Slumber Party!

So my good friend Tracy managed to stop by Virginia and visit, so that was AMAZING!!!

She and her family had gone on a cruise, and on their drive back to Wisconsin, they stopped for the night in Wytheville, Virginia.  Sarah drove the two hours there to pick up Tracy, leaving Joe to drive their family the rest of the way home.  We met up for lunch (along with another former Manassas-ian, Jacquie Giboney (except she's been divorced and remarried and that is definitely NOT her last name any more, but I can't remember what it is, and anyone reading this blog will recognize her other name anyway)) at Mi Rancho in Fishersville and spent HOURS catching up, which was the best thing ever.  I only managed to drag myself away because I'd promised Craig that I would make it to our ward game night.

But then on Sunday, after the youth fireside was all wrapped up, I headed back to Fishersville, this time to Sarah's mom's house (that's Christine, who I served in the Stake Relief Society presidency with!).  She graciously let us spend the night in their upstairs bedrooms, so we could have a night with NO KIDS.  Can you even imagine-- not one single person interrupting us, for a whole night!!!

We had snacks, we had jammies, and we had no hard deadlines for the next morning.  YES, we stayed up until 3:30 in the morning gabbing away!  YES, we had so many snacks I just about made myself sick.  And YES we slept until 11:30 the next morning and Sarah braided our hair after we'd showered.  It was so much better than ANY slumber party I ever went to when I was a kid!  There's just something so wonderful about talking nonstop with the people who know you best and know all the worst things you've ever been through and love you anyway.

Once we were finally dressed and slightly presentable, we visited Sarah's baby brother's grave.  What we really wanted to do was visit Logan's grave, Tracy's baby who died of SIDS in 2010.  (I didn't blog about it ever because I was a coward.  But it is still one of the saddest things I've ever gone through.)  We really didn't have time to make the two-hour drive up to Manassas, and we figured Logan would understand the sentiment.  We shed some tears for Logan and Brady (and my own brother who died in infancy, Patrick Rex) and for the hard things people go through in this life.  And once we'd said all we needed to, we headed to Charlottesville.  

Another extremely leisurely lunch, this time at Torchy's, and this time with Craig joining us for an hour of gossip and queso.  And then, just to really round out our 24 hours of gluttony, we got Crumbl Cookie and sat swapping bites until it was time to get Tracy to the airport.  

There's just something about friends who were in the trenches of babies and toddlers with you, you know?  I love my Charlottesville friends, but these two ladies will always be my ride or die!

And Yes, Colton Also Had a Birthday!

I felt really bad, because on Colton's actual birthday, I had dress rehearsal from 7-10, and Craig had to stay late after school for parent-teacher conferences.  How lame* is that?  I told him that if he wanted, I could make his special dinner the day before, when we could all eat together as a family.  He thought about it for a day, but decided he wanted his dinner on the actual day.  Fair enough!  So that morning, I woke everyone up a few minutes earlier than normal so we could at least be all together to watch him open presents:

And then that night I made him Mongolian Beef and Red Velvet Brownie S'Mores, as requested!  I ate dinner with him and then dashed off.  Craig got to eat brownies with him as soon as he was home.  Hopefully next year won't be so ridiculous.

As mentioned, we went out to dinner with his grandparents a few days later on Saturday-- it was a little bit of a surprise when I ignored the GPS and went where I knew the restaurant he'd chosen was, only to discover that the building was now empty!  Fortunately, we decided to see where the GPS was trying to tell us to go, and it turned out the restaurant had just moved to a bigger and much nicer location!  So we had a lovely dinner, complete with wings for all:

And then he opened his presents from Tom and Donna

which included this sweet scooter that he was very excited about:

And then we topped the evening off with doughnuts from Krispy Kreme!  

It's wild to me that Colton is already twelve.  I love watching him pass the sacrament (and work to keep a straight face while Camille tries to make him laugh).  I couldn't believe it at his physical when his doctor announced he'd grown nearly four inches this year.  He's just growing and maturing in every way so quickly.  Why doesn't anyone warn parents about this???

