Nutcracker Tea Party= Heaven!!

So if any of you were wondering why we moved to California...this is it. The Nutcracker Tea Party! Madeline loves the Nutcracker more than life itself, ever since Mimi showed her the Nutcracker ballet on VHS, the Macaulay Culkin version. Bet you didn't even know a Macaulay Culkin version existed. Well, it does, and it's not too bad. It's definitely better than the Barbie version (yes, we have several versions, insane right?!).

Then last Christmas, we went with her friend Christina and mom, Heather, to the Pocatello Ballet's Nutcracker. Madeline was only two years and four months old, and she sat quietly watching the entire thing, and stood up clapping at the end and said "Do it again!"

Since then the Nutcracker is not just a Christmas thing at our house, it is on year-round. So you can imagine our excitement when we found out that they were having a Nutcracker Tea Party here. I mean, Nutcracker+Tea Party!!! What could be better?

The cast from the local ballet performed some of their numbers, while the girls had juice and cookies, then they opened it up for questions. PS- Adam took Madeline. Adam helped Madeline ask Clara (Madeline's favorite person--because she's a girl and wears pretty dresses, of course) if the rat king was scary! Then all the kids went up and learned some "ballet" with the dancers. And thank you to Adam for not only indulging Madeline's favorite things, but also for taking LOTS of pictures!
Madeline in her whole ballerina outfit her Mimi bought her. You wouldn't know it, but about one second later, she started crying and throwing a tantrum. Yes, the girl still needs a nap, but come hell or high water, she will not take one! Does anyone have this problem with their 3 year old?
The scary rat king
Madeline was so excited that they had REAL cookies and "tea"/juice. Because we just play pretend at home. She asked me not less than 50 times if the cookies were going to be REAL!

Madeline and Spicy Spanish Chocolate
Let the dance lessons begin!
Of course, magic princess wands were provided

Not sure what they call this move in ballet

Madeline ran to Clara as soon as the dancing lessons began and did NOT leave her side the entire time!

Annie Oak-a-ley

Madeline was Annie Oak-a-ley (yes that's how she pronounces it) for Halloween! I loved it because all the other little kids had no clue who Annie Oakley was. She first fell in love with Annie Oakley when she heard that her idol, her cousin Mary, loved Annie Oakley, and then when Adam took her to see the musical in Jackson Hole this past summer. (PS Madeline loves musicals). The video is a picture of her singing "You can't get a man with a gun" her favorite song from the play. Sorry it's side ways, I just wanted to get her whole outfit. If anyone knows how to rotate it please tell me!

Pier 39

We are here in the Bay Area! This was our first excursion up to the city, to Pier 39! It was so fun, Madeline rode the carousel, we saw sea lions- which STINK by the way- we walked along the pier and got lunch and went to the Farmer's Market. It was a fun day!

Remembering Sharen Beard

Sharen died at the end of April. I am not sure why I haven't been able to write this post until now. All I can think is that 1. posting something on the world wide web makes it a little less personal, to me and 2. I think I am still just shocked that she is gone.

We met Brian and Sharen when we were doing an internship in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were members of our ward, and being the only married couple in the intern group, we tended to hang out with married people instead of the other single interns. Who knew we would be hanging out with people twice our age, but Brian and Sharen, to whom age does not apply, soon became our best friends there. This picture was taken in their flat probably around 11 pm at night. Since the sun doesn't set in the summer in Scotland until about midnight, we would stay over there for hours. Sharen was so peppy and fun and Brian would be talking our ears off about some new idea for furniture design. We loved it and we always had fun with them! Such good memories.

We continued to write and visit here in the states, over the past five years. Sharen was the best at keeping in touch! Although she wrote the occasional email, she would always send a handmade-handwritten card begging for pictures of Madeline.

Her daughter, Brianne, called me on a Sunday night and said "I have some bad news, my mom has died"--I couldn't believe it! She was not even fifty and was oober-healthy! They said it was the "perfect storm" of things that caused her death, but eventually she died from acute leukemia. She died in a matter of hours.

The funeral was so surreal, everyone was in shock. Brian gave an incredible eulogy and told stories I had never heard before, probably because Sharen was always asking about me, always interested in what I was interested in, instead of talking about herself. He talked about how she would have been considered a "nerd" in high school, always arguing for a better grade, and even coming up with her own element to add to the periodic table.

After the funeral, we all gathered at a ward member's house and talked late into the night. Not the somber funeral talk, you might expect, but laughing, lots of laughing. We left, and Adam said to me, "that was more fun than we should have had at a funeral!" But it didn't seem like Sharen was even gone yet, it seemed like at any moment, she would come bouncing down the stairs and join in the fun!

