Is It Naptime Yet

On Sunday it’s our routine to walk the girls to their classes and to give them hugs and kisses before we send them off to their teachers. Then Jon walks me to my class, or Gospel Principles. We give each other a small good-bye kiss every time and I go off to teach, or listen if it’s my week off, and he goes off to read books in the foyer.

This Sunday our kiss was gross. At least gross to the little boy who bumped into Jon as he gave me my good-bye kiss. After bumping into Jon he looked up to see our apparently gross display of public affection and said:

“Ewe, you kissed!”

We thought it rather funny and the next time a child says this we’ll reply, “Someday you’ll like it kid.”

A long, long time ago a young mommy decided to cut off her hair for Locks of Love. She thought she might do it again and again, but as instead enjoyed her cute sassy haircuts. So she decided to grow out her daughters hair and encourage her to give it to Locks of Love.

Today was that fateful day.

Today we cut off about 10-11 inches of Lilah’s hair and will mail it to Locks of Love.

Lilah was a little emotional and teary eyed after I cut off her ponytail, but has really enjoyed her short hair for the day, so I think overall she’s really pleased with herself.

To show how long her hair has gotten. We’ve only been growing it for four years now, or forever years.

–

She’s a goof ball. Her favorite thing is to make silly faces when you’re trying to take a normal picture.

–

The final ponytail. This ruler was only 8 inches and that is Eden’s cute little arm and hand helping me.

–

Me cutting her hair.

–

Me showing Lilah her hair.

–

Eden using her mad camera skills to take a picture of Lilah.

–

Lilah tonight before bed.

–
Some people joked that we shouldn’t cut off Lilah’s hair because it was her thing, or she was the girl with long beautiful hair and was only cute because she had long beautiful hair. I admit I waited till after the play because I knew how cute she was with her hair after curlers and because her hair is so beautiful, but we don’t want her to think that all she has going for her is her long hair. There’s so much more to life and we want Lilah to define her own identity as she grows, not her identity define her. She was the cute girl with beautiful long hair, now she’s the cute girl with beautiful short hair and whatever else she wants to be.

Saturday night was our last show. It was bittersweet to be performing for the last time, but oh what a relief. Saturday night there was a lot of ad lib going on. I guess since it’s the last show, and we’re all a little tired from performing, so the actor’s shake things up.

Kerri was the Wicked Witch of the East leg’s for the play. Friday she decided she was tired of playing it and said we should get a boy to play the legs and I suggested Jeremy. He has very skinny legs so they’d be perfect. He was game and amazingly even fit the shoes!

Here’s a picture of him with the striped thigh highs and shoes. It was a riot in the dressing room when he came in wearing these.

–

One thing the leads decided to do was respond to the guard after he asked them to read the sign. You know, he says “Cant’ you read the notice?” and they say “What notice?” “The one that’s as plain as the nose on my face.” Instead they responded “Oz” very slowly, since the doors had OZ painted on them. Shawn, the guard was definitely caught off guard and had to recover from it but he did a pretty good job.

The main prank happened at the end of the Merry Old Land of Oz. We hear a loud noise and then the witches music plays. This is when we see the smoke sign written by the Wicked Witch of the West. We all look stage left towards one of the spotlights, but this night the spotlight person had made a sign that read ‘Dorothy’s #1’ and was waving it around. It was a little hard to keep in character while watching this through the whole scene, but I definitely laughed slightly when Dorothy decided to run with it, and instead of reading the  smoke as ‘Surrender Dorothy”, she said “Dorothy’s #1.” There was silence on the stage, except a chuckle from Kerri, but Tin Man chimed in “I think it says surrender Dorothy.” and we finished the scene.

Those are the two main things I knew about that changed besides adding a line here or there. Jon said it made for an entertaining night and the audience seemed to be just fine with it. Everything that was changed added to the show, not completely ruined it. I guess it’s a lesson that on closing night after a week and a half run it’s usually just a fun night for the actors.

Here are some pictures with cast members before my hair became extremely flat from my Winkie hat and some afterwards with the girls.

Me, Diana, Sara. We’re on the Oz set. Sara designed the flags and I sewed them and they added the fabric and embellished the trellis behind us. These girls are wonderful and they happen to live close by so I hope to see them before the next play.

–

Me and Kerri. I love Kerri. We kidded around and had a lot of fun. I was next to her in the dressing room and since she wore fake eyelashes I decided to wear some also. I wanted to be just like Kerri because she’s wonderful.