Happy Birthday, Colton!!!  

These twelve years have flown by!

*The irony here is that I usually feel like Craig and I are so busy because of our callings, but that night, our busy activities had nothing to do with church!  We must be insane...

March Was Marching Along

It's boring if I tell you that life has been busy, right?  Like, we all know life is busy, so I can skip that part and just tell you some of the things we've been up to, right?  Yeah, I'm just going to dive right in...

Kendra had (yet another) band concert, but this one was a bit different, because she played drums for part of it-- just filling in-- and then the French horn for the other part.  My girl who can't commit to any one instrument!  But it was fun to see her both standing, triangle in hand (and other various percussion instruments, I just can't remember what they're all called now) and then sitting with her big shiny horn, too!

My polymathic daughter!

And then to round out my week of music, the following Thursday I went and saw Moulin Rouge in Richmond at the Altria theater with my choir buddy, Leah!  We had such a great time, it's such a wonderful show!

At choir practice, we've been asked if we're twins.  Which is especially funny because Leah IS a twin, just not with me!

The second half was especially awesome, both because the music is fantastic, and also because the annoying couple next to me moved to somewhere else, so I didn't have to hear her humming or him arguing with her any more!  AND, I could move over into their seats and see around the big-haired lady in front of me!  Man, old theaters are not for the faint of heart!  But seriously, it was a really fun night.  And I think it's funny that I've managed to see the play twice, but both times with a Leah!

And then that Saturday, Craig accompanied Kendra and her indoor percussion group to their competition.  This meant that we finally got some decent pictures of the day!

Setting up all their gear in the parking lot so they can get some more practice in before they compete.  Apparently this is a THING and everyone stands around watching the other groups and cheering each other on!  How fun is that?

My cute girl in her costume (she's supposed to look like a waiter in a 1920s speakeasy)

Here she is, pulling the cymbal section aside so they can double check their part of the routine.  This year she's a section leader, a role she takes very seriously.

And now ready to practice all together:

I think this was the time that they placed 4th, which meant they moved on to the next round and got to compete AGAIN, which was very exciting!

More cymbal practice

And here are a bunch of shots of Kendra that Craig took (sorry, I can't resist):

Getting ready for the second round:

Some time soon I'm going to post a video of their routine-- it's really fun, I promise!

In news about my other kids, Colton is still campaigning to get a bearded dragon (and Camille is waffling between wanting a hamster or a chinchilla, but she's been told she needs to wait a couple years, so there's no rush on that decision).  We let them go see some friends who happen to own both a bearded dragon AND a hamster, so that was fun and in no way discouraged them from their current obsessions.

(This family also went to Great Wolf Lodge recently!)

We also decided it was time Colton got his own temple trip, so we let him bring a couple friends and they did baptisms and then we took them out for Taco Bell and ice cream after!  It was a very loud car ride there and back, but the boys had fun.  Mission accomplished!  (But next time we'll take the van and make them sit in the back so I don't have to listen to them!)

Colton, Calvin, and Gideon

I actually really love Colton's serious face here

Everyone had to photobomb our temple selfie, of course

They're so overdressed for Taco Bell, I love it!

One last shot.  I can't resist!

On a totally different note, the other day I got home late from a dress rehearsal, and was surprised that Craig had left the truck outside, with the garage door open.  But once I got in the garage, I saw that it was a big mess, and figured that maybe he couldn't get the truck in without running something over.  In the morning, I got after the kids for it, but they all patently denied making any messes.  That was weird-- my kids may not always (or, ever) clean up after themselves, but they aren't liars.  They left for school and I headed for work.  It wasn't until the afternoon that I began cleaning things up and realized something very weird was going on  For one, the stuff that had been moved (the bin with all the chicken supplies) was really heavy.  There was no way they threw it around the garage on accident.  And-- what the-- where was the 50 lb bag of chicken feed that I just bought?  As I was pondering on this, Kendra came home from school and I told her how weird this all was.  She just said, "Hang on!" and then wandered into our backyard, and out past our property line and down the ravine behind our house.  She came back triumphantly carrying a ravaged, half-emptied bag of feed!  A quick google search has confirmed our best guess, which is that raccoons got into it and clawed the thing open!  Who knew they were so strong?

