All About Abby

To finish off 2013, I only have December happenings left. That leaves Abby's birthday and Christmas! To try and keep current year activities in the correct year, while doing a post about Abby's birthday, I'm also going to include her school programs that have occurred since the beginning of the school year. That would include a couple Honor Choir concerts, and her 3rd Grade PTA program. And we'll wind it all up with the birthday girl.

 

So first, Abby's elementary has an Honor Choir that is only for 3rd and 4th graders who would like to be apart of it as long as their grades are kept up. Abby has been looking forward to being apart of the choir since last year when we first heard about it. She loves to sing still, she looks forward to the weekly rehearsals, and she spends a lot of extra time at home practicing whatever songs they are working on. One time she forgot her folder at home which included her choir music and she was so distraught that her teacher emailed me asking to bring it to school for her (I was going to just have her deal with the consequences of leaving it at home) because Abby was so concerned that she would get kicked out of choir if she didn't have it. They do have a three strikes rule, but she wouldn't have had any strikes, but she was so devastated worrying about getting just one. This is how much she loves being in choir and how seriously she takes it.

 

Their first performance was in October and they sang some Halloween songs, which included some interesting song choices. The two I'm referring to are Thriller and Little Shop of Horrors. I thought it was interesting because I'd hear Abby practicing both songs at home, and had to laugh because those are songs from my childhood. We also took some time talking about them (like the Michael Jackson video and the Little Shop of Horrors movie) just so she'd know what she was singing about. I just thought it was funny that 3rd and 4th graders were singing these songs, but they enjoyed it and they performed them well along with all the other numbers.

 

They performed less than two weeks later at a Christmas Fair in downtown El Paso, which happened to be headed by Abby's homeroom teacher. They sang with another elementary choir and performed Christmas songs at this event.

 

Here's Abby with some of her choir friends while they waited to go on stage. She wanted me to include their names, so from left to right they are: Katherine, Abby, Lanie, Devry, and Sergio.

 

This is Abby and two of her classmates, Abbigail and Connor, with their teacher, Mrs. McIntosh, who was running the event like I mentioned. 

 

The final Honor Choir performance was their Christmas program held in the middle of December. I was totally impressed because the performance consisted of two halves. The first was familiar Santa Claus-type songs, while the second half was more spiritual songs about Baby Jesus. Considering this is at a public school, I was happy to hear they were singing those songs as well. And hearing from other Texas friends around the state, it must be a Texas thing that still allows public schools to do that, which we were proud to be a part of.

 

Since this is a post about Abby, I've decided to include this self-portrait of Abby that I saw on the wall in her hallway when I was there for Parent/Teacher conferences. I've enlarged it so you can hopefully see some of the words that she used to describe herself for this project which I thought were awesome. I loved it and had to have a picture of it to remember. Now, in this post, we'll have it forever. In case they are too hard to read, it says: "I am:" a great dancer, exciting, brave, beautiful, smart, talented, cute, a musician, fashionable, sweet, and an awesome daughter. Definitely a keeper.

 

Abby's 9th birthday was on a Thursday this year, the second to last day before the Christmas break.

 

Abby begged for me to take her class donuts on her birthday and since we weren't doing parties this year, I figured we could oblige. Her teacher had a fabric birthday cake for her to hold while her class sang her happy birthday. Every kid was super excited to get a donut. 

 

Without a party, we had planned on just eating out as a family to celebrate her birthday until we found out that her 3rd Grade program was going to be the evening of her birthday. So, we did eat a quick dinner at Texas Roadhouse (Abby's pick) and then rushed over to the school for her concert. Their theme was Beatles songs, so they had tye-dye shirts, peace tattoos, and we decided to braid her hair.

I videoed the performances, so the only picture I got at the school was when they were backstage about to go on. Each class sang a different Beatles song and danced while singing. Abby's class sang Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, and they had a final number with all the classes singing together, All You Need is Love. It was a really fun concert.

 

After running around from donuts, dinner, and the concert, we finally settled at home long enough for Abby to open a few presents. Some of her birthday presents included a karaoke CD, a Snap-It car, and clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons, Monsters University, and a board game among other things from the family.



She had a fun day and was happy to let everyone know it was her birthday and that she was now 9 years old.

Happy Birthday Abby!!