Just a few pics from a proud momma…
The girls with our beautiful Mouse Queen
Dancing Mice… Abby is in the middle…
Waiting on the Mouse Queen to call for battle!
Yes we are exhausted… and I slept until 12:45 this afternoon… but the look of sheer joy on Abby’s face made all of the car pooling, Sunday afternoon practices, and complaining about bobby pins totally worth it.
Well, yes… Houston did get a good bit of snow yesterday… but for some strange weather reason, it was mostly south of us… We had flurries most of the day and we took every chance we had to play in it! It didn’t “stick” to anywhere but our hair, but it was still a fun day for all of us :-)
This is Abby’s first year in The Nutcracker. She’s a member of The Woodlands Dance Co. They don’t allow camera flashes in the actual show, but we could take all of the pics we wanted to at rehearsal last night. And because I’m such a braggy Momma here are a few shots of my little mouse :-)
Abby is center line… actually looking at the camera ;-)
Awaiting the Mouse Queen… She’s 3rd from the left…
She’s in the two shows this Sunday, but she’s already got her summer ballet classes all planned out so that she can be Clara one day (“when she’s old”). My baby loves her some ballet!
It’s going to be a long day with morning rehearsals and the two shows, but so much fun to watch! I’m so glad my parents are braving the cold weather to travel over to see her.
If you have a local dance company, go out and support their efforts!
Meet Russell. Russell is our Elf on the Shelf elf. Simple and really cute idea… the story says that your elf watches over you during the day then reports back to Santa in the night… When you wake up the next morning, your elf will be in a new location. I LOVE that this little quirky elf named Russell has my kids making their beds, picking up their rooms, and being super over-the-top sweet to each other. They even SHARED last night… I know. Crazy, huh?
OK, so I’ve been bugging so many of my friends lately… I wanted to get a new camera, but I didn’t want to start lugging around a suitcase just to take shots of the girls at dance. I tweeted about it, I begged for information on Facebook… I pestered my friend in carline at school… and today I finally made the decision. I follow ScottBourne on Twitter. He works with Photofocus and always has great tips. I narrowed down my choices to a Nikon D3000 with a smallish lens, one of the Canon Rebels, and a TOL point and shoot from Canon. The G11. Ahhh… I am SO glad I asked some pros! Scott suggested this little beauty and I finally drove to Best Buy this morning. I looked online and shipping was ridiculous… because you know, I have to have it RIGHT NOW instead of waiting for the 2-5 day shipping… The Nutcracker IS this weekend, you know… (work with me… I’m trying to justify buying my own Christmas present here)… I charged her up and took a before and after new camera shot to show the difference…
The shot on the left is from my Panasonic Lumix TZ3 and the right is from the G11. Both were on Low light portrait scenes, at 800 speed, with the same white balance, no flash-just my dining room overhead light… And neither of the pictures were doctored on the computer…Do you see all of that noise on the Lumix picture? And the washed out color? I think I made a good decision on the upgrade, No? :-) See there…. TOTALLY JUSTIFIED…
…to be pretty. This year, that’s all me! I just love these colors together… and lucky me, Target and everybody else helped supply my craving!
Here’s a closer shot…
It’s super fun, and for us, that’s all that matters! We also put up a smaller table top tree in the family room for all of those keepsake style ornaments that we all have. I really like this set up, with the big tree in the front office bay window. It keeps the living room a little less crowded and I’ve already had a few people nosy enough to stop by and ask what was blue in the window. I’m sure the neighbors are all thinking I’m the crazy lady with the blue tree :-)
I just had to post up this picture of my poor little Christmas wreath… Believe me… I KNOW it looks terrible. I just had no inspiration on Saturday after discovering my door piece was too faded to put up. Sad, isn’t it?
A friend told me to drop by Z Gallerie to take a look at all of their aqua colored decorations. My tree is a hot mess of Red and Aqua. I’m no florist… and BOY can you tell. But at least my wreath looks better…
So what unusual colors do you like this year? I’ve done brown, lime, aqua, purple, hot pink, pear green, lime green… not at the same time, of course. But it really makes it a lot of fun to plan each year!