–

Lisa and me. Lisa and I sat next to one another during rehearsal’s. She’s a doll and a newlywed, like had only been married a month when rehearsals started, and still decided to do the play!

–

Me, Lilah and Dena backstage. Dena was so nice and was always so helpful. She was one of the choreographers, as was Kerri, and she stood on the sidelines as we did the Jitterbug each night and always cheered us on and sang since we were always to breathless to sing while we danced.

–

A tired Eden and Lilah with me and the Appletrees. (Kelsey, Sara, Diana, and Crystal.)

–

Eden with Kerri, the head Winkie guard. Her staff was named Willie.

–

Us with the witches. Jen, the wicked witch, did such a great job acting. Each night her death was the highlight of the play. Not because she died, but because of how well she died. There were many times I wanted to laugh because she did it with such comical grace, but I was able to keep face, or turn my head a little more away from the audience if I did crack a smile.

–

Lion (Jerry), Tin Man (Josh), Eden, Me, Lilah, and Scare Crow (Steven.)

Jerry and Josh are brothers, though they’re so different, both in good ways, that you wouldn’t know they are brothers. (I know they look very similar in this picture, but they look different enough that you wouldn’t call them brothers right off either. )

I was in charge of helping Lion change every night to Zeke. His wife was always back there helping, which I’m not sure made it more or less awkward to be taking off and putting her husband’s clothes back on?  He was very modest though and it went so fast that it didn’t really matter.

Also, since I had a basket on stage for the Oz scene I was in charge of Steven’s patches that we took off during the sprucing up scene in Oz. He sometimes threw me off since some nights he wore three patches and other nights he wore four, and once a patch got left on stage so I was never certain if I lost one or if he wasn’t wearing all of them.

–

Dorothy (Jessica) with the girls and me.

Jessica was so sweet and wrote a little personalized note to each cast member. Some of the things she wrote in my letter was what a hot mom I am (I know, I know, stop it.) and how darling my two daughters were. She told Lilah that she was the cutest lullaby girl and that she loved her curls for the play.

–

Jon’s niece Shauntae with the girls and me.

Shauntae drove down from Logan just to see the play. Well, maybe not just for the play but luckily it was while the play was showing and she was able to see it! Jon came with her Saturday night since I had bought two tickets and he missed Friday’s performance.

–

After the play and picture taking Jon took both girls home while I helped clean up the theater. Then some of the cast went to the Cheesecake Factory for food. I had also gone out Friday night with a few cast members so I just ordered a piece of Cheesecake on Saturday night. It was definitely fun to be with other cast members without the stress of getting ready or hurrying out the door to leave. (We had to be out of the theater by 9:45 pm every night, except closing night for take down, or their was a fine.)

I really loved being in the play and already miss some of the people I met. I hope to do it again and again.

On Monday night my family, friends, and some of my sister’s and mother’s co-workers came to the play. My mom bought 20 tickets, and I had one free ticket and every seat was filled, with a couple kids on laps too. I think we had a sold out theater this night too. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the play.

Terri, my sister’s co-worker, dragged her husband to the play because he knew he wasn’t going to enjoy it and would have rather stayed home to catch up on work. He then apologized to her Tuesday night and said he really did enjoy the play and was happy she had made him come. She of course told Carolyn and then Carolyn told me. I’m happy he enjoyed himself. We had some amazing lead actors which always makes or breaks the play, especially with such a well known play.

Monday night was a pretty normal night. The one hiccup I experienced was losing my shoe as a Winkie. The girl behind me stepped on my shoe right as we came out and I tried for a second to put it back on but I would have had to stop so I marched on and no one in my family noticed. I thought it was very obvious because it was my left foot, or the one facing the audience, but I guess the boot cover covered my foot well enough that it wasn’t so obvious. This teaches me that I should have character shoes, which have a buckle over the top of them, and not just any black shoe. I think I’ll invest in some next year.

I got pictures afterwards with my little family and Jon was a doll and brought flowers for us. Terri also brought Lilah a rose. Ever since opening night Lilah had wanted flowers, but Jon wasn’t coming till Monday, so she had to wait and I made sure he knew to buy some flowers for Lilah and of course he bought some for me as well.

A fuzzy picture of the munchkins. Most of the pictures Jon took were slightly fuzzy. Lilah has her head slightly down.

–

Lullaby League: Lilah, Lexie, Allison, Bonnie, Whitney, and Elizabeth.

–

The snow fairies.

–

Pat pat here, pat pat there and a couple of brand new straws!

