Cinderella

 Each year, the High School puts on a Broadway-style musical production.  It's huge school (~2000) with tons of talent and they have a brand new state-of-the art auditorium/theatre.

This year, they did the production of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella.  There is a part for a "young Cinderella" in the musical, so the producers of the show had the brilliant idea to do a writing contest for the 6 local elementary schools that feed into the High School.  The writing contest was optional.  The topic was something along the lines of Cinderella being brave and kind and for the writer to think of a time when they were brave or kind or were shown an example of braveness/kindness.  Riley decided to enter and she won!  The prize was being able to play the part of Young Cinderella.  Riley was THRILLED!!!

Her entry

All 5 of us plus Dave's parents went to go see her in her Broadway debut ;) 

Young Cinderella with her Fairy Godmother

Young Cinderella with her Dad right after her mother passed away.

Intermission photo shoot.

Riley and her "dad"

Her favorite parts of the experience were arriving early "for hair and makeup" (it was like a real life Bibbidi- Bobbidi Boutique), having little girls come up to her and asking to have their picture taken with her and for her autograph and...... meeting the grown up Cinderella!

When you wish upon a star.......

My Way

The Middle School put on a musical production last night and both Lacey and Tanner auditioned for it.  Lacey auditioned to be the MC and Tanner auditioned to perform.  After auditions, they were both invited to participate in the show and they were both thrilled!

Lacey and her MC partner introducing the upcoming Acts.

My camera wouldn't adjust to the lighting, but Tanner brought down the house when he came on the stage as Frank Sinatra reincarnated.

Okay, so I'm biased.  But he brought down my house, that's for sure!  It seriously brought tears to my eyes. And I had complete strangers come up to me afterward and tell me what a great job he did.  I would have never had the guts to do this during Middle School.  I was way too self conscious.  But he sang his little heart out and I just kept thinking "Oh, I hope he can keep this 11 year old self confidence throughout his life!"

He asked his friend John to accompany him on the drums.  During the auditions, I had several adults ask me how he had decided to sing My Way with the drums?  I said I had no idea.  We never even talked about it.  He just told me he was going to audition for this and he told me he was singing My Way.  I had nothing to do with anything.  I think it was more along the lines that he thought it would be fun to do with his friend John and John happened to play drums, so he put the two together.  But it somehow worked!

And that's a wrap!

Lacey with her MC buddies.

And, way to have all your lines memorized, Lacey!

Little Frank and his one-man band.

Tanner and John were lucky to have several of their friends come out to the show to support them.

PS..... I am trying my darnedest to upload some video to this blog, but blogger, video and I have never gotten along.  I think the files are too big.  So if I can't get it to work, just put on some Sinatra in the background while you read this.  It's pretty much the same thing ;) 🎤

Blue Belt

It's official.....

We have a blue belt in the house!

Tanner has been faithfully going to Tae Kwon do at least once a week for the past year and earned his Blue Belt this week!  He is bound and determined to earn his black belt some day.  And since we don't have a guard dog, I guess it makes sense to have Martial Arts Tanner instead.  We now have "Beware of Blue Belt Tanner" signs posted in our windows. 

It's a Small World After All

Last year, for Christmas, Dave gave our family a "yum yum box."  He explained to us that it was a year long subscription from the "Yum Yum" company that would send us a package in the mail every month for the whole year of 2019.  Each package would be from a different country.  It would include a map, fun facts about the country, trivia questions and..... food!  Each yum yum box included about 15 or so snacks and treats from that country along with explanations about what they were.  All of us would get so excited whenever a yum yum box would arrive!  The box would have a clue on the outside and we would all try to guess what the country was.  We all had fun learning about the countries of the world and tasting their delectable (and sometimes not-so-delectable) treats.  

And it was only fitting that our last box of the year was from Spain!  The country where Dave served his mission, the country where he and I met (15 years ago this week!) and the country where we all visited as a family over the summer and made some incredible family memories.

The Christmas Box

What to all these books have in common, you ask?  

They were all written by Richard Paul Evans! 

And I have read each and every one of the above listed books (although he has written many more that I haven't yet read).  

The Christmas Box (pictured here) hit #2 on the New York Times bestseller list and then Simon & Schuster signed a publishing deal with Richard Paul Evans.  In 1995, it became the first book to simultaneously reach the number one position on the New York Times bestseller list for both paperback and hardcover and was then made into a movie starring Richard Thomas and Maureen O'Hara.

So..... when he comes to a book signing in your area, you go!

And your bring your sister-in-law with you when you can't convince your husband that a book signing 45 minutes away on a Friday night is the thing to do!

And side note..... we got the wrong information.... here we are arriving at the (closed) bookstore.  Whoops!

Finally made it to the right place.....

And got there just in time for the Q and A

And the Meet and Greet!

Merry Christmas!

Love, Kerry and RPE

Baby-sitter Lacey

It's such a strange feeling when you're so used to having babies..... and then all of a sudden, you get a call asking if your baby can babysit!  And then you realize that your (oldest) baby is in fact, no longer a baby and can in fact, take care of other babies.

Our neighbors right across the street asked if Lacey could babysit last night.  She was equal parts excited and nervous to do her first "legit" babysitting gig.

I wasn't home, but Dave thought to document her walking over there and approaching their house through our window.  He knows I'm a succor for documenting all the "firsts." 

Cora, the barley 2 year old that she babysat, is not used to babysitters and cried for most of the time until Lacey got her to bed. But alas, all in all, it was a success!

The parents texted me this morning and said how sweet Lacey was and how they'd love to have her back again.  And Lacey was quite pleased with the $$ she earned! (She's used to baby-sitting for me for free 😉).  Hopefully this will be the beginning of a long and lustrous babysitting career ;)

Riley J - Ninja Style

Since Riley's birthday was on a weekday/school day, we celebrated with friends the following evening.  She really wanted to have her party at NinjaBe, a ninja warrior gym about 30 minutes away.  I had all the girls over to our house at 6:00, then I and another mom transported the group of 9 girls to the NinjaBe gym.

Riley tried her hand at rock climbing.

And several of the girls tried the dueling mechanical bulls.

And we did dodgeball and a bunch of other obstacle course type activities.

Juliana, Abria, Katelyn, Riley (the other one ;)), Emilie, Riley, Gianna, Sophie, Ava

Then we went into the party room and Riley had me do ANOTHER donut cake - two nights in a row lucky girl.  Good thing they're easy!

And, to top off the birthday weekend, Riley lucked out that her girl scout troop got to tour a horse farm.

Gracie, one of 10 horses at Kilmarnock Horse Farm and part of the British Riding School.

We toured the farm and barns. 

And we got to groom and brush them.

Girl Scout Troop 1131

The barn/stables.

Kilmarnock Farm houses 10 horses.

We learned a lot about horses.

They typically live for 30-40 years. They eat lots of hay!  They love to be groomed.  They have very specific diets.  They have to be cared for (fed, stalls cleaned, etc) twice a day, every day. 

 Where the farm owner and his family live..... pretty nice digs!

And lastly, we spent the weekend reminiscing about what we were doing........

9 years ago.