One of our joys with our two girls is how much they LOVE music -dancing, singing, instruments!  And one of my ongoing sad things is that our U.S. family and friends aren’t nearby to witness this.  So this is one of those posts for those who I wish could be here to see some of these things live…

This morning was Olivia’s winter music recital at her pre-school.  This is my favorite of all the “public” events.  Watching thirty adorable children gleefully play an instrument that they have practiced over and over and over again for weeks, and hearing them sing their hearts out – it brings warm tears to my eyes even when it’s not my own kids!

Our five year old cherub was glowing today!  This year she worked on mastering the castinet (sp?) and the pianika.  (Sorry – I don’t know the english names/spellings for these things!)

In addition to It’s a Small World and We Wish you a Merry Christmas, they sang a song to the tune of “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory…” Struck me as a little funny….. as did this scene with the rest of our family, fully engaged in Olivia’s musical production:

Yes- they sing with all their hearts!  Here is a little clip.  (Olivia is on the far left).

In downloading today’s photos, I realized that I never fulfilled my sister’s request to post photos of our girl’s short dance recital in November.  This is Annie’s third year, and Liv’s first, in a weekly jazz/ballet dance class.  Although there is usually just one recital in March, this year they had the chance to dance one of their numbers at a community event several weeks ago.  This was, unfortunately, Olivia’s debut and finale, at least in Sanda.  Because of our upcoming move which will likely be the same week as their spring recital, we have had Olivia stop the dance  class (it will be too difficult for me to attend all the final rehearsals with her;  Annie is old enough to not need mom there for all of those times so she will continue until March). So, we made a big deal out of Olivia’s one special dance!  The girls were quite thrilled with the song choice and the costumes — they are based on a popular girl’s manga show on tv right now – you can find this character on all the lunch bags, bubble gum wrappers, pajamas, etc. in this country.   It was a LOT of pink!

Here is a small clip….