I was sewing last night and I was up late after everyone had gone to bed, and I was just thinking about her. Wondering if angel-Sharen can "hear" me thinking about her. Does she know how much I loved and admired her? Does she know that I want to be just like her? But I never even took the time to ask her how to be like her! And now I can't. I just have to try to piece together my memories of her and try to emulate them.

I think the major thing that impressed me about Sharen is how unassuming and happy she was. You didn't have to be anything cool around Sharen. I felt like she was my best friend from the moment we met. And I love people like that.

On the front of the funeral program was a picture of her running her marathon and it said "I can do hard things." What a great last phrase to go out with. I think about that now almost every day. Sharen is such an inspiration to all of us. We love you, Sharen!

Goodbye Susan!!

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My cute little sister, who is not so little, is finally going abroad! She is going to go to Italy with UVU study abroad! We are soooooooo jealous. We have the travel bug so badly right now. (PS isn't this a cool picture? Yes. I took it!!)
I made her a little stash before she goes. I hope she doesn't see this post before I get this to her via snail mail.
A laundry bag. Always handy. She loves to decorate T-shirts, so maybe she can do something to spice up this bag. As for me, I like it plain.
I made this cute little zipper bag with waterproof lining. I originally got one from a friend when I had Madeline was born. It's handy for wet baby clothes, but I use it for everything including packing contact solution and things that leak. And isn't this fabric to die for? She will love it!
A necessity. A cute little luggage tag that matches the zipper bag. You can get the tutorial at the skip to my lou blog.

Then I had to make some puppets for our trip to Oregon today.
Felt paper doll, she has lots of outfits and different hair! It was so fun and so easy!

These are supposed to be the 5 little monkeys. haha! I am not talented in making things look like people/animals. can you tell? Well, they will work for a 2 year old!
This is what MJ did while I sewed all day! Painting bobble heads!! They were $2 at JoAnn's and so much fun!

New Dress for Madeline!

Since my girl is obsessed with dolls I thought it was high time her mama made her a doll dress. It should get a lot of use! I wasn't sure about using this fabric for a dress, but I love the colors. Don't you think it turned out well?

I bought a pattern (I know I know, I hate patterns, but I actually bought one this time!) called the village frock , which comes in size 2T -6T, so I will get a lot of use out of it.

Helen, do you recognize the red material??? (I took some of my mother-in-law's old shirts from her stash she was going to DI at Christmas... came in handy!)
You can tell the neckline was tricky, hopefully it comes out better next time. Next time I want to make it out of grey linen. I think that will be really cute and village frock-y.

I changed the sleeves about 4 times, until I came up with something I liked. This little fluted edge seemed to fit the material of the dress a little better.

Every girl needs a little Russian doll to go with her Russian doll dress! Good thing I had a little extra!

(PS does anybody know the name of this fabric? I bought it from Michael Levine's in LA, but I didn't look at the name or maker.)

PS> See those pillows in the background. Yup, made those this week too! And they're fold over in the back! ok ok, you twisted my arm, here's a real picture...

My flute concert

For those who don't know, I play the flute. I have not played my flute actively since high school, I play in church sometimes, but that doesn't count as active playing. I decided to start taking lessons here at Christmas, because honestly, what else do you do in Pocatello? I am LOVING it! I take lessons from the principal floutist in the Civic Symphony and we are the same age, she is tons of fun and Madeline loves her because, of course, her name is Molly, like Molly McIntyre, the American Girl doll...duh!

She suggested that I join the Pocatello Flute Choir, and so I talked to the lady in charge, Patricia George. She asked me what my music credentials were and I about started to laugh! Does high school and church count? But to my complete shock, she not only knows my high school band teacher, the notorious Mr. Dinkins, but flies out to Bowie High School (his new high school) to teach master classes for his flutes every 3 months or so. She knows him so well that she is going to his daughters Bat mitzvah and eats at his house regularly! "Have I entered the twilight zone?" is completely what I was thinking. How can a woman from Pocatello know my band teacher from South Carolina? So she let me join their flute choir.

After 12 years of not really playing Pat hits me with the first flute part on a 16 page baroque piece!!! I have been practicing like crazy this past month and Madeline has had to "suffer" watching much more TV than I usually allow.

Tonight was the concert and not only did I make it through all the music (Boismortier's Concerito, A Newfoundland Folktale, and The Sound of Music) but I also played a smashing duet with my teacher, Molly. You can watch it below. I have not played in a concert since 1998 and boy, it feels good. I feel just like our high school has won the championship football game (not that I cared in the least about my high school football team) but you know the feeling! I almost turned to Adam and said "Let's go to Denny's!" afterward. But better than that, my wonderful husband gave me a dozen white roses at the end, to top it all off. What a sweetie!

(sorry our camera only records in 30 second intervals so there is a lot of breaks in this video because I spliced all of the shorter videos together--which kind of makes me sound bad, but just imagine I sound perfect;))..and yes, I have bangs now.