Noah and Evie's first piano recital

As I alluded to in Noah's birthday post (and then forgot about), Noah and Evie had their very first piano recital on his 10th birthday, April 1. 

Noah and Evie began lessons last August and have come a long way. Of course, I never played the piano (but I did play the clarinet) and have always thought it looked intimidating. How can you do two different things with your hands at the same time?! It makes my brain hurt. Therefore, it must be good for my kids' brains. 

Evie was so excited for the recital. When I told her it would take place at church, she forgot that I also said it wouldn't be until the afternoon. During church, after worship time was over, Evie thought it was her turn to play and just about marched up to the stage to perform her song in front of the entire church. She was totally ready to go too!

After we had a birthday lunch at McDonald's, we went back to the church and put Ezra to "nap" in the nursery (no idea if he actually did though). Noah and Evie went into the sanctuary to practice one last time. When I was reviewing the videos Terry took of that day, I cracked up quite a bit at this video of the kids' interpretive dancing to someone else's practicing.

Finally the time drew near for the recital to begin. Just about every single member of our family in town came. That was heart warming. 

First up was Evie. Someone who could see Evie waiting in the side room for her turn told me how when she got up to perform, she took this huge deep breath and then walked off purposefully. She did great. 

We had to wait until afterwards to take photos.

Noah went a little while later and also did wonderfully, of course. He plays very forcefully, as a lot of boys do, I'm told. I loved his song.  

He looks so grown up!

There was a small reception afterward that I lamely took one awkward photo of. Sorry guys. And then we were off to have a birthday party before Terry had to leave for a dinner theater practice. 

Left to right: Asher and fellow dancer, Noah, Terry, Russ and Evie.

dinner theater fundraiser

Like I mentioned back in February and a couple times since, Terry is taking a group of students and parents to Mexico and L.A. this summer for a mission trip. Trips take a lot of money, especially when there's so many people going (approx 20?)! They already sent out support letters, did a brown bag fundraiser in the foyer of the church and then a chili feed at church, actually in the same foyer. Ha! 

But they wanted to make sure it was enough, so one fantastic parent, Sarah, took on the burden of completely organizing a dinner theater fundraiser since Terry wouldn't be able to do that. She chose the play, gave out parts, prepared a set, organized practices as well as all the dinner supplies plus a hundred other things I am sure. Phew! Talk about a lot of work. Did I mention how she's amazing? Well, you got that didn't you.

And it all went off without a hitch (didn't even spill any spaghetti despite having that happen with a crockpot full of chili at the chili feed - yikes! haha). In fact, I heard that it was their best performance comparative to all of their practices, which were numerous. It was a great show! Everyone did fantastic! 

Sarah chose a play called The Conundrum on the Crackerjack Cruise which was about a crime committed aboard a cruise ship. The audience had to determine who, of the cast members, committed the crime. It was tricky though since all of them had legitimate cause. Terry was the captain of the cruise ship. He had to be in character all night so when I tried to kiss him he said he was married to someone else. The nerve! The other characters were great too, but I'm partial to my captain.

Noah and Evie are sitting on the left-most table of the cruise ship with Grampa B, who came to support his son the captain. 

And here is the other side of the ship. There were just over 200 people in attendance.

Here's the captain schmoozing some folks, one of which is a co-worker of mine, Kathy.

Jana and her "grand daughter" and actual daughter Mia. Jana's usually particularly friendly, but not this night. She was very proud and dramatic. 

And a view of the stage

The play started out with the captain going over a few details with Prae, the one otherwise in charge of the ship. 

After a brief first act, dinner was served. The seas were rough that night. Evie and her friend were thrown out of their seats!

I think the captain had been overworked. Needed a break or something. Or he had to pretend he was bored at our table. 

Don't think he appreciated these random kids stealing his hat and making goofy faces. Don't know where they learned that... 

This one is exceptionally goofy. 

I thought this was one of the best parts of the play - Terry trying to get a selfie with Jana's rare pink diamond ring. Ha! 

After the second act there were two games with audience participation. The Imitation Game: 

Tarzan, if you can't tell. Hilarious.

And The Dating Game. 

Frannie always wanted to play The Dating Game and that night her dream came true. Todd even said she had no flaws :) 

The couples discussing something... 

I got a hoot out of David and Silas changing scenes. "Pay no attention to us." 

This was also a highlight: Jana freaking out because her diamond ring had been stolen! 

The horror! 

At the end of that act the cast lined up for questions meant to help the audience figure out who dun it. Evie misunderstood. She went up there and said who she thought stole the ring - Jack.  

Also adorable was when Sarah's dad, a lawyer, came on stage and accused her. 

