Christmas On The Radio

Amy and I both enjoy the theatre. While neither of us has seen a Broadway show, Amy has seen several shows in London and I have seen fine performances at other cities with a tradition of stage excellence such as Khabarovsk, Russia and Louisville, Kentucky.


We also like to see shows in Elgin, Illinois and it's little sister city, Chicago. Amy will sometimes give her family members the gift of going to a show. Last year, she bought tickets for her Mom and Aunt to see a stage production of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", performed as a radio play. Say that with a cookie in your mouth!


I mean it! Go get a cookie! I'll wait.



Amy's Mom and Aunt both enjoyed the show and I thought it might be a nice one for Amy and I to attend at some point.



So, this summer, when I saw the 2009 schedule for an Elgin theatre, I was glad to see they were putting on "It's A Wonderful Life" on December 5th, I bought 2 tickets for the 2:00 show and decided to surprise Amy with them as an early Christmas present.

By definition, as a surprise, Amy did not know about it beforehand, In retrospect, I should have done some sort of save the date thing. Amy scheduled Lucy's Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party at the exact same time and I didn't notice the double booking until we had already sent out the invites.

Providentially, there were two shows and I was able to switch our tickets to the late show without giving away the surprise to Amy. On Saturday after Lucy's party, Amy and I went out to a dice dinner and then I took her to the play.

The premise of the show is that it's Christmas time in the 1940's and a radio station is about to do a live performance of "It's A Wonderful Life." A snow storm keeps the majority of the cast from getting to the station. We are told at the onset, that if the show does not go on, the radio station will fail. This forces 2 of the support staff and 2 of the actors to play all the roles and to do the sounds.

What followed was a delight for all in attendance. It's one thing to hear a drama on the radio, but to watch actors literally having a conversation with themselves as they play two roles is astounding. Amy especially liked watching the actors make use of facial expressions and other body language while performing their lines. I liked watching the actors running from one mike to another or to the sound table to make sure the scene got properly executed. It was very interesting to be both behind the scenes and in the audience at the same exact moment.

Next Time: Dude! Where's Your Manners?

74

Jeanne and Lucy share a birthday!

My mom and my daughter were born on December 6th. In different years of course, in fact, in different centuries!

This year they are both celebrating significant birthdays. My Mom is turning 70 and Lucy is turning 4. Now 4 may not seem like a significant birthday, to you, but at our house it has quite a bit of significance. It is affectionately know as the Chuck E. Cheese Birthday.

When Emma turned 4 we had her first kid party at Chuck E. Cheese's. We did the same thing when Charlie turned 4, two years later. 4 is the perfect age for Chuck E. Cheese and Lucy has been looking forward to it for a long time. The party is actually today, for logistical purposes. But Lucy is cool with that.

My older sister flew in from Virginia last night and we had a family surprise party for my Mom at a nice restaurant. The kids did not come, just my parents, their kids and spouses. It felt odd to have Keith's wife there without Keith. While his absence was palpable, it was still nice to celebrate Mom's birthday as a family.

Happy Birthday Mom! Happy Birthday Lucy! On the day that some celebrate St. Nicholas, it is great to celebrate what a gift you both are to me!

Six Word Saturday is brought to you by Cate at Show My Face Dot Com. Head over to see more six words than you can stick a shack at.

Next Time: Christmas on the Radio

And The WInners Are (Not Me) . . .

It's time for Three Things This Thursday . . .

1. HSBA Winners.

I was nominated for the 2009 Home School Blog Awards at the HSBA Post. I was nominated for Best Homeschool Dad Blog and since the name of my blog is Home School Dad, I thought I was a shoe in.

My victory was not meant to be, as Families Again took that particular category. Congratulations to him, and all the other winners. In honor of all the winners, I will have links to all of them on my blog until the end of the year. I am only halfway through putting them up now, so if you won and don't see your blog, a link will be up soon.

2. Snow!

The kids were a little disappointed when they woke up this morning and there was no snow. They had heard, (or read or seen) a weather report that said it would snow overnight. They don't know what we know that weather forecasters are basically guessing! Well, they guessed a few hours late and it is now snowing. The kids are playing in it now as I had some light yard work for them to do as well. Let me look out the window and see how they are at multi tasking. Not bad, better than I multi-task.

They are excited as this is the first snow of the season here's an as it's happening picture of kid's playing in snow.

I know you see the kids playing, but where's the snow? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The snow is blowing in the wind. It's almost time for them to come in for hot chocolate, so I'll move on to ....

3. Carving out Time

Today after school Charlie and I are going to carve a bar of soap with a dull knife as practice for how to handle the pocket knife he is going to use at cub scouts tonight. Let's see that's Cub Scouts tonight, dinner plans tomorrow, A party and an outing Saturday, Church and Lucy's Birthday Sunday, Awana Monday, Bible Study Tuesday. Wow! We are busy! How do we carve out time as a family among the business of the holidays and just plain everyday life?

Amy heard an idea on the radio of reading one chapter from the book of Luke each day in December. So at dinner each evening after opening the advent calendar, we read a chapter.

How do you carve out time during the Holidays? I would love to hear from you. Consider putting in on a post and linking it below to Three Things Thursday.

Next Time: 74!

My First Tutorial!

You Can Do Better Than This!

Tutorials to show that some people are less crafty than others.

When my wife was teaching two elementary school children and one preschooler at home, it was pretty easy for her to see that crafts work very well for these age groups. The problem is that very few people are less crafty than my wife. Now that we have switched roles and I teach the aforementioned elementary kids and preschooler, it is extremely easy to see that I am one of those few souls less crafty than her!

This doesn't stop me from trying! Last week I was reading a post at Sandwichink.com when I came across several ideas for making Advent Calendars.

I decided that as a class we could make an advent calendar ourselves. You can also try it yourself. Here is what you'll need . . .

1 piece poster board 24-25 index cards or 3-4 pieces construction paper, markers, scissors, tape, glue stick.

Not Pictured: Foil Star stickers, colored pencils and pencil.


Step 1: Fold 3-4 pages of construction paper in half left to right and then fold in half top to bottom then fold again in half top to bottom.

Step 2: Cut out pieces.


Result: you will have 24-32 pieces a little smaller than the size of 3" by 5" index cards. 3 sheets is perfect if you are doing a 24 day calendar and not planning on making any mistakes. We used 4 sheets!


Note: Step 1 and 2 are not needed if using index cards.

Step 3: Fold cards in half lengthwise.

Step 4:. Color inside cards with Christmas or any other pictures. (My students had to include at least some bunnies and Star Wars pictures.)

Step 5. Number the fronts of the cards in pencil and then color with colored pencil. It's as easy as ...

Step 6: When all cards are colored and numbered place on poster board how you want them displayed. This way you can get a preview how it will look before applying the glue.


Step 7: Glue cards in place on poster board.



Step 8. To close cards use tape or stickers. We used green and red star stickers. One sticker did not seem enough to close flap so we used 1 green and 1 red on each flap.



Step 9: When calendar looks something like this . . .


(Cute 8 year old not included)


Tape calendar and display in prominent place in house.




Now that the Calendar is complete it's time to put it to use. Beginning December 1st have a family member open 1 tab.




So, that's our craft and we're sticking to it. I want to hear about your crafts especially if you are as craft challenged as our family is.



Next Time: And the Winners are (Not Me) . . .