The Great, The Wise, The Wonderful!

A couple of months ago I announced on here that Kendall had auditioned for and been cast in our local youth theater production of The Wizard of Oz as the Wizard (I find it interesting how, ever since this blog was created, this theme keeps popping into our lives at various points...) And so began the next several weeks of many, many rehearsals and memorizing and practicing at home, and oh so much exitement! Kendall was thrilled with his role and threw himself into it completely. This last weekend was the big production. They performed an assembly for the elementary school on Friday. Saturday they had an evening performance. Then Sunday they capped it all off with a matinee. Kendall was amazing! For never having done any acting (aside from some of his antics at home, that is), he was phenomenal. I tried my best to get a video clip to post on here, but I couldn't seem to get it to work. So what follows are a few still pictures of the entire show. Enjoy! Upon arriving in Oz, Dorothy and Toto (who is an odd little dog who walks on two legs and resembles a little girl) met the good witch Glinda and a group of cute little munchkins who told her that she must follow the yellow brick road to find the wizard and ask him if he can help her get home.
Not long into their journey, they encountered a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion (who did such a great job that Spencer giggled everytime he saw him onstage). Just when they were getting very hungry they met a couple of twin trees (some of Kendall's very best friends) who were not in the mood to share their apples. It worked out anyway because they tried to chase the travelers away by throwing their apples at them and, thinking quickly the group picked up the fallen missiles and had a snack.

Oh dear! A field of enchanted poppies that made everyone so sleepy. (This was the part that was Spencer's favorite.) When the lion smelled the flowers he fell so suddenly asleep that he landed right on his face. (The picture I took of that came out too blurry to post).

After a nap and a conversation with a "polite" gatekeeper in the emeral city, the travelers were led to the throne room where they talked to The Wizard. He told them he would only grant their wishes if they killed the wicked witch and brought him her broom as proof. So they set off and after an altercation with the flying monkeys and the witch, they threw a bucket of water (that resembled a blue blanket) at her and caused her to melt. The monkeys and guards celebrated her demise and took Dorothy and her pals back to the emerald city with the required broom. Back in the throne room they spoke with the giant wizard head (who talked with a loud, booming 8th grade voice) and showed him the broom. He still didn't want to help them and told them to come back tomorrow. But just then, that curious dog toto made a startling discovery behind the throne. The giant head was knocked out of the way, and then the story became very interesting...

Up popped a tiny little man (this really got some laughs from the audience) who claimed to be the great and wise and wonderful wizard of oz. But the game was up! He admited that he is only a man from Omaha after all. But still he thought he could help them. He gave the brainless scarecrow a diploma from the University of Omaha.

The Tin Man finally got a heart that was given to the wizard years ago by a pretty little girl for Valentine's Day. And the lion took a hearty drink of courage (did you know that Sprite is another name for courage?).
"And as for you, my dear..." The wizard told Dorothy that he could take her home in his hot air balloon. Sadly, however, silly Toto was off sniffing the lunch of a crowd member and the balloon and wizard took off without Dorothy. All was not lost though. Glinda returned and told Dorothy to click her heels together 3 times while chanting, "There's no place like home" and she would return to Kansas. After a quick and sad goodbye to her dear friends, Dorothy and Toto landed back in Kansas with Dorothy's rather grumpy aunt and uncle. The End.

Everyone came back for a final bow. This is Kendall and Brennan, the boy who was the big voice behind the giant head.

And here is the entire cast--approximately 40 kids! It was a great production and Kendall is already looking forward to next year. So am I, actually.

A Dilemma

Today I took Spencer to the early childhood elementary school to register him for preschool in the fall. Kendall and Lynnsey have both attended the program and it has been a phenomenal experience for them. Spencer has been so excited to have his turn. Here's the problem: They just found out that the state is changing the program so that it will be all day four days per week. I think I'm not too happy about that. The half-day four day a week program was perfect for us. It gave the kids a couple of hours out of the house to socialize and play and learn and then I got to enjoy them for the remainder of the day and all day on Fridays. Full day kind of changes things. I guess I just feel like once kids hit all-day school, time seems to speed up and all of a sudden they aren't little anymore and I feel like I've missed out on so much. The switch to all day kindergarten was hard enough to deal with. Do I really want to lose an extra year with this program? On the other hand, Spencer is SO excited to go and it would be the same fantastic teachers with the same great experiences. What would you do? Have any of you ever had a child in a full day preschool program? I'd like your input. My guess is we'll end up at least trying it out since really it is the only option if we want Spencer to go to preschool. There are a few other preschool programs through churches around here but they all have a price tag that is, for us, not affordable right now. This program is free. I guess we've got some thinking to do. Comments or ideas anyone?

Easter Fun

In spite of the snowy start to the week and the fact that I was babysitting most of the week so we couldn't go anywhere, we actually did have a pretty fun spring break. We made cookies and played games during the little kiddos naptimes and generally tried to have as much fun at home as we possibly could. By Friday, the one day I didn't have to babysit, most of the kids were completely done with staying at home, so after my doctor appointment, we went for a few hours to Kid's 'n' Stuff to play. Taylor had discovered a Doctor Who marathon on TV and begged to be allowed to stay at home with Kaya who had fallen asleep. I caved and let him because I really didn't want to have to wake the baby who really, really, really needed that nap. And it ended up being so much fun at the museum without packing Kaya around the whole time. I was actually able to get down and race cars with Spencer, and play in the doll hospital with Lynnsey and in the music room with Kendall. And we all spent a good hour in the messy art room creating all sorts of fun projects. During the week I also managed to finish up the ponchos that I've been making for Lynnsey and Kaya. Lynnsey has asked me repeatedly for a couple of years now to make her one, but I wasn't very confident in my ability. I pretty much crochet just afghans and scarves and those are the simplest patterns that I can find. But when I found a poncho pattern that actually looked do-able, I promised Lynnsey that I would try. It ended up being such an easy pattern that I made an extra little one for Kaya. Lynnsey is absolutely thrilled with the result and has been wearing hers every day. Kaya is not ecstatic. She keeps getting her fingers stuck in the holes when she tries to pull it off and it's just in the way of crawling. So I snapped some pictures and then put hers away for awhile. We'll try again when she's walking.

