Nutcracker weekend

Elizabeth danced in her first Nutcracker last weekend. She had been rehearsing since September and did such a great job -- we are so proud of her! She was a candle angel:

She had so much fun with this and wants to do it again next year. Our family has gone to see the Nutcracker for the past several years, so I think it was really fun for her to actually perform in it! Here she is backstage:

Our whole family went to see her perform in the Saturday night show. I volunteered to work backstage during her second performance at the Sunday matinee. As a volunteer with no discernible talents (like sewing, for example) I was assigned to be a generic "chaperone;" i.e. babysitter. You know, little boys kind of have the reputation of being wilder than little girls, but whenever I'm around a large group of little girls, they are totally insane. Is it me? During my gig, I needed to track down ice for one little girl (head bonk incurred during the course of flinging herself around) {as an aside: you should never do anything with a large group of children without knowing exactly where to find (1) a bathroom, and (2) ice}. I also had to scrub off eye shadow from the cheeks of a little 5 year old who tried to apply her own makeup and kind of looked like she'd been in a bar brawl. And then another little girl (a cherub) started sobbing upon being falsely accused of sitting in the seat that another cherub had been sitting in. I had watched the superb performance the night before, and seriously had NO IDEA that there was such drama going on backstage. I guess props to the directors are in order!

Right when we needed a little comic relief, Mother Ginger came to visit:

This was really such a fun experience for Elizabeth (and the rest of us!)