The McPherson Chronicles

Super Students for the month of January!! I'm so proud of these girls! They were so surprised and excited to be selected as the Super Students. Olivia also received a medal for her work on First in Math. It was such a fun morning to go to their assembly and see all their hard work be recognized. Their Spanish is phenomenal. Their reading and writing has really come along and Kevin and I are always blown away when they are talking or reading in Spanish. The best was the other night when Olivia got out an English book and just started reading like it was no problem. Kevin's face was pure astonishment. So yeah, reading and writing in both English and Spanish. Amazing!

This week was the Level 1C ballet exam. The girls were so excited and talking it up for weeks. They knew another teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth, was going to come in and observe them during class and then there would be conferences with parents to find out how they are progressing. Tuesday was the actual exam and we were sure to get there early (the girls must have reminded me 100x to be early) with their hair in perfect little buns with their new ballet hair bows. The other moms and I waited and waited wondering what was going on and how they were doing. This was the first ballet exams our kids have ever done! When the hour was over out they came as if nothing had happened. The girls said it went well and they did fine and that was that. Thursday night we met with their teacher to get the results. Most importantly, they passed and are moving up to Level 2 next week!! The girls were so excited to pass and get to move up to another class. Even more, they are excited because now they get to...

After all the hype of Nutcracker we had a relatively low-key Christmas. It was filled with movies, hot chocolate, family visits, baking, eating and enjoying doing nothing. We passed a cold and cough around for a few days and Lucy ended up with an ear infection but it was all pretty minor. We spent Christmas eve at Katie and Brett's house with the McPherson cousins. The kids had fun baking and decorating sugar cookies and then exchanging presents. We were even lucky enough to get them all in a photo! Christmas morning we slept in a bit and then opened presents before heading to Mass. We came home, had brunch and played with all the new toys before heading over to my parents for the afternoon and evening. Santa brought the girls Kindle tablets and Andrew got a little laptop of his own. Santa left extra presents at Grandpa & Grandma's with Lucy's singing Else doll and Olivia's Puppy Surprise (25th Anniversary Edition - as s...

We survived our first year of Nutcracker! It was a whirlwind week for us but looking back now that's it has come and gone, it was totally worth all the late nights, crazy driving back and forth, missed school, required volunteer hours and endless make-up applying/removing. The girls loved every minute of it and I was so proud of how they handled the whole thing. They never complained about the rehearsals or schedule and were sad when it was all over. They are already talking about what they want to be next year! I still contend they were the best/cutest Mother Ginger's children up there :) Just so I remember what exactly this commitment required: Saturday rehearsals from September through December Tech Week Tuesday: 5:30 - 7 pm Wednesday: 7 - 10 pm Thursday:  outreach performance: 10 - 12 pm, rehearsal 7 - 10 pm Friday: outreach performance: 10 - 12 pm Saturday: performance: 10 - 12 pm, 7 - 9 pm Sunday: performance: 10 - 12 pm, 7 - 9 pm Just a few of the milli...