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Showing posts from May, 2011

Dance Festival

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On the last day of school we went across town to see the dance festival. This is Sebastian with both of his teachers. His Mandarin teacher says "He's going to be taller than I am by third grade!" They've both been wonderful -- one of my favorite years. Maddie found two of her best girlfriends from the neighborhood and promptly disappeared. Sebastian's grade did a Chinese ribbon dance in honor of the Mandarin program. Thanks for stepping out of formation there so we could get a picture! And Will looked like he was having a great time boogeying down. He even had a partner whom he wouldn't talk about much! And afterward we got the boys and celebrated the beginning of summer.

Sebi's Class Play

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The day before school let out, Rob, Maddie, Joss and I headed over to see Sebi's class play, "Caps for Sale". It was cool and green behind his classroom and we watched them set up the scenery. Here he is with his big part, saying his line: "No, thank you!" It was charming and delightful and everything a first grade class play should be. I'm so sad to see this group of kids break up; I've come in every Wednesday and I've loved to watch them meet and learn and interact. They're such a bright and quirky bunch!

Rob's Choir Reunion

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Rob had a 25-year Show and Chamber choir reunion. They all got together and sang and ate and checked each other out to see who has aged twenty five years -- who has gone grey and gone bald and gone splat because that's what reunions are for. Right?

Maddie's Ballroom Concert

[yes, I'm back dating my posts here. It's going to make me feel better someday and it will help me remember when things actually happened!] This is just a smidgen of Maddie's samba number. I actually have a nice DVD of the whole concert, but I'm not cool enough to figure that out here (anyone who knows how to post a scene from a DVD can tell me in the comments). The numbers were energetic and fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, but it was the most fun to watch Maddie. She was radiant and poised onstage and was having a ball.

Happy Birthday! Awesome Jossum

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It is completely impossible, but Joss just turned three. Three things we love about him right now are: 1. His language. He calls me "mudder" unless he wants a reaction and then he says "Mama? I mean Mudder? I mean Mary Ann?" [grins] "Are you Mary Ann?" 2. He's saucy. We try not to let on how funny he is, but last week Rob set down his breakfast eggs and said "Now what do we say? . . . " Joss said "Waateber. Where is the freakin' keppitch?" 3. He adores the family. All day long I answer questions about where everyone is and when he'll see them next. He calls our Family Home Evenings "Family For Liebling" and every day he wants to make certain that Rob is coming home to play blocks with him. And so Rob does. He's been asking me for weeks "Howz my burfday doing?" He got to go to the park and to BYU and out for a burger and fries and fizzy for lunch. He got his cake and ice cream after dinner and we all m

The Tempest

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Maddie's English class just put on Shakespeare's Tempest. She was cast as Caliban, the deformed and drunken son of an evil witch. It wasn't her first choice, but in the end she embraced it right down to the leaves in her matted hair and the blacked out teeth she touched up each time she exited stage left. Her friend had a difficult part for another reason: she was Miranda, one of the young lovers (here seen with her Ferdinand). Maddie got lots of compliments on her performance. She certainly had one of the most dramatic parts! Here she is with her drinking buddies, Stefano and Trinculo, trying to look sozzled. And at least she got to put on slinky, fringy, ruffly, sparkly costumes the next week for her big ballroom performance. It made her feel a little more feminine than wearing a rug.

Mother's Weekend

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One of my favorite flowers is the tulip and I've always wanted to go to the tulip festival. This year I was determined I wouldn't miss it since we have a membership. Then the wind and the snow and the rain came and there was never a day I could go. They even extended it and I finally decided that Joss and I would see it no matter what. It was a party to have a new super-zoom lens that Rob got for my birthday The gardens were gorgeous the Secret Garden was secret my date was dashing we fed the fish and played in the fountains It was such a success that Joss and I brought the whole family and our Berkeley friends back the next day!

Heap of America

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I attended this patrioticpalooza because Will asked me to. I've lived it vicariously in the past, listening to the songs at the school level and on the practice CD at home, but I've never actually descended into the belly of the whore before. It was so much worse than I'd imagined. Will is the star in the middle. There was a drum line made of green men. There was an MC who looked like a Barnum & Bailey ringmaster. I was afraid it would be a lot of neener - neener - neener patriotism of the chest-beating face-painting sport-spectating variety. It was all that and more. At one point they gave the microphone to an athlete ("Why do they do that?" my S-I-L asked? "Why do we think they'll have something intelligent to say?"). So the athlete said "I've worked with people from a hundred different countries and NONE of them love their country as much as we love America." Ummmmmm , could we get a judge's ruling on that?! I wish it had

Easter Sunday

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We did actually celebrate Easter. I got my gang dressed up in gingham and linen and they looked so sharp that we may need to go out and take some more pictures! We had a fancy dinner with china and silver and even the grandparents, who happened to fly into town for two funerals and were talked into sticking around to see their grandkids and dye some eggs. There were lots of eggs hidden most of them were found