Is It Naptime Yet

…if your toe looked like this?

I know not too bad, and those are some dang cute toes, but look closer at that funky one next to the baby toe.

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I stubbed it on Lilah’s sandaled foot this evening and now, just 3 hours later, this is what it looks like. Would you visit your doctor or just wait to see what happens?

There’s irony in here too.

I have a bridal shower to attend to this weekend, a lesson to teach in church and for my family gathering on Sunday, and we’re going to Chuck E’ Cheese’s to celebrate Eden’s birthday and yesterday I had a zit right on the border of my bottom lip, and I popped it. (I am a zit popper, especially when they’re big and white.)

Yesterday I was sad that I had a zit, since I have all these public things going on, but I thought, at least it’s not a cold sore. Then this morning I felt a tingle in my lip and I thought it was the zit healing, but when I looked closer I could tell that it was not the zit that was making my lip tingle but a cold sore. Great! I’m going to have a cold sore this weekend when I have so much going on and I get the mother of all cold sores. The left side of my bottom lip is swollen and will be perfectly gross by Saturday.

Then, as I looked at my pink toe nails this afternoon that I had just painted last night I thought to myself, well I may have a cold sore, but those can’t be completely helped, but I do have cute toes that will match the shirt I’m wearing on Saturday.

Maybe I’ll wear a purple shirt instead.

I think this is irony for you.

Man, if only I wasn’t so darn skinny. (Do you think if I think this I’ll lose the ten pounds I want to?)

Update: It’s 5 am and I am so sad because my mother of all cold sore as decided to give me a fat lip and is the mother of all cold sores. My whole left bottom lip is swollen and has the potential to get even worse since it hasn’t been 24 hours since the tingle began. My once not so purple toe is completely purple and I have a 10:20 am appointment with a doctor. So grateful for online scheduling, though it was the only appointment for the 24th out of 6 doctors.

I’m going in for the toe, but I hope there is something they can give me for my lip. I usually just smother it with a Lysine ointment because the other things don’t work, or I can’t smoother them, and I tried something different and my face is swelling like I was hit with way too much novocain. It’s not nice to wake up to such a horrendous cold sore and then stub the hurt toe once more after you write a note to your husband telling him he’s going to need to stay home so you can see a doctor.

My sobs woke him up.

Sorry to be a downer on what I wanted to be a funny post. The irony has left and I’m left with the reality that I hate cold sores and this one is disfiguring my face. It really stinks.

On March 25th we went to the Secret Garden and Dolphin habitat with a homeschooling group. Sadly the group has dissolved and it was our last trip with them.

Our friend Hannah came with us. The girls adore her and she adores our girls. Even though I didn’t really need the help, since they are so well behaved and rarely get into trouble in public, Hannah came along and lent her hand to also hold while we walked around and her arms to pick up the girls to see things. It was nice and the reason we invited her to also come to the Shark Reef with us in May.

Here’s just a few pictures of the girls and our activities. I can’t believe it had been two years since we had gone with our old Mommy group and almost to the day.

The underwater observatory.

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The girls loved when the dolphin swam right by the window.

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Above watching them feed the dolphins.

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There was a 6 month old baby dolphin, though it was pretty big for being 6 months old. I’m happy my girls grow slower than a dolphin, but it’s still too fast.

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Cute Eden.

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Hannah helping Lilah look at the map.

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There was also a baby jaguar to watch.

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Hannah with the girls.

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A tiger taking a bath.

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Sisterly love.

I stayed up till 2 am Thursday night making this:

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Why did I stay up so late? Because it was fun and I was excited. FYI I never stayed up till 2 am making the costumes, why because those were not fun, they were a burden. I also started it at 10 pm, so I knew I would be up late, I just didn’t know how late. I think I’m a slow seamstress and I will never hire out my talent because I take too long.

Two of Kate’s color’s are teal and brown, I’m hoping she notices that I chose these fabrics deliberately.  I’m undecided whether I like so much of the print, it looked great on the bolt, but I just couldn’t see it the other way around. It does remind me of some 70’s kitchen and it’s growing on me more as I look at it.

