Alan's Dual Citizenship and Hannah's End-of-Year Performance

As I mentioned in the last post, Hannah's birthday week was very busy for our entire family. In fact, it included her dad becoming a U.S. citizen. The ceremony was held at the federal courthouse downtown on May 7, 2015, and our whole family came to support Alan, including my mom and dad.

 As someone who has worked in the public sector for the last few years, I have to say that it was nice to see all of the different groups who come out to help newly minted citizens navigate our lovely bureaucracy. As an example, Alan registered to vote before he left the building. Before he could do any of that, though, we had to wait (for a while) for everyone to be registered. There were roughly 100 new citizens in attendance.  

Waiting for the ceremony to start

Waiting with Grandma and Grandpa

During a break after everyone was registered.

The best photo I had during the break
Once we came back from the registration process, the ceremony began. There were two highlights for me. The first was the judge's speech. She was eloquent in her reminders to everyone in the room of the foundation of American values (and law). As an example, she articulated that "many may tell you that you must think or believe in a certain way. However, there is no single away to believe or think. We are here to protect your rights to freely think and believe as you wish." Well said.


The second highlight for me was when one of my colleagues, Diego Morales, who is a special advisor to the Governor, spoke. He is an immigrant himself, and he shared a bit of his story and then acknowledged the long journey it takes (especially as it relates to paperwork and fees) to arrive at the moment of citizenship. He captured my sentiment in that it was fantastic to celebrate this accomplishment with Alan and to never have to worry about dealing with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services again!


Two days later, we found ourselves at Hannah's celebratory end-of-year preschool program at the Children's Museum Lilly Theater. Moira was nostalgic about her time at the Children's Museum (which is very cute since it was only a year ago that she was there), and Hannah was very excited to share (finally!) her secret, as her teachers had asked her to make sure the performance was a surprise to us!

Moira, Hannah, and her friend Cassidy before the show.

Hannah before the show in her seat
Each preschool class has their teacher read a book, and the class acts it out. Hannah's class's book was The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. She was the "sun" as you can somewhat see below, and she did a lovely job as did the rest of the class!

Hannah, the sun (in the far left corner)

Her teacher, Ms. Weigand, reading the book. 

After all of the other classes shared their stories with the audience, it was time for the highlight of the show, where the entire preschool gets up on the stage and sings a song where the teachers have rewritten the lyrics to a popular song. The song this year was "Shooting Star." I have no idea what the original song is because I do not listen to enough popular music these days (apparently). However, I've included the rewritten lyrics at the end of the post. For me, it captures well the aspirations that we all have for our little people as they experience the world, and it was an emotional moment to watch Hannah up on that stage and to see how much she's grown. Check out the video below or click on this link. Although the video doesn't capture the entire song, it is a good one! And as you will see in the photos below, we thought Hannah shone in her performance.












Thanks to Aunt Kate and Uncle Scott for attending the performance and for taking most of the video and photos that you see!


"Shooting Star"

Close your eager eyes
relax and then 
count from 1 to 10
and open them.
All these happy thoughts
will bring us memories
of our preschool

Out on our playground
we're finally free
and you can stay up there
right next to me.
We are brave and strong
and we will climb up high 
every time

When the sun goes down
and the lights go out
then it's time for us to shine
brighter than a shooting star
shine no matter where we are
today!

Museum objects help
our minds expand
and the whole world is ours
to understand.  
We have all the books
 we ever want to read 
at our preschool.

Let your colors burn and brightly burst
into a million parts that all disperse.
Lighten up the world 
and know that you will always 
shine every time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Random Moments

Image
I am still playing catch-up from all the photos we took over the holidays, and I have a few random ones that I want to share! Here they are: Moira's first official haircut. She was so good. I wasn't sure she would sit still, but she did. The stylist did a great job of keeping her entertained! Moira walking around in her "shoes." Moira is fascinated with shoes. She loves taking our shoes on and off. And she loves walking around in adult shoes. We went to the Eiteljorg on Martin Luther King day and Moira had fun exploring the Wild Wild West. You may recall that Moira's 2nd birthday party was pretty entertaining because Moira fell asleep in her high chair, and then she was completely overwhelmed by everyone singing Happy Birthday. Since then, we have had lots of family and friend birthdays, and she has mastered singing Happy Birthday. At this point, she sings Happy Birthday to just about anyone and anything--babies at a restaurant, the light, the birds......
Read more

To Hannah, With Love

Image
Hannah, You, my darling baby girl, are growing up entirely too fast. By the time you were one, here’s what you were up to: On the Move Well, truth be told, you haven’t been that interested in moving.  You’re quite content to reach both arms in the air and look imploringly at mama or dada to pick you up. By the time you were 5 months, you rolled over, and by the time you were 10 months, you finally decided to crawl. Since then, you’ve become a very quick little girl on your knees, and you’re just starting to consider standing up and walking on your own. One of the cutest things you do is crawl while holding onto a baby stroller—it is quite a feat! I predict you’ll be about 16 months old before you walk, and that is fine with me. What did you say? Hannah, you are a talker. At a year old you have a few words in your vocabulary. They include the traditional words like “mama” and “dada.” Your very first word, however, was “Mo-ra” in honor of your big sister,...
Read more

Time flies!

Image
It's hard to believe Moira is already 5 weeks old (today)! Here 's a quick recap: October 14th, 9:32am, Moira Joan Mackintosh came into the world. She was a healthy 7 lb, 14 oz, and 20.5 inches long. My labor was fast, but delivery was slower than I would have liked. On the whole, neither Moira nor I can complain . October 16th, we came home. I discovered after a couple of sleepless nights that Moira would only sleep for about 15 minutes in her bassinet. She preferred sleeping on someone or sleeping in her little swing. The first few weeks went by in a complete blur. We were all trying to get used to a new kind of normal. Moira and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out her preferences for eating and sleeping. Alan spent a lot of time trying to help his girls get as comfy as possible. We've had fun discovering the little things about Moira. She has dimples and so much dark hair. She has the cutest high-pitched hiccups. She loves it when her Dad holds her and paces with...
Read more