Ava Kate's Christmas Program

December 8th seemed to be THE night of Christmas activities, Ava Kate's Christmas program, my work party and Justin's work party. Our plan was to make an appearance at all 3 but as so often happens our plans didn't exactly go as planned so we only made it to two. First up was Ava Kate's Christmas program which of course was the one event that night we knew we weren't going to miss. I didn't have high expectations for her to sing since at the Grandparent's Day program her and most of her classmates didn't sing at all but just stood there with looks of shock on their faces. She had been singing "Jingle Bells" at home for weeks and her teacher had said she was one of her loudest singers in class but on stage she sometimes would freeze up.

We had talked a lot about how we wanted to hear her sing. And one of her favorite pretend things to play at home is pretending she is on stage performing as "Consa" one of her made up characters who likes to sing and dance in front of the mirror in mommy's room which is the "stage". So I told her just pretend your "Consa" up there to which she replied "And do this?" as she twirled around. I said "Sure, you can twirl up there if you like." I guess maybe our pep talks worked because she did great at her program. She smiled and sang and did all the little hand motions, it was precious and this mama was quite proud!

After the program we dropped Nana and the kids off at our house and we headed to my work party. It was fun to visit with everyone since I've not been at work in over a month. The highlight of the night was when the NSN Eagle award was presented to one of my employees, Debbie, who has been fighting breast cancer the last several months and continues as she begins radiation treatments later this month. Unfortunately we were running behind all night and so we didn't get to make an appearance at Justin's work party this year.