How Well Do They Know Me?

This is a bit late since Mother's Day was several weeks ago, but I was just putting away some things when I came across these questionaires that the kids filled out in Primary and presented to me on Mother's Day with their other gifts.

My mom's name is: Amy (all three answered this one the same)

My mom is __ years old: 29 (Kendall), 36(Lynnsey), 37 (Spencer)

My mom likes to: Read (Kendall), Read A LOT (Lynnsey), Make lunch (Spencer)

My mom has __ eyes: Two (Kendall the goofball), brown (Lynnsey and Spencer)

My mom weighs this much: 80 lbs. (Kendall), 100 lbs. (Lynnsey), A LOT (Spencer)

My mom's birthday is on: July 17, 1980 (Kendall), July 17th (Lynnsey), July I don't know (Spencer)

My mom was born in: A hospital (Kendall), Utah (Lynnsey), the United States (Spencer)

My mom's favorite food is: Chocolate (Kendall), meatballs (Lynnsey), Beef Stew (Spencer)

My mom likes to help me: Do homework (Kendall), Take my dresses down from the closet (Lynnsey), clean (Spencer)

My mom is the best at: Couponing (Kendall), reading (Lynnsey), doing excercises (Spencer)

From one chocolate loving heavyweight 29-year-old fitness queen who reads all day and loves helping her kids--I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day!

POST EDIT*** The kids thought it would be fun to quiz Kaya too. According to her my name is Mommy, I am 2 years old, I like to write stories, I have brown eyes, I weigh 2 units long, my birthday is Four, I was born in Kaya's book, I like to eat a sandwich, I like to help her read her book, and I am the best at playing games:-)

Let's Go Smoke a Big Cigar!

WAAAYYYY back in January a flyer came home from school announcing that the Albion Youth Theatre was again bringing the Missoula Children's Theatre to town to do a production of Pinnochio. Kendall, who absolutely loved his experience last year in King Arthur's Quest was ecstatic and put the date on the calendar. The problem was that it was an eternal 3 1/2 months away! The countdown began. And so did Lynnsey's long period of indecision. She knew how much fun Kendall had last year and some of her friends participated last year too. She wanted to do it, but was afraid she'd be too shy. We actually had the same fear and might have tried to dissuade her just a tiny little bit. But about three days before auditions she made up her mind that she was going to try it. We told her that if she did, she had to commit to it for that entire week of rehearsals and not back out at the last minute even if she got nervous.

The rehearsal day came at last. Kendall was up at the crack of dawn, he was so excited. Nevermind that he had to get through an entire day of school first! Lynnsey was sticking to her decision nervously. But they both went. Lynnsey's nerves got the best of her at the audition and she could barely even whisper her name to the tour directors. But they went ahead and cast her anyway as a "Pleasure Island Kid". Kendall was very relaxed and had so much fun. He was cast as "Candlewick", Pinnochio's "cool" and "rebellious" friend. He was so excited about the chance to play another role so different from his own personality (the rebellious part, not the cool part).

Rehearsals began the next day and every day after that until Saturday. The day of the performance. I had heard, in talking with some of the people involved, that Lynnsey had seemed to get over her nerves at her first practice and that one of the tour directors had remarked that she never would have believed that Lynnsey was the same kid as the one at the audition. The two stars just before leaving for their dress rehearsal on the day of their performances.

It is so amazing to me still that this group is able to pull together a full scale production in just a few short days. But they do. The play was fantastic and the kids did a marvelous job. Kendall shined as we knew he would as Candlewick and had the audience totally laughing several times. He's really such a talented peformer and you can just see how much he enjoys it when he's on stage.

And Lynnsey. Holy moly! Kalen leaned over during the first show and said, "Can you believe that's our Lynnsey up there?" She recited her lines loudly and expressively ("Let's go smoke a big cigar!") and was singing and dancing with the rest of her group. She didn't seem even a tiny bit nervous. We were so proud of her. She's already talking about continuing next year. And we are SO hoping that the Missoula Children's Theatre can come back again.
.

The Pleasure Island kids.

Candlewick and his gang in the front row with the rest of the main characters.

The entire cast of Pinnochio!

Kendall and Lynnsey with one of the directors, Alison.

Kendall and Lynnsey with the other director, Adam.

If your kids ever have a chance to participate or you ever have an opportunity to see a performance of the Missoula Children's Theatre, do it! It is such a wonderful, wonderful experience.