Cute aren't they? The afghans came out pretty nice too.

Saturday was a busy day (it's the day we get ready for Sun-day...) plus we also had some Easter festivities. The morning was spent at the home of a Methodist pastor and his wife who is my dear friend. Every year they host an egg hunt for the kids in their congregation and anyone else who wants to come. This year is their last time ever because they are moving this summer to head up another church in another city. We are devastated that they are moving. Their two oldest children are good friends of Taylor, another son was Kendall's first friend in Albion and they have remained good buddies, and their daughter is one of Lynnsey's good friends. We'll sure miss them. Hopefully we'll still see them occasionally since they aren't moving too far away, but I know how those things can go and I know they'll become busy in their new community and our lives will go on here and soon we'll just swap Christmas cards every year. So anyway, we attended the last egg hunt there and the kids had a lot of fun. Spencer really got into finding eggs this year and would get so excited when he would spot one. After they had found their eggs, each child received a silver egg with a gold dollar inside, and then they had a mini lesson on the empty eggs that the kids had found that represented the empty tomb. And since the resurrection of Christ is the biggest gift, each child got a "bigger" gift. The older kids got kites and the little ones got stuffed animals. Except Spencer who was quite put out about being considered a "little" kid and really wanted a kite. Of course he didn't want to give up his stuffed animal either, so they let him have one of each. Which I allowed since all the candy in the eggs was chocolate and so is off limits because of his allergies. Then they had some relay games that Kendall really got into this year--in past year's he's been a little timid and hasn't wanted to do it. And then we had lunch and let the kids play with friends for awhile.

That afternoon after the kids had some down time and Kalen had a nap while I filled Easter eggs, we had our own egg hunt here. We were so happy the snow had melted. It was still a bit chilly out but not too bad. One year we'd had a huge snow storm come and ended up having to hide the eggs in the house because it was just too cold out. Kalen hid all the eggs. We use the same system that we had when we were kids. Each child has one color of plastic egg that they look for and there are the same amount so no one can complain that someone else got more than they did. Plus with the age differences, Kalen can hide the eggs according to ability and if someone finds an egg that is not their color, they are just supposed to move on so that the right kid can find that egg. Spencer didn't really get that though. He kept finding Kendall and Lynnsey's eggs and yelling out to them where to find them. Oh well.

On your mark...get set..GOOOOOOO!!!!"What??? You're telling me I don't get any candy this year????" (Doesn't it just look like that's what she was thinking? I love that face!)

That's okay. The view was pretty good from up there so she cheered right up and had fun trying to figure out what in the world was happening. Spencer became an expert finder of green eggs. This came out a little blurry but I just thought his excitement was too cute. He did this after almost every find but this was the only one I caught with our camera delay.
And of course Lynnsey was hunting for all eggs pink! Kendall and Taylor had to look high and low this year. But mostly high. It took them awhile but they finally found them all.

Ta-da!!! (A little exercise never hurt.)Taylor found one up in a hanging flower pot. The hardest one for him to find was actually in one of the easiest locations. It was in the sand box underneath one of the sand toys. Kalen had told him it was somewhere near the swing set but he'd have to look under something to find it. The other kids had all located it but Taylor was lifting up the whole swing set and the sandbox looking for it. So easy it was hard I guess. We all had a good laugh and Taylor was pretty embarassed when he finally did find it. And here's one courtesy of Lynnsey who noted that I am never in any photos. I tried to tell her that I prefer it that way, but I think she just really wanted to play with the camera.

And while we were having so much fun outside, the sneaky Easter bunny paid a visit inside the house and left some extra goodies. (Kaya got some too but would not stay in the picture no matter what we tried.)

And finally, as a cap to a wonderful spring break, we had a lovely Easter Sunday yesterday. It was very chilly out so once again I had to take a picture of the kids in their Easter best indoors. And once again, we were in a rush before church so we had to wait until we had come home afterward and that is why they are all looking a bit disheveled. But they're all smiling...thanks to Kalen who was doing jumping jacks behind me and cracking everyone up. Church was really nice. We heard three wonderful talks on Jesus' Resurrection (one of them by my wonderful husband) and heard a lovely hymn by the choir with a violin accompaniment, and in Sunday school we watched a recording of Elder Holland's conference message also on the resurrection. Then we had a delicious Easter dinner (also courtesy of my wonderful husband) to wrap up a very nice day. I hope your Easter celebrations were just as wonderful!

Silly Stories

Yesterday at lunch Spencer decided to tell us a couple of stories that he made up. I'm not sure what a psychiatrist would make of these stories; probably something about irrational fears of monsters and water and maybe a little potty-noia thrown in, but for us it was just good entertainment.

Story #1: Three Stars

Once upon a time there were three little stars that fell down from the sky into the water. And some monsters fell in the water too and ate up all the little stars. The end.

Story #2: Baby Clam

Once upon a time there was a little ball that split in two and turned into an egg. And out hatched a baby clam. But he fell into the toilet and somebody flushed and he went down and down and down. The End.

I expect some great things from this kid!

Good One Mother Nature

It's the first day of the kids spring break and this is what we woke up to:

A few inches of very wet and very heavy branch-bending snow had fallen during the night. Anyone up for a barbeque? Camping? The playground? Maybe just some hot cocoa and a warm blanket.