April Miscellany

Maeser's Spirit Week theme was Disneyland;
the Juniors were assigned Galaxy's Edge and the 8th graders were
assigned Toontown.  Can you guess which characters C&J were?

Luke's spooky art project

Jack was SO EXCITED when Sonic 2 was FINALLY released.

We tried out a Costco kite on a windy day but it didn't fly as well as we hoped, haha.

Savannah came with us to see "School of Rock" at HCTS.  We loved seeing
kids sing and play instruments, and the show was really funny.
My favorite song was "I'm Too Hot For You," which totally cracked me up.

One Tuesday while the older kids were at Mutual, I took Luke to see a
performance for kids by the Utah Symphony at UVU called
"Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Maestro."
We liked all of the short pieces on the program but our favorite was hearing
the fun percussion on "Fossils" from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens.
The percussionists used a bike horn, a whip, a whistle, and all kinds of other fun instruments.

Saturday Evening

Luke has officially joined the ranks of the lawn-employed.

Eliza participated in and helped run the school art show.  She worked on set-up and assisted with face painting and other activities for the families attending the show.  She gave Luke a neck-painting and showed Ben the painting she submitted for the theme It Could Happen!

We were so excited to see Bil Lepp, our favorite comedic storyteller from the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, perform at the new (dedicated last year I think) auditorium at the Orem Library.  He told 3 great stories, one of which is on the CD we keep in the car.  Yes, we bought a couple more CDs on our way out and have been slowly listening to those as well.

Luke is 9!

Luke had a really fun birthday!  Since it fell on a Saturday, we did some celebrating on Friday and Saturday.  On Friday, I brought birthday treats to the classroom (Swig social sugar cookies and juice boxes) and hung out while he told his class about his birthday poster and called on friends who wanted to ask him questions, such as What's your favorite animal?  What's our favorite mammal?  What's your favorite place to visit?  What's your favorite color?  And, do you have any pets?  It was really cute.

Right after school, which is a half day on Fridays, Luke had a little party at Provo Beach Resort.  I actually double-booked myself so Cat and Luke's friend's mom helped out by getting the party started.  The boys had pizza for lunch, then when I arrived I got them passes for a couple of activities and arcade tokens.  We played laser tag, then waited for two bowling lanes to open up, but it didn't happen, so we played a second game of laser tag.  Ben stopped by the party for a while and played the second game with us, and afterward we had some time at the arcade.  I brought the boys back to our house for cupcakes and ice cream, and presents.  Then the parents picked them up from our house.  (P.S. When I look at these pictures, in which at least one boy looks like he wants to hurt at least one other boy, I remind myself that this is just the type of game these guys play together.  Whenever I ask Luke about his recess games, he almost always describes some kind of attack game, such as World War I, World War II, Zombie Attack, etc.  Somehow, it's just how these kids have bonded and continue to play.)

The next day, we spread our celebrations out a bit.  He opened presents in the morning before Cat went to work; Ben and I took the younger three to see Bad Guys in theaters; then Luke opened presents in the evening once Cat was home.  He loved his presents (the fake gas mask, new bike, and Army outfit were big hits!), he loved the movie, and he loved the little ice cream cake he chose.

It was fun to celebrate the last year of single-digit birthdays for Luke. He's such a smart and funny and playful kid!

Easter

We had a great day on Easter.  We usually split up the festivities between Saturday and Sunday but everyone was going in different directions on Saturday, and the kids didn't want to skip any of the usual traditions, so we did them all on Sunday.  I don't have pictures of the Resurrection Rolls Ben helped the kids make before church, but they saved me one and they were quite yummy.  In the afternoon we finished talking about Holy Week and discussed Christ's Resurrection.  We also made chocolate nests, dyed eggs, hunted for Easter baskets, and had cousins over for dinner and an Easter egg hunt and a special song for Lindsey's birthday.

After Church
(Can you tell my phone camera was cracked?)

Hunting for Easter Baskets

Chocolate Nest Helpers

Egg Dye-ers

Cousin Egg Hunt

Egg Hunters

Happy Easter Birthday Linds!

Eliza Lately

Eliza usd this photo to draw a self-portrait for
an art contest with the theme "The First Amendment."
I love her idea and her execution.

Eliza's been doing her hair pretty much every day.  Her go-to style is to braid it

into two braids at night, then take the braids out in the morning so she has

long wavy hair during the day. This is a cute style she did all on her own:

Eliza was chosen as a finalist in the schoolwide poetry contest so we attended the

assembly where all the finalists performed, and Eliza was announced the winner from

the oldest grades!  She was really excited to be a finalist, and hope-hope-hoped that

she woul win again, so it was really cool that she won again.  She did such a good job!

She practiced it so much during school that her two good friends had the

poem memorized too. Below, they recited it together after the assembly.

Eliza's big Spring project for 6th grade:
her country report on Mexico.

(The black smudge on her upper lip was intended to be a little mustache.
Also, special thanks to Cat for letting E borrow her Mexican blankets,
and to E's teacher for loaning her the sombrero.)

And last, but certainly not least, is that Eliza played for a little club volleyball team

January through April and LOVED it.  One of her good friends was on the same team,

so that made it extra fun (and carpooling made it easier on all of us).

Eliza had lots of spikes and kills during the tournaments and made a great contribution

to her team's winning season.  By the end of the season, she'd really gotten the

hang of serving.  When I asked Eliza to tell me her favorite things about

volleyball for this post, this is waht she told me, after much consideration:
#1 Hitting

#1.64 Serving

#2.017 Passing

#2.65 Cheers