Gingerbread and Nutcracker!

Busy, busy, busy!  I have so much catching up to do from the last week- the first week of the New Year has been packed.

Last Saturday (yup, over a week ago now!) - Grandma Pat came down for a little visit.  The girls had been waiting to put together their Gingerbread House with her.  It's become a yearly project - I think Pat is always the one who gets the privilege of building it with the girls.  ;-)





It's just the Trader Joe's one out of the box - this A-Frame has become a Christmas tradition around here! 




Baby Violet was a bit destructive, so she had to be removed from decorating!  Haha!  She took the sprinkles and used them to decorate our kitchen floor.  Even though it's been a week, I keep finding sprinkles on the floor.  I think we'll be finding them when Violet graduates high school. ;-)






It still looked pretty great even without the sprinkles:





So, that took the better part of the afternoon.  As you can see, all the girls had a wonderful time with Grandma - especially Baby Violet.  :-)




Then, in the evening, Paprika, Pat, and I all went to see Los Angeles Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker.  Mr. M stayed home with Ginger and Baby Violet.  I knew that Ginger (age 3) and Violet (age 1) would not be able to sit through a two hour performance.  I might try to take Ginger next year.  We shall see.

But, this year Paprika got to go on a special date with Grandma Pat and me.  It was fantastic!  It was Paprika's third year going to The Nutcracker  - and she did great.  I knew she would.  She would have sat through it 12 more times if we'd let her.

Here is the curtain right before the show started.  We were in the second row, center.  Best seats ever!





And here is Paprika with her little souvenier Nutcracker from the show.  I want to make it a tradition to get one every year we go - last year the Nutcracker was blue and gold.  She'll have quite a little collection before all is said and done.




So, that was our Nutcracker outing - a great success all around!  I have a lot of blog catching up to do this week - we had a very exciting New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!  Next week Paprika goes back to school and it's back to the routine.  What a great Winter Break it's been.  :-)

The End.