The Nutcracker

On December 16th, my family and I (including my mom) drove down to Boston, MA to see The Nutcracker ballet at the Boston Opera House. I loved driving through the city to see all the lit up buildings and beautiful Christmas lights. It looked so festive! Juliette was in awe as we drove through one of the city's tunnels. I think that must have been her favorite part...until we walked through the doors of the opera house. What a piece of work this place was. Luckily, I was able to capture a few shots of the foyer. Cameras were not permitted into the auditorium itself, so I captured as many as I could before hand. I could have spent hours looking at the architecture and the various pieces of artwork. It was like a museum. Just mesmerizing!

The performance was exquisit! I cannot say enough about the orchestra, the choreography, and the costumes! All were so mentally stimulating I found myself fighting off dreams about the Nutcracker all night as I was trying to sleep. I'm so thankful that my family and I were able to experience such a wonderful piece of work!

Juliette has been asking for her very own Nutcracker for the past two Christmas's. Finally someone (Nini) gave in. Juliette was so happy to have her very own Nutcracker to sit with her throughout the performance.

I had a wonderful time, thank you mom for the wonderful Christmas gift!

Juliette's New Pose

I captured a couple of these precious photos of my lovely 5 year old on our way to the Boston Opera House.

It definatly took Juliette a minute or two to warm up to the camera, a rare occasion for Juliette. Although my husband has some other thoughts about this strange behavior:

"I think the experience of going to a fine cultural event where champagne is served in the concessions booths went to her head a little bit."

Happy Birthday to my Husband

Who took his last final of the semester today AND who is half way done with law school!

Congrats and good work!

The Lawson's Christmas Tree

I called around this year looking for the perfect tree (by perfect I mean inexpensive). Last year we paid $45.00 for our Christmas tree and ours was one of the least expensive on the lot. Most were in the range of $60-80 dollars, YIKES!

At the time, I thought it was a lot of money to pay for a Christmas tree because in Maine you can buy a decent looking tree for $20.00 or go into the woods and cut one down for free!

I called a local farm and was quoted anywhere from $5-100 dollars, but they weren't open past 4 p.m. and I'd have to cut it down by myself because my husband doesn't come home that early.

So after some unsuccessful attempts to find a less expensive tree, I returned to the place we went last year...the $45 dollar tree place. We looked around and around but couldn't settle on one. There was always something wrong with one of the trees. Too fat, too tall, too bare.

It appeared that the trees this year weren't as good as the one we had purchased last year.

And it wasn't all in my head either. I asked the owner about it and he said that last year he had put in his order too late and only had the Premium Grade A trees (the best, I guess). And this year he had Grade B and C and some A's. But the A's cost $80.00+

We finally chose a tree...a 10 footer almost! But we had to cut it down quite a bit to get all the dead orange needles off the bottom. It was $40.00. But the owner did the grooming himself. It turned out to be a good size tree, not too expensive, and just the right size and shape.

Did you know that it snowed?

She did!

A White Elephant Christmas

What did you get at the White Elephant Christmas Party?

Old Starwars DVDs?

An Ooh la la Book?

A window?!

Didn't we just see these?!

Coasters? ....hey who took the fart machine?!

Today I found this...

....lurking in Juliette's bedroom. It's been missing since before Halloween. I actually think it was since early October. It was the first Jack-be-Little I bought for Juliette. When she couldn't find it, I went out and bought another one.

It was actually pretty cool. I couldn't wait for Juliette to return home from school so I could show her. We made it into a science lesson. It was great. She compared it to the time when Sid the Science Kid left his sandwhich in his lunchbox for a really long time and it shriveled up like this pumpkin. It was hard to part with, I almost wanted to save it until next Halloween, but I figured the mold would pose a health risk it I kept it around.