Christmas concert I

This morning Andrew went to pick up a little red Christmas dress for Zoë (from the Buy Nothing Group, of course), but the kids had already started getting ready to go to the retirement home where our homeschool group was performing. Phoebe and Zoë wore the matching jumpers that Miriam made last year and I didn't realize how excited Phoebe was about matching with Zoë because when I walked up the stairs holding a pretty, new dress that was very obviously Zoë's size, she got very worried. 

"No! No! No!" she commanded, waving her little hands wildly. "Put 'way! Put 'way! Matching woes! Matching woes! Matching woes! Me! O-zee! Matching woes!"

"Oh, are you wearing matching clothes with Zoë?" I asked. "That's okay. This dress isn't for today. I was just going to show it to Zoë. She's not going to wear it. You can still match, okay?"

"Kay."

So, here we are at the nursing home, waiting for everyone else to arrive...with Phoebe and Zoë in their matching outfits:

There was a fox-themed Christmas tree in the hallway, which Zoë was excited about because she loves foxes, so Phoebe was excited about the tree as well because she was Zoë's little buddy today. When I had to sneak out of our performance to take Phoebe potty, she saw the fox tree again and said, "Fox Kiss-mas tee. Fox Kiss-mas tee. Take my picture. Fox Kiss-mas tree."

So we tried taking a couple of pictures before we left, but Phoebe couldn't focus on the picture-taking itself because the tree was too interesting.

The performance itself was a little...haphazard...but the resident who had stayed after their lunch to listen to our performance seemed to enjoy it. We sang a couple of songs together in a large group—one with a piano accompanying us and one with our little ukulele choir accompanying us—and then we let the kids share pieces they'd been working on themselves. We had many piano pieces, a guitar piece, and two of the boys from my ukulele class prepared a ukulele duet! Our ukulele choir (including Benjamin) played Carol of the Bells, Zoë played the Christmas piece she'd been working on, and Miriam chose a Christmas song to play this morning (and basically just sight-read for the performance). Then we sang two carols all as a group (our ukulele choir played along with one of the songs). 

I didn't really catch any video because I was too busy moving instruments and children around (and running Phoebe potty—we missed Zoë's entire performance...but I heard it from the bathroom and she played beautifully).

That's one performance down and...two more to go? I think. Maybe three more. I can't even remember!