Several weeks ago a poster for the Nutcracker was displayed at Grace's school. For days as we entered the building Grace pointed to the dancers and said, "Can we go there?" Knowing that she loved The Wizard of Oz and Fancy Nancy performed by the Ballet Theater of Ohio, I didn't hesitate to buy tickets. Not having a sense of time, it probably seemed like a long wait for this day to come. When I told her this morning that we were going to the Nutcracker TODAY, she said, "Oh, I am so excited!" and after the show she told me, "Mommy, I loved that show!" I have to agree. It was fantastic. I love that most of the dancers are not professional. Many of them where children. It wasn't perfect. But it was impressive with colorful sets, glittering costumes, and all the theatrics of a performance you would expect in a bigger, more metropolitan city.

Only marginally related to this post (but something I don't want to forget) is the vocabulary Grace has used this weekend....most notably two words -fragile and ominous. As Grace was upstairs decorating her Christmas tree, I heard her say about an ornament, "This one is fragile." And today during the ballet she said, "Mom, that music is ominous." You know I questioned her about the meaning of those words and she correctly replied, "It can break" and "It means it is a little scary." Wow! Where is this stuff coming from?

Special delivery

We were too excited to wait....so Grace dropped off her letter to Santa today in his special mailbox. I hope that she gets a response soon since we sent the letter early.

No need for a jacket today...it was almost 60 degrees! Not bad for Nov. 20th in Ohio!

Making a list, checking it twice

Grace's Christmas list has been a work in progress for the last few weeks. This is the first year she has really shown a real interest in choosing toys and she understands being on Santa's "naughty" or "nice" list. I must admit...I am taking full advantage of this by saying I am going to call Santa whenever she isn't doing what ask!
Back to her list...every time a catalog comes Grace spends a lot of time carefully looking at all the toys. She will do this over and over with the same catalog and after a while several items became favorites. So I told her she could cut them out and glue them on a big paper to make a list for Santa.
We finished the list this morning by finding the last couple of presents on the internet and adding those to her paper. With help sounding out the words, Grace labeled the pictures just so Santa would be sure to know what she wants.

What's on the list? A "real" shopping cart (this one is from Melissa and Doug and it is expensive but AWESOME!), the game Operation, a horse (the picture is of a rocking horse, but what she wants is one for her American Girl doll), the Imaginext Batman cave, a dollhouse (this one is Kidkraft and is taller than Grace), Rock and Roll Mickey, Trash Pack kids (these will be in her stocking), and a pretend school. Some things that are not on the list, but she has mentioned are a cash register and a wind chime. I think Florida Santa will be bringing those to Nana and Ba's house!
Our city has a special Santa mailbox at City Hall so we are going to decorate an envelope and drop the list off one evening this week. Santa will even write back if you include a self-addressed envelope!

Striped tights

OMG this outfit just kills me! Grace says she doesn't like to wear tights, but she looks so adorable in them....especially striped ones like this!

First snowfall

Although snow on November 11th seems much too early for me, Grace was thrilled yesterday morning when she woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground. The normal morning routine of pleading, coaxing, and rushing was replaced by a kid who jumped out of bed, got dressed, and gobbled her breakfast when I promised she could go out on the deck for a few minutes. Grace declared that she was going to build a snowman. When I said there wasn't enough snow she told me, "Just a baby one, Mommy.

Autumn came to our front lawn

We only have one tree on our front lawn. This year, it seems like the leaves have lasted a long time. In the last week they finally turned a beautiful orange-red color and just in the last few days enough of them fell to cover the little patch of green we have in front of our house. Grace helped rake them and had a great time jumping and hiding in them.

I love this photo!

I tried to capture her joy at throwing the leaves in the air, but I guess I need work on my action shots....although I do kind of like how the leaves are out of focus and are just blurs of color.

Taking these photos today reminded me of pictures my parents took of my brother and me years ago. They used it for a Christmas card that year. Hmmmm....I wonder if we can locate it. Mom? Any ideas?