Mandatory Holiday Cuteness.

Today was the bug's school holiday program. Her school is secular, so it was very definitely a holiday program and not a Christmas program.  Last year's Kwanzaa tunes, however, were conspicuous in their absence this year and all songs were in English which kept the grandparents from nudging the parents and saying, "What's wrong with 'Jingle Bells'?" 

The theme, very loosely, was "Peace," which apparently includes the kind of social-climbing reindeer love involved in the grand finale, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."  Despite the lack of coherent plot or unifying production concept, we had a wonderful time, and we loved seeing her up on stage belting out the holiday hits.

The bug's class sang "Suzy Snowflake." Below, we join the show already in progress.  The bug is wearing a green dress, and is the third one in from stage left. Spoiler alert: it's a bit long for non-relatives to enjoy every second of, but the final bow definitely demonstrates that the bug's yoga practice is finally paying off.

Kudos!

So the show I stage-managed last spring and summer, right up until I went into labor, has been nominated for an Ovation Award!

Ovations are basically Denver's local version of the Tony Awards, and our production of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) is up for Best Comedy.  I'm so proud of my boys. :)  One of the three actors is also up for "Best Year by an Actor," meaning that he turned in at least three remarkable performances in plays across the metro area, which is also pretty cool.  The suspense builds...I'll let you know after all the envelopes have been ripped open on December 28.

Our budding gourmand.

While other people monitor their turkey intake over the holidays, or pore over Christmas cookie recipes, our own little polliwog has entered the realm of the non-liquid.  

Surprisingly, we actually managed to document the initial event without having to fake a historical re-enactment. The ratio of rice consumption is about 3 parts in: 2 parts returned to sender, but we suspect the processing will kick in successfully in the weeks ahead.