A Weekend of Celebrating at NWTL

The girls and I literally spent this entire weekend down at our children's theater, Northwest Theatre Lab, for two different holiday activities.  Part of the girls' commitment of being in the company cast of Matilda for ten months is to perform in the Christmas Jukebox which is a musical review of holiday songs.  After attending several extra rehearsals the past two weeks, the girls performed in an evening performance on Friday and a matinee and evening performance on Saturday.  They were gone for several hours on Friday evening and over eight hours on Saturday.  I purchased a ticket to go and watch them perform for the Saturday evening show.  They all did such a great job and it was so fun to see them perform in a more chorus concert type setting.

On Sunday, the three of us went back down to the theater to attend their annual, holiday ball.  Since I was asked to be in charge of the potluck dinner for over 100 people who attended, we got there 1.5 hours early to help set up and get ready for the massive amounts of food that came through the door at 6 p.m. when the party officially started.  The parents then enjoyed spending the evening eating, talking, and watching the kids play a massive White Elephant game and then sing and dance the night away.  It was so much fun to watch all of these drama kids at a party together as they just love singing and dancing their hearts out to the music that is played all evening long!

December 16th:

Ella singing with the rest of her Matilda cast.

A close-up of my cutie.

Lia singing in the back.

Another shot of Lia.  Since this was a holiday review, their songs had some choreography and were very entertaining to watch.

Another shot of Ella.

December 17th:

Since the Holiday Ball is a more formal affair, the girls and I all enjoyed getting dressed up in fancy dresses for the party.  Here are Ella and Lia posing in the photo area before the party started.

Mother and daughters.

After dinner, the theater directors led the group in a massive White Elephant gift exchange with 72 kids in total.  Here is Ella opening up the microscope that she ended up giving away for a microphone.

Lia showing off her bags of candy that she also ended up exchanging for a game.

Lia and several other kids passing their gifts to the right.

Our favorite musical director at NWTL just announced that he was leaving this past week to work full-time at a theater in Seattle.  Everyone was so heartbroken by this news as Nick is just loved by everyone!  Luckily, he came down from Seattle to attend our party and to say 'goodbye' to everyone.  Here he is taking a group photo with Lia and a bunch of her friends.

Lia posing with her two closest theater friends, Isabelle and Abby.

Ella really got into singing and dancing to many of the songs that were played after the White Elephant game was over.  Here she is with two of her favorite, older friends, Rosie and Maggie, up on the stage. It definitely was a fun night for the three of us!