–

That’s how we keep you young and fair in the merry old land of Oz!

–

This is very fuzzy, I know, but if you look closely you can see me without my shoe. I’m the second from the last.

–

My foot, without the shoe. Thank goodness for boot covers, though I think you can slightly see my pink toenails.

–

My family.

–

Lilah took this picture of me with my flowers.

–

Then she had me take this picture of her with her flowers. She looks so grown-up to me.

–

Jon’s mother and two younger siblings came on Friday night. Jon was going to be driving them all to the play but unfortunately around 4 am Friday morning Lilah got sick, as in throwing up in the hall way sick. Some stomach flu circulated between the cast this year and unfortunately it hit Lilah on the day Jon’s family was coming. She threw up again at 10 am, and I was so hoping she could pull through and feel better for that night. I was so sad that my MIL would miss Lilah’s performance and was in tears over it. I thought Lilah might just need some attention and was milking the sickness but she proved me wrong when she threw up at 4 pm, right before I left. I felt better about leaving her home after that and luckily she felt better and was able to perform closing night.

Friday’s performance went well and we had a sold out theater. We  also sold out for Saturday night on Friday night because we only had 4 seats to sell at the door for Friday’s performance and then only 6 seats left for Saturday’s too.

Jon’s mom loved the play and Dara and Jason thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

Dara, she made sure to hold up the program, me, Jason, and Mom Blake.

Tonight I had one of those proud parent moments. It’s one when you take pride in a decision your child makes, but know that it was completely them that made the decision and you’re just so happy to hear they did the right thing, or a nice thing.

There’s a little rivalry going on between the snow fairies and the poppies. (There are girls on stage dancing or sitting as poppies during the poppy scene and then snow fairies that sprinkle the stars with snow, instead of making it snow.) Anyways, some of the snow fairies decided to write mean notes to the poppies. Lilah told me she tried tried to tell them it wasn’t nice, but since they didn’t listen she wrote a nice note instead that said “I love poppies. Love Lilah.” she also tried to write ‘ignore them’ or ‘ignore the snow fairies’, but it was too hard so she scribbled it out.

When Lilah told me this in the car I admit I was very happy to hear that she was the one being nice, but she also knew that it might hurt other people’s feelings so that’s why she was nice. So many of the kids in the play like Lilah and are nice to her and I think it’s because she is nice to them.

Lilah is just such a sensitive spirit. Granted she’s not always the nicest sister, but hey, what sisters get along 24/7? Lilah is just so sensitive to other people and has always been empathetic beyond her years. This can be hard for me at times because her sweet spirit needs a lot of love and I know I don’t always give her all the love she needs. It’s not that I don’t show her love, it’s just hard when you think you’re giving someone enough love and attention, but when they need more love they show you in interesting ways and in Lilah’s case by showing me more love is how I know she needs more love and attention.

To tell the truth I’m happy I’m home schooling her because I think public school and the world of many impolite people would be hard on her. I don’t home school her only for this particular reason, but it’s definitely a benefit in keeping her sweet spirit sweet and I hope she always tries to be nice and makes other good choices as she gets older.  I know the notes were partially in fun and not just mean spirited, but I admire her ability to think about how others might feel and do the right thing and I learn so much from my precious daughter.

Sorry, I know all I’ve blogged about is the play, even though I have a list of things I need to blog about, but this is what is on my mind and I want to encourage those who read my blog and live in Las Vegas to go to the play, though most who read my blog and live in Las Vegas are my family and they’re planning on going!

Opening night went fairly smoothly until the second half, but that’s when I come on so I don’t know what happened in the first half, though I think the Tinman did almost fall over because he did some move slightly different. Anyways, during intermission the Tinman switched his ice packs from his chest to his back, the ice packs are there in an effort to help him stay cool since he literally has a suit out of tin, or aluminum, or some sort of metal, and his front was freezing from the ice packs.  I was watching this go on because you only need so many cooks in the kitchen and I was encouraging one of the cooks to go get dressed, since I was already dressed and she was not and we go on in the beginning of the act, but I didn’t want to interfere too much since it might have just delayed things longer. Well, Tinman’s right arm piece was off a little at a connecting point so it wasn’t going on correctly, so they taped it to help the velcro because he needed to be on stage immediately since intermission was over. (The arm’s aren’t tin, just his main body piece.) During the Jitterbug dance sequence the top arm piece which wasn’t fastened correctly came off. I was dancing right behind him so he turned to me for help, but I couldn’t get it, so during the partner dance he and his partner went off, still no luck fixing it, and he danced the rest of it with his arm hanging off. Live theater, it’s different every night. Well, of course they decided to remove the arm pieces and he just finished the show without them. So, you live you learn. We learned to take off the costume piece if you can, rather than fix it.

