More Performances

Not only did Anneka have performances the week of Christmas, but Ike, Ella, and Leif did, too!  Ike's was at his preschool on December 24th and he was so cute!

 
         The kids danced and sang around the tree and were a part of a little play with Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter, Snow Girl.



     It's traditional for kids to dress in costumes for New Years programs, and Ike recently inherited this knight costume from some boys on our team who have outgrown it.  He was quite dashing.  By the end, though, he was so hot that he began taking off piece by piece.  The program was 1.5 hours and he kept asking me when it would be over!  =)

 
     Then to get a piece of candy, the kids had to say a poem to Grandfather Frost.  I'd forgotten about this tradition, and Ike doesn't know any poems in Russian!  He was very shy, but he also really wanted the candy.  I told him to just say the words of "Silent Night" in English.  He did, and it worked!  All of the kids got hand-picked toys from their teachers.  Ike's gift was a keyboard to play on!  He loves it and plays it often.


     Christmas morning we awoke to temperatures of -40 (it's the same in Farenheit and Celcius).  He hadn't anticipated this.  Normally we keep our van in a garage because we share it with other teammates.  But we chose to keep it close by beacause the 25th was a very busy day for us with Ella's morning kindergarten, a needed trip to the immigration office, Leif and Ella's performance, and Anneka's three performances.  We had already decided to celebrate Christmas as a family on the 26th, and I'd asked people to pray for our hearts to be filled with peace and joy in this busy time.  Well,  needless to say with the frigid temperatures, our engine was frozen solid!!  I called a taxi for taking Anneka to the theatre building, and all of the taxis were busy because everyone's car was frozen!  Thus began an extra-busy day for us with not only all of our things but the added stress of trying to get the car heated.

      The very cool thing, though, is that we knew people were praying for us and we really did have peace and joy!!  I called a guy to come and warm up our van.  It took him 2 hours to come (because of all of the other frozen cars) and then he tried for 4 hours and still didn't get it started.  He returned later and finally got it started at 11:30 at night!  Here's Ike, my little buddy, waiting with me in the van for the guy to come back after getting a better heater.  He insisted on wearing his new safety goggles that he got at our team Christmas party the night before. =)



     Here's Ella after preschool, checking out the ice decorations they put out for the holidays.  It's way too cold to make snowmen, but they made these out of blocks of ice.  I brought her home for lunch and to get her all ready for her performance! 


     I wasn't sitting where I could get a picture of all of the girls from Ella's class, but they did a "Malvina" dance and were the beautiful puppet girl from Pinnocio.  They were all so cute in their blue hair and dresses.

     Ella loved being a Malvina and it was so fun to watch her!

     One special surprise was that Leif was Grandfather Frost!  He had a lot of lines and most of them were in poetic form so he couldn't just "wing it".  He did a great job.  Besides his lines, he danced and played games with the kids.  I got a video of Ella the moment she realized it was Leif.  Her eyes lit up and she got a huge smile.  Then she told the boy next to her, with delight, "That's my Papa!" 


     While the kids in Ella's class were getting their gifts of big boxes of candy, Ike and I got our picture taken with the star. I had a lot of fun watching parents faces as Leif played out his role.  They all had big smiles as they watched him.

     I noticed that Ella's class was getting their picture but Ella didn't have her wig!  I raced into the other room, grabbed it, set it on her head and snapped this picture.  But by then the kids were done posing, I think.  =)

     Here's Ella telling Leif that she knew he was Grandfather Frost.  So cute.

     So even though our actual Christmas day wasn't exactly traditional, and it was kind of crazy with the cold, no van, and everything going on, it was rich in blessings!