Also, I have one more sewing project to add to my list. Lilah wants to give Eden a Jasmine dress up outfit and guess who will be making it. I think it will be cheaper than buying a Disney one, and I can make it a little more modest.  I probably won’t have it done by Eden’s official birthday, but I know I can have it done by her birthday party. I figure it’ll probably be her Halloween costume too, that’s if it doesn’t get too worn out by then.

Since it was so long ago that I posted the details of Day One and Day Two of our trip to Cathedral Gorge and the pictures for Day one, you can go back to the links I just provided to refresh your memory or  just enjoy Day two of our Memorial Weekend Trip.

Friday Morning: Our hike to the caves.

Zarina hand in hand with Lilah, which was very common the whole trip.

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Eden stayed back with us, though I think she’s running a little bit to catch up with the Parks and Lilah.

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The girls, Lilah, Zarina, and Eden.

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The Blake’s. (We were hiking, I’m not trying to look fashionable.)

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Entrance to one of the “caves”.

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The girls with Jon. The “caves” were really passage ways that had been created from the silt being worn down by water and wind after the prehistoric lake dried up. So they were open on the top and at least ten degrees cooler than outside in the open desert.

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There were a lot of narrow winding spaces.

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Eden had fun fitting in one…

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…so did Jon.

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This is the view from higher up. We went climbing after we hiked in the caves.

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Eden looking up at Mommy.

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I took a rest and Jon took the girls climbing. He had a lot of patience and was the perfect teacher.

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Lilah holding her Daddy’s hand after a hard climb down. Eden was just chilling at the bottom waiting for them, she had climbed down earlier.

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Jon offering his hand to a worried Eden. (I just loved the previous two pictures. I love seeing Jon helping his children, something he is always willing to do. )

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Friday Evening: On our way to dinner.

The sky in one direction. It was very ominous.

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180 degrees the other way it looked like this. (This was at a gazebo that had been built when it became a park in the 1930’s.)

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Lilah and Jon discovered the gazebo on their hike.

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Some antelope we encountered between Caliente and Lund on our drive home Saturday.

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We thought they were cool.

This concludes our camping trip with Andrea, Brien, and Zarina. It only took me over a month to post the pictures of our second half.  We plan on seeing them once more this summer and we can’t wait!

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.

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

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

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Me cutting her hair.

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Me showing Lilah her hair.

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

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Lilah tonight before bed.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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The snow fairies.

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

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

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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.

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

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My family.

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Lilah took this picture of me with my flowers.

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

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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.

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.

So Glinda/ Dena was kind enough to take pictures of the two costumes I made for myself, while I wasn’t out on stage,  except I made 15 of the Winkie skirts and hats. The boots were made by a stage mom and my friend Anna made the vests.  (I would put a link to what the costume I was trying to recreate, but apparently the design has changed and you’ll just have to like what you see.)

We have cast pictures tomorrow night so I should have time to take some of Lilah. I’m just so busy curling my hair, which takes an hour, that I don’t see her at all during the night. She’s cute though, so cute.

Well, the fateful day has finally arrived, at least by the time I write and post this it will be Tuesday, or family night of the play. It’s not opening night, but it is the first night we perform in front of a live audience.

I’m so excited and nervous at the same time. I brought my camera tonight so I could take pictures but it was mostly locked upped in the hall locker with my purse, so I will bring it again and eventually you can have some pictures of the costumes, it’s just tough because we have some pretty quick changes and I don’t have a lot of time to take them. Plus, Jon may or may not being going to family night, it’s depends on whether his parents can go, so it might not be until Monday that pictures will be taken since that’s when he’s going.

I did get pictures of Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West, one of me in a mirror that’s a blurry one of my costume and one of me in my stage make-up and hair at home 3 hours after I did it. I guess you just have to come see the show if you want to see more of the costumes and the cutest munchkin in the show, Lilah.  (She’s wearing curlers in her hair during the day for the next two weeks so she can have her adorable ringlets each show. When we were paying at Mc Donald’s tonight the attendant smiled when she saw Lilah’s hair. I’m hoping to use them as a conversation starter so I can hand out flyers when we’re out and about.)

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