This is the face I see every time I am asked whether or not I have updated the blog and I answer,
"No. I have not."
"No. I have not."
And then, this is the face that follows.
"MOM! It's now JULY and you haven't even updated APRIL YET!"
And so, in the hopes of placating my ' blog update demanding' daughter, I present to you.
April.
With many pictures and minimal wordage.
The first week of April was dominated by the middle school Advanced Drama musical.
This year they put on Seussical.
Katie literally spent all week at the theater. She attended and worked on or in just about every performance that week and, with three separate classes performing, there were MANY.
Katie played a main role in the Monday performance.
She was Jojo, the Who.
It was awesome to see her working alongside kids that she's known just about forever - whether they were kids that she went to school with in elementary or neighborhood kids that she grew up with.
All of the snow days in February really put a cramp on things.
It's like the kids lost a month of rehearsal time.
They were all fantastic.
I LOVE this number.
What set her performance apart was the fact that Katie spent most of the performance on stage, even when there were no lines for her, as she was supposed to be "watching" the story unfold. She also played Jojo as a boy, as the script originally called for, and not a girl.
(Don't mind the over sized shirt that looks like a skirt. She did have a baseball hat that she chose not to wear. She doesn't like hats)
(Don't mind the over sized shirt that looks like a skirt. She did have a baseball hat that she chose not to wear. She doesn't like hats)
Happy. Happy. Jo. Jo.
ALL: Oh the Thinks you can think
When you think about Seuss!
When you think about Seuss!
When you think about Seuss!
Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss! Seuss!
(The characters dance off, fade away, disappear, one by one.
Finally, JOJO and THE CAT IN THE HAT stand on an empty stage, holding his legacy, His Imagination - embodied in the red-and-white striped hat.)
JOJO: SEUSS!
Curtain call!
They were supposed to sing "Green Eggs and Ham", but they were too busy memorizing the rest of the million songs in the musical and ran out of time to actually practice it.
They tried.....
....but, it didn't go quite as planned.
Oh well.
A for effort.
Okay. Now for a full "Mom-Out".
Katie, you may want to skip this part.
.......
........
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Katie? Did you leave yet?
..........
........
........
.........
.........
I cry every time I even think about this performance.
It was a beautiful thing to watch.
These kids came together and they sang their hearts out.
Some of them had never sang in front of an audience before, like Katie, and stepped out with no fear.
It was incredible.
And watching Katie - so confident and carefree on stage - was just icing on the already awesome cake.
We were so proud of her.
She worked so hard on this. Listened to hours and hours of Suessical songs.
She knew them all (so did we).
I love that she has found something that she loves.
Something that she puts 110% into.
Something that makes her feel like she has a village of like-minded friends.
Something that can help her shine even brighter.
And, she deserves every minute of that spot light.
Okay.
Back to our regularly scheduled blog post.
Katie, you can start reading again.
You know what April means around here?
BUNNIES
ANOTHER Seussical performance.
This time, Katie helped out during her friends performance.
These kids.
They're like siblings.
Here we've got a Wickersham Brother, Mayzie LaBird and a random Who.
We've also got Boy from the Disneyland Drama trip back there in the yellow top hat as the Mayor.
And Girl #2, also from the Disneyland Drama trip, in the black dress.
Talk about a star studded evening!
SHHHHH.
There really isn't a big backstage at the middle school theater.
So, sometimes the actors hang out in the back of the audience, near the sound and lights booth/teacher office.
But, they're invisible.
You aren't supposed to see them.
"Well, we're Whos here, we are Whos here
Smaller than the eye can seeeee
It's true, sir, we're Whos who, sir
I'm a Who and so is sheeeee
We're tiny little people
Blowing by in the air
Wondering how and whyyyyyy-yyyy
We're on Who
The tiiii-iiiiii-niest planet in the skyyyyy"
The Wickershams got wicked and stole that clover from poor old Horton.
And Mayzie lamented her one night stand with Tweet McFirth.
Finally, the Whos had to save their planet from a hot steaming kettle of Beezlenut oil.
And, another one was in the books.
Here's a look out from the stage.
Katie's there on the left with a friends little sister.
Katie hung out to help clean and prep the theater for the next days performance.
Here she is sitting on the nest along with yet another friends little sister.
As the theater cleared out, we were treated to a rendition of "Let it Go" by one of Katie's drama buddies, Mason J.
He was pretty darn good.
It was hilarious.
Yep.
Another one.
This was her classes second performance (each class got two).
This time, she was a Bird Girl.
A great part of seeing these repeat performances was that as the week went along, you saw more kids from the other classes popping up on other nights.
In this group of Who's below, there are at least two kids from other Advanced Drama classes.
They all came back to help flesh out chorus groups, move scenery around and, I'm guessing, to get a little more stage time.
The Bird Girls act as a general chorus throughout the show.
They support Mayzie, Gertrude McFuzz and sing interludes and such.
They also act.
Gertrude McFuzz is growing a tail.....
It's reallllllllllllllllly long.......
There was a super secret ninja running the lights and sounds for this performance.
Hey.
We know that guy.
Clean up!
Again.
Okay.
LAST ONE.
I saw Seussical A LOT this week.
Bird Girl take # 2.
This time in blue, instead of pink.
There's this song called "Solla Sollew" ....and OMG if I don't tear up every dang time I hear it.
The kids did a beautiful job with it.