Easter

Early in the year when I checked the date of Easter this year and realized that it was going to be at the end of April, I was so excited. By then, I figured it would be nice and warm with all the spring flowers blooming and trees budding. Yeah, not exactly. I don't know what the deal is this year, but we just cannot seem to get Spring sprung! It has been so cold and rainy and dreary. We'll have a day or two of gorgeous weather that makes us think spring has finally arrived but it all turns out to be a cruel joke when we wake up the next day and have to put on a coat again. Even today, MAY 4th, I took Spencer over to catch his bus and we had to wait inside of the building because it was too cold out. I was remembering last year when we were complaining that the schools have no air conditioning and it was just so unbearable for the kids. Today Spencer was wearing his winter cap and mittens. Crazy.

However we did get a somewhat miraculous reprieve on Easter weekend. It warmed up a bit and the grass got a little greener and some of the leaves on the trees began opening slightly. And the rain finally let up for just a bit.

We went to a fun Easter party on Saturday morning at the home of our friends and we had a great time there. Then we came home and did our annual backyard egg hunt that afternoon. Taylor still participates but the hiding places for him get more and more difficult every year.

Kaya was SO excited about all the festivities and was eating her candy as she was hunting for more eggs.

Kendall's eggs are getting trickier to find every year too. But Kaya managed to locate a few before he did and made sure to point them out to him--which I think took away some of the fun for him.

"On my car???" she asked incredulously.

This one took Lynnsey awhile to locate. And awhile longer to get down.

Spencer's green eggs sort of blend in with the grass and plants.

Later that evening we took advantage of the non-wet weather and had our first campfire of the season, complete with s'mores.

No s'mores for Spencer but he can still enjoy the gooey marshmellows.

On Sunday, we went to church and got to hear a great talk by Taylor who was the youth speaker but since he was also passing off a public speaking requirement for a merit badge, he actually had to give a fairly full-length talk. He did a great job and wrote it all on his own. Lynnsey and Kaya got new Easter dresses from the Easter Bunny this year and were so excited for church the next day to get to wear them.

I love this photo--it's a rare moment in history when these two will actually be within a foot of each other without fighting.

So much for the perfect picture of all the kids. Taylor won't go near a camera anymore and refused to pose for a picture and Kaya was overtired and done with pictures too. And Spencer is such a goofball for pictures these days--this one just cracks me up!

I hope you all had a great weekend as well!

Vistors

Yet again I've managed to get way behind in blogging. The next few days I'll be trying to post a few things to get caught up again.

In March we had a fun visit from my sister Susannah and her darling daughter Rebecca. Susannah came to help Mom with her broken leg for a couple of weeks which ended up being really nice for us because I was able to catch up on a few things while I let her take over Mom duties for a bit and we also got the benefit of getting to visit with them. Our kids absolutely adore "Baby Becca". And Rebecca seemed to really have fun with all of the attention that they lavished upon her the minute she came in the door. Rebecca became a big fan of "Down By the Banks".

Love that cute smile! It was really a fun visit and went SO fast.

Then a couple of weeks later we got to have my dad and brothers Timothy and David come for a few days. The kids were so excited to have their fun uncles come to play with them and as usual we had a project for Dad to work on. This time he made a doorway to Taylor's room. I wasn't even sure I wanted to do the project but now that it's done, it has made a huge difference. For those who haven't been here before (which is way to many of you by the way!), Taylor has the downstairs bedroom. As you walk into the doorway, the downstairs bath is on the right just before you enter Taylor's room. His room is quite small and so I was afraid adding an extra doorway would make it even worse. But he was really wanting it because we all use that bathroom so someone was always coming in to his room at all hours of the day. Now that it's done, we absolutely love it. I never have to worry that I'm going to walk in on him changing anymore and also it keeps the kids out of his stuff during the day.

We did find time for some fun and games as well, although Dad's not a huge game player so he usually opted out and watched a movie with the younger kids or took a nap. We got to play Mexican Train and of course Tripoly.

You can't see it here because of the sunshine but Kalen has an 8-9-10 and was about to clear the board and win the game by a landslide!

We also made a trip to The Sweet Tooth for dinner and ice cream.

And an intense game of Chess:

Very fun visit! And here is the finished project:

Great job Dad! Thank you, thank you, thank you!