hang the ornaments and place a star at the top of the tree. For a few years we followed the Rasmussen tradition that Santa brought the Christmas tree, but that was a lot of work for Christmas Eve and Santa didn't do it anyway. Mrs Claus put an end to that a few years ago.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it if I don't have to drive in it.
12. Can you ice skate? Used to be able to. These days I have trouble staying upright walking on grass, so I'm not going to even try ice again.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I think it was the year we got Tammy.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Family. And presents. :)
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Plum pudding or (if I haven't made the pudding) pumpkin pie.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Even though we haven't done it for a few years, I always loved the mystery gift that my mom picked out and sent to each of the kids to guess what it was. I still have a few of those gifts (the oven rack puller, for instance!) which turned out to be useful items.
17. What tops your tree? A star on the big tree and an angel on the little pink tree (for my lenox ornaments).
18. Which do you prefer: giving or receiving? I love to buy presents for people! (It's nice to get presents, too!)
19. Candy Canes: Yuck or Yum? Once a year they are okay.
20. Favorite Christmas show? "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Rudolph."
21. Saddest Christmas Song? The Christmas Shoes. I will change the station if I hear the first few notes of it. AND they made a movie out of it, too.
22. What is your favorite Christmas song? Silent Night or The Lonesome Travellers "Auld Lang Syne" on the banjo
I have a confession to make which will come as a surprise to NO ONE who has talked to me during the last 10 days. I HATE Nutcracker week with every fiber of my being. The week before the performance includes nightly rehearsals that run overtime and well past the girls' bedtime, homework that needs to be done in the 15 minutes or so we have between the bus and dinner, cranky and sleep deprived dancers, a late-night dress rehearsal followed by an 8 a.m. call for the first of two performances in one day, and then a cast party after a late Saturday night performance that gets us home way past my bedtime, .... and more buns and hairspray and bright red lipstick than you can possibly imagine.
However, once I am finally sitting in my seat on Sunday afternoon (the performance that I choose to watch instead of working backstage) I love the Nutcracker. I love seeing Hannah and Lizzie doing the steps they've worked so hard to learn and I love seeing them smile and genuinely enjoying being on stage. Hannah's a ham (in a good way!) with a smile that lights up the stage and Lizzie turned three perfect cartwheels today that got a cheer from the audience. Oh and we won a basket at the raffle, which is always a bonus.
Here are the pictures from this year's performance. Thanks to family and friends who came out to watch the show.
Here are the girls in their Cavalry costumes. Is it just me or does Lizzie have a kind of menacing look in her eye, holding that sword? She was not happy that I made them come and smile for pictures for me backstage:
They were angels again this year, too. I think Hannah may be too tall to be an angel next year, but Lizzie may be an angel until she graduates high school. Luckily, they are both expert at the dance now, so they don't have to work too hard on this one:
And here they are as Polis. These are the little urchins that come out from under Mother Ginger's dress and then skip and cartwheel all over the stage being silly. They both LOVED being Polis. Lizzie had a special part where she turned cartwheels across the stage and then followed it up with a giant leap. She only did two cartwheels for the dress rehearsal and when I asked her why she said it was because her shirt flipped up (she was wearing leotard under it) and so I pinned the outfit together for each performance. It was worth though as her cartwheels are pretty spectacular:
We were so happy to have lots of people in the audience Saturday night! Here are Shelby, Aunt Beanie, Aunt Terry, Uncle Dude, Aunt Linda and Rob posing with the girls who are already set for the cast party that follows the Saturday nigh performance:
The girls have started to really make friends throughout the process, too. Here is Lizzie's friend Sarah getting her autograph (Lizzie got Sarah's, too!):
And here they are at the cast party where they ate gobs of food and ran around until they were thoroughly tired and weepy.
The Sunday performance was special, too, as the Kevins came to watch. Unfortunately Grandma Kevin was under the weather and couldn't attend, but we had a great time visiting with the rest of them. The girls really love to spend time with them and the three kids were going crazy running around in the basement. It was no surprise that Hannah and Liz went out like lights at bedtime.
It was a great end to the very stressful (but fun in retrospect!) week:
I didn't have to go too far back in the archives to get this photo, which is of Hannah and Lizzie checking out the large blow-up Santa outside of our house about six or seven years ago. Since it's December 1st I thought a Christmassy photo was in order.
I chose this photo because it's December 1st, but also because it made me laugh out loud when I saw it. It's probably mid December and both girls are outside in barefeet. Lizzie is wearing a Cinderella dress and Hannah is wearing her nightgown. Hannah thought enough to grab a scarf before coming outside while Lizzie is depending on dubba (her beloved blanket) to keep her warm. But what's really funny is that I AM TAKING THE PICTURE instead of telling my barefooted, barely dressed children to get back in the house.
We still have this Santa blow up, but something happened to the blower in the chimney so it kind of hangs off to the side and just looks really, really wrong. The penguins are still cute, though. As are the little girls.