It appeared Evie was right, Jack did it. Paul, Terry's supposed better looking brother the detective, is taking the suspect away. 

But Jana can't hold it in anymore... 

She stole her own ring! Natasha's face is just gold. 

And there you have it. It was a splendid evening! Great job team! Have fun in Mexico (sob)!

five swings

Terry's folks got this playset for the kids' birthdays back in Nebraska of 2011 when Samuel was still a wee little one. We hauled it all the way back to Rapid when we moved and then it sat on the trailer until we finally found a house and were able to set it up. And there it's stayed. But then Ezra came along and there weren't enough swings for all four kids. And then Evie was swinging a couple weeks ago when one of the top supporting boards cracked. We were down to only two swings.

Since it was no longer safe and he'd been thinking about adding swings for a while, Terry bought the necessary extra boards and tools to extend the swing set. 

He got to work the same day I was prepping the front flower bed for planting. It might have taken him longer to take the thing apart than to extend it. He had it mostly completed that same day! Yeah, it's huge now.

A few days later he added more hardware to the last two swings and we're good to go. Now, no jokes about having another kid since we have the room on the swing set! 

front flower bed

 This is what our front garden area looked like nearly three years ago when we bought the house. It's quite a bit changed now... 

The area in front of and under the deck has been a work in progress. I grew to really dislike the "bush" in front of the stairs because it blocked the view out the front window. It had grown quite a bit from the date of this photo so it was more like a huge round tree up over the roof. And there was tons of weeds under it due to the previous owners love of birds and messy birdseed. But I couldn't get the weeds out due to the high amount of landscaping rock under everything. And those ferns. I had no love for those ferns. Plus half of them were missing after Terry dug out the window well. 

So, two falls ago after the freak snow storm, Atlas when he was cleaning up broken trees and limbs, I convinced Terry to chop the whole bush/tree down. Good riddance. Last summer I pulled up as many weeds and ferns as I could, but was again hindered by the rock.

I finally made up my mind to go to work on this area two weekends ago. When I returned from a run and Terry was busy moving some dirt to the back yard beds, Noah and I got to work moving all that rock. It was a big ridiculous how much was there. It was a lot of work! I needn't have gone on that run...

But after a few hours work, I got the whole area clear and ready for whatever plants I could find. I wanted somethings that would grow up tall and hide the underside of the deck, which has some ugly stains to it. After a wedding last weekend, while the littles were at my folks house, we went to Jolly Lane Greenhouse to get an idea what to plant there. It had to love shade since that area gets very little sun (our tall north facing house blocks the sun). I bought four tall ornamental grasses which I hope will survive and thrive. The packaging said sun/partial shade. We will see how they do...

This last weekend I convinced Terry to dig out that old bush root. He did not want to and only did it because he loves me. He said so. It was a lot of work, but less so than the lilac bush. It only took us about 45 minutes.  

I helped where I could with my weak spaghetti arms. Terry was going crazy with the ax. He needn't have worked out that morning either, probably. He was a good sport and let me take some silly pictures of his accomplishment. Yeah, he's the man.

Like a hunter with his game :D He conquered the stump. 

After that we dug some holes, put some good ol' ranch manured dirt in them along with some coffee grounds, and planted our plants. The coffee grounds are to make the soil more acidic so perhaps these lovely hydrangeas will turn blue.  

The greenhouse hydrangeas were way expensive. So Terry bought me some blue ones from Menards. But they made me nervous because they had been frost burned. One was starting to wilt. When I saw these beautiful pink ones after checking out at Sams, I bought two and returned my Menards ones. I love them! 

So here is the new view of our front flower bed area. It looks so happy and cheerful now. I sincerely hope they all live and grow big. They are actually the very first thing I've planted that wasn't a transplant. I hope I don't have a black thumb because I really like how it looks. We will get one more hydrangea for the left side of the window well. When they grow up big they should be three to five feet wide and four feet tall. The grasses should be between four and six feet tall. We shall see... 

Evie's pictures

The kids love to take pictures like their mama but most of the time I say no, afraid for the camera. I used to let Noah do this all the time but got out of the habit. A couple weeks ago I said yes to Evie. 

She captured Noah doodling on his birthday Boogie Board. 

Samuel always is wherever Evie is. Probably all she had to do was turn around to take this photo of him.

She is the only one who draws on the chalkboard by the front door. She did this for her birthday so it was a bit old. After this she made a sign that said "Welcame to bibel studea" for our Monday night study. I should have taken a picture.  

Fish lips! Back when Spark was suffering in his bowl. 

I love her selfies :) 

Then she asked Noah to take her picture. Pretty girl. She is getting big.