Also, earlier that night after our Oz sequence I saw the Tin man moving his elbow towards me, or really anyone who might see who was exiting, because a bracelet had gotten caught in the hinge of his arm, so I removed it for him.

So fun, and I really mean so fun. I am really enjoying the play now that we’re performing it. What’s not fun is costume malfunctions and time restraints.

And for your viewing pleasure here is Lilah in her costumes.

Lullaby League girl.

Snow Fairy.

Isn’t she so beautiful? I just love my girls and I just liked this picture.

Just a quick introduction to my 5 things I’m grateful for. Life has been very busy. So busy that I thought it was Tuesday, but it’s still Monday, so I am right on schedule, though most of you will read this on Tuesday.

Since Lilah turns six this week I’m going to have her as my theme and list five things I love about Lilah.

1. Lilah and her sweet temperance and love towards me. Sometimes it’s overwhelming how much love she showers me with love, but I still appreciate it.
2. The morning cuddles she gives me. She’s willing to miss watching PBS so we can have time together.
3. She’s always a willing helper with carrying things in and bringing me something I might need.
4. Lilah’s vocabulary. She has an extensive vocabulary and usually uses her words correctly and it’s fun to listen to her talk.
5. Lilah’s patience in doing the play. She is so excited about it but it has been rough at times with the sitting around and waiting. I should mention it’s her overall patience that I love, but the play is the thing we’re all having to have the most patience with at this time.

Plus, a favorite moment I’ve had with her lately is seeing her look in the mirror after I apply her stage make-up. She goes and looks in the mirror after I apply each separate thing while I’m getting the next one out, ie. I put on her mascara and she goes and checks it out and gives a satisfied look and a smile while I get the eyeshadow out and then looks at herself after each step till we’re done.

I love you Lilah and I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Friday

After some morning hiking we all decided to hike to the caves not far from camp. Lilah at first stayed with Andrea and Brien, mostly to be with Zarina and Eden stayed back with Jon and I, or we stayed back with her. The gorge was a prehistoric lake that has dried and the caves are within silt hills. Jon had lots of fun squeezing into tight places and it was nice and cool within the caves and passage ways.

Lilah also became very adventurous and was mountain climbing. She saw Uncle Brien climb up high and wanted to climb also. Both Lilah and Eden did  great on climbing but were a little more nervous at coming down the hill side. Jon was a very patient daddy and helped the girls down through their many cries and pleas for help. I know I would have just grabbed them and taken them down, but he helped them slowly yet surely down the side of the hills, very slowly at times.

After lots of exploring Eden and I were getting tired, but Lilah and Jon wanted to hike some more, so we left them for camp and Jon and Lilah went on a much longer hike to a lookout at the top of the silt cliffs. Eden and I ate lunchand hung out with the Parks. Jon and Lilah eventually returned and we all took afternoon hikes.

For dinner we went to a restaurant in Panaca. It was delicious and nice to not cook. While there a storm developed so it was very windy as we sat around the fire Friday night. It looked like it might rain so I opted to sleep in the car. The storm died down for the night and it did not rain, but I’m still happy I choose the car, though I wouldn’t want to do it again anytime soon.

We packed up and went home Saturday morning. I immediately put the girls in a bath while Jon and I unpacked and put away our camping gear. I then took a shower to wash away all the dirt and sand.

It was a fun weekend and we loved camping with Andrea’s family. We hope they decided to go again before Zarina turns 4, we know Zarina can be a grumpy camper, really sleeper, but it’s so much fun during the day to let our girls explore and be together.

Summary of Day One
Pictures from Day One

… This would be my favorite quote so far.

Lilah talking to Eden about something in their room: I’ll do it but I won’t like it.

I think she’s only 5 turning 6, but maybe she’s 5 turning 16.

More specifically an instant message with Lilah and Eden.

I had just been chatting with Jon and left to take my shower. Usually I take them in the early morning while the girls watch PBS, but this was later in the morning and I was leaving them to there own devises.  I should note the girls will often chat with daddy, but they’re saying something and I type it and then they choose faces to send him, so they’re familiar with IMing.  Jon is Hunny, short for Hunny Bunny and I and me, well Lilah is me.

me: yeah