The busy month of May

I finally finished this dress for Johanna's 8th grade dance last week and discovered why nobody makes their own clothes anymore.  I'll put a pic of her wearing it on later...

Some friends from Idaho came to visit yesterday. They brought eclipse glasses with them and we all went to our neighborhood park to watch the annular eclipse...it was cool, as demonstrated by Johanna.

Johanna and Logan all spiffed up outside their school after Honor's Night. 

My last art project for Cam's class was paper mache balloons.  Everyone had fun and got messy.

Piano recital time!  Logan did great!

Johanna did great!

 Cam did great!

"Mother and Son"Bowling night was missed during opening night of Johanna's play, so I took Cam and Ed out myself later.  We had a great time!

 My version of soccer pictures...the cheapy way

Johanna's gang-we have this group, plus or minus some over to our house often on Friday's for "game night"  They're all top honors students and a great group of kids.  We'll be sad to see them go separate ways for high school-the highschool here is separted into three different schools, only one other of Johanna's friends is going to the one she chose.  Hopefully they can still see each other sometimes.

We're off to see the Wizard!

Johanna was a star as Dorothy last weekend in her middle school's production of "Wizard of Oz".  She has worked hard since January memorizing lines and going to Drama practice 3 times a week or more. Last week was so busy-she was at drama every night.  I would pick her up around 9:30, take her home, then head back to help with sets until midnight.  It was all worth it though.  The play was great!  Johanna had a wonderful time and did an awesome job.  She knew all her lines and her singing and acting were good.  We were so proud of her!My lovely cookie creation.  I became a little obsessed with it for a day, but it turned out cute.  It has ruby slipper, rainbow and OZ city cookies, plus Glinda's wand and a bunch of caramel apple suckers.  So fun...I could totally do that for a living.

Johanna after her first show.  She was pretty excited about how things had gone-it really was awsome.  Grandma and Grandpa brought flowers and of course I gave her my cookie bouquet. 

One of Johanna's solo's in the play was called "Evening Star"  She is sharing a love song from back home (Kansas, you know) with all the Ozian girls that are entertaining her while she waits to see the Great OZ.  She was worried about sining and playing the guitar at the same time, but she did great.

The famous four.  They were all so cute together.  The scarecrow's dance was incredible, except for that when he fell down, he was a little too authentic and broke his wrist!

Grandma and Johanna after the matinee Saturday.  Grandma came with me to see the show three times!  Good Grandma-actually...she had fun!

Mom, Dorothy, Dad= proud parents!

We had to take this picture to match the necklace I got Johanna with this exact pose from the movie.  I had to glitter these shoes, which were silver, which is actually the authentic book slipper color, which the movie changed so that it would show up in color....

The whole cast.  This is "cast #1, which did two shows and Johanna's cast did two.  Johahnna is in green standing next to the gaurd on the left.

This and that from our week

Johanna was fun to watch at our local

Pear Blossom Festival Parade.  She couldn't play her oboe in the marching band (eye-poking hazard, ya know), so she was the drum majob.  She did a great job!  Blake and I has fun running the Pear Blossom 10 miler-sorry, no sweaty pictures!

My only Easter pictures-Eddy had a great time at our Central Point Easter party.  He got tons of eggs in the hunt-it always helps to be top of your age group.  He loved the bean bag toss and we did it about a dozen times.  Blake had the other boys at soccer and Johanna was hanging out with Ed and I.

One of Cam's scout requirements was to plan meals for a day, and then prepare them.  This is the Orange Chicken that he chose....it was delicious!

We had fun watching the Pear Blossom Parade yesterday-it was so busy!  Blake and I left Logan with Ed and Cam before 8 to go run our race.  Johanna left shortly afterwards to catch the bus to the parade.  After the race, Blake drove home to get the boys and I saved us a place at the parade.  After watching the parade, we picked up Johanna and went straight to the boys soccer games-we didn't get home until 4:00~!  We all got sunburnt too-funny Spring weather-sunny, cloudy, cold, hot!

Who knew a two week Spring Break could go so fast?

Johanna spent a good portion of her Spring Break writing script for, planning, and then shooting a short movie for a contest she and her friends are entering.  They spent two days shooting in the rain covered in mud, fake blood and having such a great time!  I can't wait to see the finished product and we are thinking of having a premier night-parents invited!  Her other spring break project was making "Hunger Games" shirts for her Idaho friends, whom whe saw the midnight premier with.  They turned out great!