Anyway.  I'm impressed by the raccoons.  We will be more diligent about closing the garage door from now on!  (And I'm glad I hadn't yelled at the kids about the mess!)

I just casually tossed out that I had a late dress rehearsal, so you may have already guessed, but yes, that meant it was concert week!  This was our "Together in Song" concert, which is always really lovely, but I confess-- it was more fun last year when I had my Mom singing with me!  This year's was still good, though.  I was missing most of my kids-- Kendra, Ryder, and Colton all had a stake service project (and Bentley is still at BYU)-- but Tom, Donna, Adam, Craig, and Camille all came to cheer me on!  I really love seeing their smiling faces in the audience.

What made me even happier was that Craig and Adam were almost matching (crazy photobombing Camille notwithstanding!)

Just the choir-- nearly 100 strong now!-- before the community singers join us!

You can see me better here before everyone gets on the stage

And afterwards, we got dinner at Plaza Azteca.  This was also to celebrate Colton's birthday, which will be the next post on this blog (stay tuned!)-- but I did like this picture of me:

I guess I'm too short-- shouldn't these be more behind my shoulders and less behind my head?  But I still think they're pretty.  And really, who doesn't long for wings?

My hyacinth popped up again as the weather warmed!  There are about four of them now, which means I should probably google how to divide them?  I think that's what you do with plants like this?  I honestly have no idea.

Speaking of my lack of green thumb-- one of the kids opened the southern-facing kitchen window, which is where I like to keep plants.  Unfortunately, when I shut it that night, I accidentally knocked over a tiny cactus that a friend left me when she moved away.  It dumped out and rolled around my kitchen floor in a way that reminded me of the writing system in the movie Arrival.  So, naturally, I had to take a picture before I cleaned it up:

Somewhere, Amy Adams felt a chill go down her spine.  

On a random Tuesday evening, Kendra led the YW in a rousing game of broom hockey while the Young Men made blankets for charity!  I love these pictures Craig took.  I need to start taking pictures at our Tuesday activities...

Colton had the flu that day and stayed home.  I felt bad for him being sick (especially since I neglected to get most of the kids their flu shots this year!), but it was nice to let Camille stay home with him and go to bed on time for once!  And bonus-- no one else got the flu!  So I guess the shots didn't matter all that much after all.  I was rather alarmed Sunday night when he first knocked on my door saying he didn't feel well and his temperature was 103.6℉!  Sometimes when my kids or I are sick, I like to let the fever run its course, figuring that's killing off whatever virus or bacteria is attacking us, but this was too high to mess around with and I was glad to get some ibuprofen into him!  And he was fine by Thursday.

And then Friday was the teacher's quorum temple trip!  Unfortunately they were missing half the young men, which meant they had more leaders than teachers.  But they still had a great time, which is all that really matters, I suppose.

Alex, Truman, and Ryder, all sprouting up like weeds

And then add in Scott, Tony, Ben, and Craig!

We had a s'more night with our fire pit out on the deck, where my kids are all a bunch of pyros.  (Totally understandable.  Isn't everyone?)

For our next Tuesday activity, the YW were making treats for the missionaries (and I once again took no pictures) and then YM were out in the parking lot doing an iron chef sort of activity!

I love how Gideon showed up with his chef's coat and Remy on his shoulder!  

They all had a weird ingredient that had to be incorporated into their food.  Ryder's group had to use sardines.  I felt really bad for the judges who had to try everything!

And then, before we knew it, it was spring break!