play, puppies, prom, and hmmm, i can’t think of another p word

Apr 11, 2014

Disclaimer: I’m sorry my posting has been so erratic lately. Between my family’s needs and wants and my own body’s needs, posting keeps falling by the wayside. I find when I do take the time to post I dump out an entire novel and this post is certainly novel length…at least in blog land. I finally uploaded some pics and now after months of no photos whatsoever, you get to be hammered by a gazillion.

Spring is in the air which means sunshine, wind, and lots and lots of activities! In the past two weeks, we have had our big night at the temple, Homeschool Prom for Blythe, a week of rehearsals for two different plays, a week of performances for Blythe’s play with ACTivate and the Youth Symphony, colloquia, puppies born, music lessons, FHE with our friends who just returned from a humanitarian trip to Ecuador, board meetings for iFamily with elections coming up on Monday, all the usual stuff that normally fills our lives, and not much sleep at all. Thank goodness I have found my camera, my memory card, and my memory card reader so that I have been able to both snap photos and upload them of all our fun.

Whew! We made it. I almost passed out on Monday at board meeting so I forced myself to be very, very conservative this week with all the performances and stay put in my chair. I did not vacuum or sweep or sell concessions or do any of the things I normally do. I limited myself to one hour of being upright at a time and two hours a day total and I stayed true to those guidelines except on Friday when I went over a bit, but I was still good about taking care of myself. Big pat on the back for me – I did not want any of this exciting week for Blythe to be dampened by a passing out episode and my carefulness paid off. The best part is today I can still walk, so YIPPEE! If I can keep this up for another week, I should be back to exercising at my next appointment!

The puppies…oh, my they are so precious. The children adore them and spend time every day toting them around and loving on them. They squeak nearly 24 hours a day and none of us are getting very good sleep with all the noise, especially Keziah who has set up Sadie and her seven pups in a wading pool in her room.

They were born the night of April 2 and morning of April 3 over a period of about eight hours. Sadie will NOT give birth without Keziah sitting right by her, so it was a long night of dog doulaing for my girlie. There are four tan puppies, two chocolate, and one black. Please excuse the blurriness, trying to get a puppy to hold still is difficult, trying to get a child holding a puppy to hold still is nearly impossible!

Here is Blythe in her Prom attire. My sister, Mikelle, was here and helped Blythe turn her naturally curly hair into lovely ringlets that would stay put all night. Blythe and over 100 of her friends had a fabulous time dancing the night away.

I wasn’t able to get any pictures of Blythe during the play…no flash photography allowed and pictures in a dark theater don’t turn out. Here is a super silly one of Blythe with her stage make-up and costume and her crazy sister.

Character shot.

Both the character shots and headshots were on display in the lobby for guests to look at as they entered the theater – that way they could see what each actor really looks like and compare that to the character shot. Here is her headshot. I think it is my all-time favorite picture of her.

Crazy cast photo…man I LOVE these youth!

Last night we had the big end-of-the-year Youth Symphony performance. It was amazing! Three of the pieces were from Tchaikovsky and I fell in love the the March Slave – what a soul-stirring piece! They also played the Violin Concerto in D with an amazing violin soloist and the 1812 Overture with real cannons firing. The harp solo was light and magical – it almost made me want to become a harpist!

You can see Blythe warming-up in front of the big drum in the back. She still has her hairdo from the play she performed in a couple hours previous.

The whole Youth Symphony! Lots of musicians squished onto the stage.

In the midst of all the activities for the big girls, I try to keep life for my littles as calm as possible. They generally spend their mornings with me doing learning time. Fisher has set a goal to finish one entire math book during the month of April, so we are spending lots of time working together so he can accomplish his goal and earn a radio-control rat he has had his eyes on for months. Annesley is learning how to read and it is so much fun! Her words she has learned so far are me, meet, I, am, Sam, Mat, Ann, Nan, Mit, in, on, at, sat, sit, the, is, this, that, cat, hat, and mat. She has started noticing these words all over the place and is one happy little sounding out girl. They have been having fun with Annesley’s birthday puzzle.

Our recent 10″ snowstorm dumped gobs of snow in one night, but by the next day it was almost all melted away. They built these snowmen before all the snow disappeared.

Now it is time to get ready for Passover and then gear up for another week of Blythe’s play at the end of the month, the end of WUBA for the year, Keziah’s play in four short weeks, and my 40th birthday.