The Wickershams and Bird Girls both act as chorus and are stuck in animal cages at a circus.
It's a long story - you gotta see the musical.
Not a smile in the bunch.
Great acting and singing.
Don't worry.
Gertrude comes to the rescue.
One last happy ending......
And one more clean up.....
and Katie was done with her first musical!
AWAY from the theater, things were as normal as can be.
There's another actor in the family......
Got in some frisbee golf during a break in the rain.
The week following all the performances was Spring Break.
Lots of crazy Katie hair goin' on this week.
But, not much else.
We did pay a visit to Huzbend to have lunch together.
And we hit up the library and took home about 205 books and graphic novels.
Annnnnnd, we went bowling.
Here is an example of EMO-Bowling.
Meh.
Don't worry.
It all turned out alright.
There was even a little happy that snuck out at the end.
I'm not sure where Katie ended up on this day during Break, but Mikey and I went for a hike.
Ralph came too.
Mikey likes to announce "Scenic Views!" so that I don't miss them.
It took a bit of time, some scrabbling and a few scrapes to get up this stump.
But, he did it.
With no help.
Sunday of that week, there were no swim lessons.
So, we headed to the climbing gym.
It's quite tiring.
Yes.
I climbed too.
Katie spent a while on this route trying to figure out how to get to the top.
It required some arm strength and a little leap of faith.
Did she make it?
She did.
Mikey took the easy way.
He climbed up the exit.
Shhhh.
Don't tell anyone.
It was getting close to Easter.
The Easter Bunny had to prepare.
And eat a lot of chocolate in the process.
The Easter Bunny has no will power when it comes to tubs of dark chocolate.
The day before Easter was not rainy, so it was decided that we'd let the kids follow a map from one of Huzbend's 'adventure races' to find checkpoints at a local park.
Ralph came too.
He can smell stuff.
But, he can't read maps.
He wasn't very helpful.
The kids favorite part was going off-path to find the checkpoint flags.
After one such excursion, Mikey ended up with a stowaway.
"Cutie wittle inch worm!"
We made sure "cutie widdle inch worm" was left safely on a leaf so that we could proceed with our journey.
And so that Ralph wouldn't eat him.
Minor delay for some tree climbing.
A few tree glamour shots.....
"I'm just chillin' here in this tree."
"I LOVE trees and nature and sunlight and squirrels and chipmunks...."
Honestly.
Who invited that guy?
We had to wait for Mikey to tell us where to go.
With an assist from Katie.
It was, uh, interesting to see them try to work together.
The mission was a success.
I'm thinking someone got bored at some point and decided NOT to use my phone as a compass.
The bunnies were out IN FORCE on Easter morning.
Here, we have a baby bunny.
And, yet another baby bunny.
A close-up for maximum cuteness effect.
I can hear your "AWWWWWW"s from here.
And, now, for the creme de la creme of all pictures!
The ELUSIVE EASTER BUNNY!
HE IS REAL!
After kindly asking all lagomorphs to exit the yard so they would not get eaten, the children were set loose to find their hidden eggs.
The Easter Bunny has gotten increasingly more difficult as the years have gone on.
It takes a bit longer each year to find the hidden eggs.
"Whaddya mean I still have one more?"
"HAHAHAHA! FOUND IT!"
She's getting desperate looking under ferns.
There's a lot of ferns in our yard.
There's always one REALLY hard one for Katie to find.
It's usually up in the tree.
AK! I just spoiled it.
It's okay.
She forgets EVERY YEAR.
"I KNOW there were bunnies in this yard.
I KNOW IT."
All eggs accounted for, it was time to open them and begin to follow Easter Basket clues.
"I CAN HAZ CHOCOLATE?"
The search begins....
Frame by Frame.
Here's a little video to make this go a bit faster.....
SUCCESS!
Okay. We did things a little backwards this year.
Never ones to follow convention, we dyed eggs ON Easter day.
I don't know.
I think I just forgot about them or something.
The Easter Bunny hides plastic eggs, so it wasn't a high priority.
Peace, love and eggs.
Mikey did not like the smell of the eggs.
I'm pretty sure these tongue colors are from some kind of candy and NOT from drinking the egg dye.
But, I can't be sure.
Getting there......
Egg dying always seems to be more fun to think about doing than to actually do.
Mikey's Egg Dyeing Process:
- plop egg in random dye
- pick up egg and plop it into another random dye
-run an experiment where you plop eggs into EVERY dye color
- hope that the overall egg colors do not turn brown or swamp green
- you win some, you lose some
- slap some stickers on the eggs
- DONE
Katie's Egg Dyeing Process:
- carefully select a color scheme for each egg
- spend inordinate amount of time holding egg just right in dye cup
- make sure each egg has its own individual color
- theme each egg to a character created by yourself
- pick stickers that not only match the color of your egg but the character represented on that egg
- write witty sayings matching characters traits on each egg
- throw in some character portraits
- DONE
The rest of April was kinda same old, same old.
School, after school junk, PTA conference, mandatory standardized testing, spring soccer practice and Ralph's birthday.
He turned 5!
Katie had an IV infusion and made herself a Remi-cake/Ralph birthday cake when she got home.
Alas, Ralph's birthday was not all happy.
He ended up chewing the bottom of his paws until they were raw and he was limping.
His birthday weekend was spoiled by the Cone of Shame.
Poor Ralph.
