Merry, merry

Olivia and I made a gingerbread house from scratch this season. We were invited to a mother-daughter party, and all the guests had to bring their own gingerbread house. After a pep-talk and some pointers from Allison, we tackled the project. Some mishaps were Freddy dropping a side of the house on the floor, me burning the first batch of gingerbread pieces, and two complete housing collapses before I realized you need to use A LOT of frosting to hold the house up. We carried the house to the party on the subway during rush hour, and a stranger offered some suggestions for next year! The day after the party, one or both of our cats licked all the frosting off the yard area, but spit out the peppermint sprinkles. (At least they didn't do that before the party.)

This is the teen leadership group at the community theater. Olivia is in the blue shirt and flower skirt.

The last play Olivia was in was Shakespeare's As You Like It. These are some photos from a rehearsal. She's the taller of the two actors in red hats standing on the tree stump.

She's seated, on the far left. This is the "all the world is a stage" scene.

Again, on the far left, playing the tambourine.

In December, Olivia made her debut as Assistant Director at the theater, working on a play for younger kids. In this cast party photo, she is in the back row, to the right of the girl in the Santa hat.

Olivia also organized a coat drive at church this month and worked for the first time distributing meals to people in need with her confirmation class. Both she and Frederick were in the Christmas program, and they helped at the craft fair. They are really growing up and doing interesting things on their own (sniff, sniff....makes me happy and sad at the same time!).

In between all that, we squeezed in some field trips. A fellow homeschooling mom organized a group visit to the train show at the NY Botanical Garden last week. In the conservatory, the trains travel around models of famous NY sites, like the Brooklyn Bridge and Yankee Stadium, that are made out of  natural items like twigs, leaves, etc. It was a beautiful exhibit.

Ellis Island at the exhibit.

After the train exhibit, our group headed to a gingerbread workshop. The kids learned about the different ingredients of gingerbread. Frederick is in the red jacket at the gingerbread bar.

Olivia, answering a question about gingerbread. This has been a gingerbread season for us.

Yesterday we headed to the skating rink in the morning. I thought the place would be empty at 8am, but there were quite a few people already on the rink when we arrived. Olivia is in her pink jacket. After skating, we saw the play A Christmas Carol with some friends and then headed to a wreath exhibit in Central Park.
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The tree is up and decorated, the packages are wrapped and hidden away, the holiday weekend menu and activities are planned....all that is left on the list to do is to enjoy it all. I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays, too.
Merry Christmas, everyone!