Rockettes Spectacular minus one

Because my grandmother was a Rockette 70 years ago I've grown up going to see their famous Christmas Spectacular Show many times. Lately they've started traveling so we don't always make the trip to Radio City in NYC. This year my grandmother bought tickets for the whole family months in advance so we could all go to the show nearby.

Then...

My dad spent weeks planning a surprise for my grandmother-backstage passes to meet the Rockettes, take pictures etc. Something she'd LOVE.

Then...

We put in the Rockettes DVD my grandmother bought us at the show last year to show Ella and get her all psyched up for the show. She was even more into this year than last year. And she knows that GG used to be the 3rd one from the end on the left :-)

Then...

The night before the big show and the big surprise...my grandmother fell and broke her hip.

Ugh. I cried when I got the phone call. It doesn't help that she'd been in the hospital exactly a week before for a totally unrelated problem. This poor woman! She was spitting mad to have to miss the show and asked every doctor around if they could just drug her up and let her go in a wheelchair. They said no way.

So, we all went to the show. And met some Rockettes. And called her a lot as she sat in the hospital. It was a great show but so sad to not have here with us! But as she reminded me in her New York/Yiddish accent, "it could be worse, doll"



Ella's sneaky face when she spotted cookies when we got backstage


Ella was terrified and would NOT go up for a picture by herself.

My Dad was SO excited!

My mom's friend, me and my mom had to get in on the photo op too

A little video they made for my grandmother (yes, they're holding the picture of her my dad brought to show them).

Hanukkah, O Hanukkah!

Because my dad is Jewish, I grew up celebrating Hanukkah and Chris and I have decided to carry on the tradition! Ella has been learning all about the Maccabees and the oil lasting for 8 days, menorahs, the shamash, latkes, and dreidels. However we had a little miscommunication and Ella was very disappointed when she saw that the candles don't burn for 8 days :-( It's been fun to point to God's miracles from so long ago to encourage all of us that He still does amazing things today!


A rousing round of "Hanukkah O Hanukkah, come light the menorah.."


After a crazy stressful day I spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of the menorah as the candles burned. It was so relaxing and fun to be creative. I think photography may actually become my new hobby. Like father like daughter I guess.





And finally, Ella singing "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" at my grandmother's house last week. Ignore her pulling up her tights at the beginning. She's 4. She doesn't quite get propriety ;-)

Sweetness

Blast from the Past...

My Sister in law Amy has an awesome post today about Ella and her cousins...check it out here

First Snow 2009!

It SNOWED! I am obsessively in love with snow so Saturday was pretty blissful for me. The weather people are almost always wrong about snow. Usually they overestimate how much we'll get and it just rains. But this time, they said rain turning to snow mid afternoon and we had 2 inches by 11am! Glorious mistake I tell you!

We had a blast throwing snowballs, catching flakes on our tongues and just running around like crazy people!

Chris created a Ziploc contraption to keep the camera dry :-)

It was a BEAUTIFUL day and some of the snow is still around! I'm fine with the weather deciding to be cold finally, as long as we keep getting snow!



And now two completely random pictures but too fun not to share...
#1. My 91 year old grandmother cracking up. I LOVE this woman!


#2. I've been told since college that I have a "look" that I give at times. I think this infamous death look has now been captured.

Happy December everyone!