"The Greatest Gift of All" (2010)

A friend of ours, Erin Twiss is our children's choir director as well as a wonderful musician and song writer.  She wrote this song, "The Greatest Gift of All" for our annual children's Christmas play. Each year, she chooses one child to sing the solo.  In 2010, Hannah was the soloist and when I was filming her, my camera died!!  I know, I felt like the worst mother in the world....didn't charge the camera before the children's Christmas play!  Arghhh!  Anyhow, a friend of ours videoed it and recently burned it onto a DVD for us.  I was so excited that I had to post it, even though it was 2 years ago.  So, Hannah would have been 7 years old at the time.  She played Mary in the play and got right up in front of a large group of people and sang so confidently :)   Although this is an old video, it's kind of fun to post it during the holiday season. 

FDR Day

Our homeschool group meets every other week and decided to have each child present a historical figure.  Mark chose to present FDR.  When we learned that he would be presenting on Election Day, he decided that a mock election would be fun to do with the group of kids.  We looked through what we had at home and asked friends to borrow certain things for their outfits.  My Aunt who passed away a couple of years ago gave us some items from that era...we found pince ne glasses for Mark & Hannah, borrowed a hat and wheelchair & cane from Nonna, coat from Dad and we made the long cigarette out of a straw (colored black) and paper to complete the look. Hannah borrowed the faux fur from her Nonna and we fixed her long hair in an Eleanor Roosevelt 'updo'!  She was perfect.

So here are the photos and different activities that went on...

President and First Lady Roosevelt

As the children entered the fellowship hall, the Roosevelts handed out candy and political campaign buttons for each child to wear. 

Then Mark conducted his presentation on FDR with dates of important events, photos and interesting facts.

Eleanor Roosevelt wheeled him around wherever he needed to go.

This a 'ration line' where the kids could ask for items for their families...toilet paper, food, soap, etc.

We set up an election booth where everyone got to vote for either FDR or Hoover.  Guess who won?

You guessed it, FDR! (aka Mark)