Eddy's 6th Birthday Party!!
He had a pirate party that I spent many hours planning-and it was all worth it-because all of two kids showed up!  FYI...do not have a birthday party during Spring Break and invite all the kids in your kids class, none of whom you have the phone number for.  Well, it was a good party and everyone, all 6 of us, had fun.

a Darth Vader/Pirate hybrid...scary

  Hands down favorite game-digging for treasure-everyone got a lot since I had enough for 13 kids!

Tug of war turned out to be very popular-we did it about 6 times.

I found these great mini-bar bottles on the side of the road, had Blake pick them up for me, Johanna wash them out-I slapped the pirate label on them and put a note in with the candy thanking guests for coming to Eddy's party.  So Cute!

Eddy's pirate cake-it turned out really cute!

Invitations for 22 kindergartners...so fun, don't you think?  I had fun burning the edges with the lighter

We all dressed up, and the kids old pirate room deco from our old house came in downright handy...ARGGGG!

Big Girl Gettaway

Our long awaited Girls Trip.  Phoenix, AZ February 2012

Oh, it was so great!  We should have done this long ago!  We

visited lovely Sedona, relaxed at our beutiful rental house for a spa day, swam in the very nice

pool, went shopping, ate good food and some not so good food, attended an Ariabian Horse show, watched movies, made a quilt for Katy's soon to be baby...and had a FAB time together!

Sedona was so amazing!  I loved it! The colors, the beautiful rocks, the warm, fresh air..the best sisters.

We really enjoyed our "hike" over the red rocks.  I just couldn't get enough of the beautiful vistas surrounding us.

I loved this shot with the palm trees at sunset behind us.  Johanna and I sported matching hairdos to go see Wicked

IHOP at midnight after WICKED.  Was this our best dinner out?  Maybe...Sad as that is, we just couldn't fit in the nice dinners we had planned on.  Oh well, my sausage and pancakes were delicious!

You can tell that this was a girls vacation since the only use this pool table got was as a shopping bag catchall

A steamy photo of Mom and Katy-so cute!  By the way, LOVED the heated pool!

Sorry Jen, I had to include this photo.  This just perfectly describes the state of relaxing poolside after a delicious meal in the warm sun.mmmmm.....

 So much for our "beauty treatments"  Don't think they did much, but they were fun to peel off!

I was so impressed with the Phonix area freeways-they were beautifully designed and decorated.  I've never seen anything like it!

 Saturday's Ariabian Horseshow in Scottsdale was fun.  The horses were gorgeous, though we've all had better lunches before....

 Arabian checking Johanna for a snack offering.....no such luck

 Speaking of snack...I'll have some of this yummy cake-thank you Katy!

 It was great to see a little of Olivia and Charlotte-Thanks Danielle!

Our Last Night....sigh.  I am drinking the last of my "free" lemonade from the horse show.  Actually, it was free.  I thought they said free refills, so after they filled me up again ( it was so good-rasberry lemonade!), and I'd explained that my cash was gone-spent on their overpriced, disgusting kielbasa ( I didn't tell them that part)-I went home happy with my delicious, FREE lemonade-and I drank every bit!

Happy Valentines Day!

I made some new Valentines decor this year-it turned out cute!

Cuddle buddies

Johanna dutifully helped Cam with his valentines

Ummm...these were SO GOOD!

Aren't these cute?  I think I saw the idea on pinterest-heart shaped cinnamon biscuits.  I made them for V-day breakfast, along with strawberry smoothies

Eddy had a sweet Valentines party in kindergarten.  They had healthy snacks, opened their cards (along with a lot of treats), did conversation heart math, made this cool hat, and did a valentines sequencing activity

too cute-Logan and Jade (we just call her "gigantic hair accessory girl"-she likes to wear oversized hair things) have really hit it off in guitar class

Johanna and Logan had a Valentines concert Valentines night.  The music guy-Mr. Foster, is a hoot-a total hippy, he leans towards beatles songs and the like.  The band did Huey Louis (sp?) last night-"The Power of Love".  Johanna played in band, Jazz band and guitar class.  I accompanied Johanna's friend as she sung a solo.