Aladdin Jr

Ada has been working for months with some of the other 6th graders on Aladdin Jr.  They've done a marvelous job.  They had to shorten parts out of the play because they had 2 months less to work on it than had been originally planned for but they got it done.  Ada was sad because she got cut from several scenes, but she still ended up with one speaking part and as part of the ensemble.  She originally was going to be the person that does the introduction and more of the dancing in the numbers.  It's been really cute hearing her belt out Aladdin songs in the shower and around the house.

My parents, Janelle and Laurel all came to support her.  We couldn't take any videos though because of Disney copyright laws.

parenting

Right now parenting is itchy. Ada was in charge of the laundry, pulled clothes out of the drier still wet and put them on top of the clean clothes which in turn molded, left a wet load in the drier, and a wet load in the washer. So instead of 4-5 batches of clean laundry I'm now itching all over as I rewash all of them. (My mold allergy is so fun). And I won't get a shower until 9 tonight because I've got daycare and Ada's play to go to...... Itch itch itch.

last two weeks

For Valentine's day I left the kids to decorate their own boxes for school.  Sam ended up with a mailbox, Evelyn a blue horse, Ada a taco and Seth a Minecraft guy.

We got to go to the park with Grandma and Grandpa last Friday.  That was fun.  It's starting to get warm enough.  We played baseball, played on the playground, and ate food.

I've had two babies in daycare lately.  Sam and Ada have been helping me intermittently hold babies if they're sad at the same time.  Sam loves it.  Ada tolerates it.  Both of them get paid for their services and they both like that.  

My friend Robyn stayed with us for about a month while she was between boats. (She works on cruise lines and was between boats.  For her birthday she invited Mesh and I to go to the Grid with her.  Basically it's adult version of Mario Kart.  The cars go about 40mph.  It was fun.  I was a little nervous, but honestly it was pretty fun.  I felt a little claustrophobic in the helmet but I worked through it and had fun.

Jer put together this bunk bed given to us by my Uncle Son.  It's very sturdy and safer than the one they had.  It's shorter so that I can change Seth's sheets without Jer's help.  And Son made it, so that's fun.

These three pictures were taken during the Face2Face last Sunday.  I know I'm in the Youth but I never know when these are going to happen.... Jer always knows, so we don't miss them.

We're getting ready for my niece, Emma's, baby shower.  She wanted a dragon theme.  I thought that we have such great artists in our family and I wanted to include them so I'm paying Ada and Kate to illustrate the invitations and maybe I'll print a couple out big for the wall.  This was Ada's cute little dragon.  I love it.

This one was an Ada capture.  We were loving the warm weather on Saturday and Ada took my camera out to take pictures of the cat.

Robyn's birthday group.

Seth had a school field trip.  We're so lucky to have great places for the kids that are so close to the school.  They went to the play about the jungle by Rudyard Kipling called "Just So".  Their class walked a block to the theater and had a blast.  This is his teacher, Miss Johnston.

Miss Evelyn

Miss Evelyn's dance class had a parent night where the showed us what things they've been learning in class.  My biggest take away was that Evelyn likes it, but needs to try to have more fun with it.  She gets very distracted, but when she's paying attention she looks marvelous.  She's a little more clumsy that her class just because of her skewed foot and not paying attention times.  She has cute little friends in there with her.  She also will have amazingly strong feet I think.  I'm so glad that we caught her skewed feet before we did with Ada.  She has more time to work the muscles.  I think that she'll have more fun now that they'll be working on an actual ballet for the next three months.  They're going to be putting on the Labyrinth in June.  I'm looking forward to it.

This was the cutest thing.  Every time she caught our attention, she flashed us the I love you sign.  This is one skill she does so well.... she keeps her foot curled right around her leg perfectly.

old hearing

I was sick not long ago. I was laying on the couch and Ada just got home from school. She told me to sit up and she was going to give me a back massage. My old ears heard, "Shut up. I'm going to give you a massage."

Surprise

I was tired after an 11 hour work day and I was just scrolling through facebook.  I wasn't really paying attention and this picture made me pause.  It took me a minute to recognize it, but this is the boat that I would take back and forth across the fjord to the members on the other side.  Apparently it was used for about 20 years, re-allocated to another location when the bridge was built, in service again after the earthquake and is finally being retired for good.  That was a blast from the past.

My apartment was about where the beach starts on the left hand side of this picture and about a block in.

This week

This week I had two babies.  It worked alright, just busy.  Their nap schedules were offset so that I really had only one awake at a time.  Seth is doing well with the daycare.  Sometimes he feels up in arms about little things, but we work it out and he often helps me with other things.... checking on kids while I change diapers, helping get dishes for lunch time, playing with kids.  He's growing up a lot.

Lia had her choir concert.  It was spectacular.  The did a classic rock concert.  Everything they sang was something that I would love to sing along with.  

Ada and I went on a date.  Her scalp has been really struggling lately, so we went to my friend Mesh and she got a scalp treatment and a cute hair style.  I'm hoping that Ada gets enough interest in her hair to take care of it herself.  When it's brushed and done, she looks so grown up and pretty.  I get it though.... who wants to spend a half hour of their day doing their hair when there's other stuff to do.  

Seth invited us over to see the blue moon through his telescope.  It was too cloudy to see, but we had fun eating dinner, chatting and watching a movie that I think was called Hunt for the Wilderpeople.  It was cute and quirky.  Had some language that we had to warn the kids about, but overall rather fun.

We went to Christian's 3rd birthday party.  He's starting to speak. It's kind of late for just starting to talk, but he's learning English and Spanish simultaneously.  It always surprises me when he runs up to me and says something in English.  

Lance's birthday party

Not long ago, our cousin Lance, had a birthday party.  We had no snow at our house, but they sure had a lot at theirs.  Even more fun, we drove up in the fog.  We NEVER get fog here in Utah.  It was so fun to drive through.  Evelyn and her sweet little imagination was in overdrive.

Look at these cute people!

Emma, Ada, Sam, a friend, Lance, a friend, Evelyn, Vivien, Grandma and Seth

Donut cake

It's been a while

We've been running.  Slowly we're making ground, but here's some of the last month that I haven't posted about.  We had a family night with the Kaiser family.  They are fun to play games with and are our current carpooling family to Noah Webster.  

Our 15-18 year old class went to play bingo at Tree-o where one of our girls has a job.  It was fun, and everyone thought that our new leader was one of the girls.

Ada finished the NOVA program.  I would 100% do this again.  A retired police officer teaches it.  He teaches science and community skills.  I was very impressed and I'm really pushing for it to be part of next year's curriculum too.  I'm on the school board and they said that land trust funds can't be used for it, so I need to make sure that the Parent Organization can raise enough funds to cover it next year.  Very worth while.

I took Sam on a date to Juliette's first basketball game.  It was right by the temple and Sam wanted a picture.... He's such a sweetie.

Sam accidentally sprained Evelyn's big toe.  She had to take it easy in dance for a few weeks, but then she started to use it as an excuse not to do anything.... just stand there during class.  I had to tell her that it was enough and that her feet really needed the exercise.  She danced and was so sore for two days after.  

Jer, Ada and I went to the symphony.  It was Gershwin (who I love) and Dvorjak (who Jer loves), but we had never heard any of the pieces before.  The solo pianist was amazing though.

I stole this picture from my sister, Sharon.