Abe always supports my blogging, but yesterday we came home late from our date in Salt Lake, and he asked me not to blog because he was so tired and needed to go to bed. Of course, I couldn’t say no, but I felt bad, Grandma! I even took pictures yesterday too. Oh, well. I will post them today.
Yesterday we went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert with our friends, Mike and Paige. We went out to dinner first at our favorite restaurant, Ichiban. Abe and I had two Amazon local deals for the restaurant, and we want to still use them even though we’ve moved away. Anyway, after dinner we parked a couple blocks away from the Conference Center and sprinted the whole way to the concert. We made it just in time!
Every year the choir hosts special guests for its concert, and this year it collaborated with PBS to host the muppets. It was such a fun concert. Santino Fontana (the voice of Prince Hans in Frozen) was also featured, and he did one of the best Luke 2 readings I have ever heard. It was a great evening.
And our next door neighbor turned out to be a terrific babysitter! Not only do the girls love her, but she cleaned the house too. I remember cleaning every house I ever babysat in, but so far we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that babysitters these days (fogey-phrase alert!!) leave messes. We’ll have to see if she makes cleaning a habit, but if she does, in my book, she deserves a pretty immediate raise. What a star.
Today I looked online and realized that the Utah Regional Ballet had a matinee performance of The Nutcracker. We were listening to the classical radio station earlier this week when The Nutcracker came on, and I narrated the events and attempted to demonstrate what the Russian dance looked like (that part was hilarious, let me assure you). Ever since Lydia has developed a minor obsession with The Nutrcracker, and so I knew she’d enjoy the performance.
It turned out that taking Lydia to the ballet was both of our dreams come true. I have always daydreamed about taking my kids to arts performances with me, and today that daydream was fulfilled. I felt like I was floating slightly while walking around the theater hand-in-hand with my sweet, excited three year old. When I took her out of the car to go in the theater, Lydia said, “Mama, I’m so excited to see The Nutcracker! Are you excited too?” And then, upon entering the theater: “Mama, this is so fun.” Melt away, my heart. I was in heaven.
Or at least I was in heaven for the first hour and a half. The last half hour was slightly trying because Lydia has been sick, and when she’s sick she gets tired easily. When she’s tired, her behavior becomes very difficult to manage. So I spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince her not to dance in the back of the theater and not to wander up and down the stairs in the balcony. Once I explained that we needed to be respectful of how hard the dancers had worked, she settled into my lap and didn’t struggle anymore. I should have tried explaining (as opposed to cajoling) earlier.
Anyway, here are the pictures from yesterday and today:
Yesterday
- Mary has been going through a phase where she tucks all of her stuffed animals in with a blanket and a binky each.
Today’s picture
