Act 4; Scene 31: Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What is a strange, random holiday good for but strange, random holiday food?

Here are our items of the day!

Rainbow cupcakes.

the divided batter--all but purple which got cut out of the shot :-)

Layering the batter

topped with mini m&ms and presto! 

The pot of gold is the great feeling you have in your tummy after eating the cupcake. So good! 

Tommy had a good time helping me make the goodies.

We also had kiwi popsicles. They are easy and so yummy! Just slice up kiwis and stick a tooth pick in each slice, then put them in the freezer. They had so much tangy sweet goodness they didn't need anything else. They will make a great summer snack!

Thomas and I also celebrated by going to the dinosaur museum (which also has an ocean display). Nothing says St. Patrick's Day like a giant shark head...

Happy St. Patty's!

Act 4; Scene 30: Tommy Found A Girl Friend

Or should I say another one? He is a terribly big flirt.

We headed up to Sandy this weekend for the Home and Garden Festival (which I won tickets for on the radio!!!! So of course we had to check it out). It was fun--completely crowded. No parking in the entire expo center parking, and most of the overflow completely packed. Crazy! It was fun to see a lot of beautiful and strange home and garden stuff. And they had dog trainers there--the family fave. 

Afterward we decided to use my recently acquired gift card to Chili's for dinner, since it was right down the street. Which was also completely crowded. Fortunately we avoided the MAJOR crowd as we hopped in for an early dinner.

And they sat us at a booth. One of those booths that is divided from the booth right next to it by a beam and a partition, with a little area underneath the partition for peeking at who is eating on the other side (obviously). 

Well, it just so happened that a little girl about Tommy's age was sitting at the booth on the other side of our partition. And Thomas noticed right away. She didn't seem to mind the attention, either.

They giggled and laughed and flirted with each other the whole time. It was great entertainment for both (and for both sets of parents). Hey, it kept Tommy distracted from trying to open the ketchup, shake the salt and pepper all over, and dump out the packets of splenda, so we're good!

Hope your weekend was just as entertaining.

Have a great week!

Act 4; Scene 29: The Show Must Go On

Last Saturday was my 5-7 year old Broadway Bound musical theater performance of "Welcome to the Jungle" (not the Guns n' Roses version...)

We've been working on the show since November and the kids were over the moon excited to perform for their parents. Megan, my choreographer, and I spent about 3 1/2 hours late Friday night decking out the dance room into a jungle--complete with a giant poster colored by the kids, huge paper trees taped to the walls, streamers, "vines," palm fronds, leaves (that Robert helped me cut out...for 3 hours!). It looked awesome. We left around 11:15pm hoping that everything we taped would stay up. We really should have taken a picture.

I arrived at our venue about 35 minutes early to prep for when the kids came. I was surprised to see a few cars there--I thought I would be the first person there. I walked in and found the gym decked out--not as a jungle that we had worked so hard on--but as a wedding reception. All of our hard work from the night before had been ripped down, crinkled up, and thrown in the trash.

Apparently the city made a mistake with the scheduling and double-booked, unknown to either parties. It was the sight of the giant poster that the kids had spent the last few weeks coloring all crinkled and torn that really got me. Of course, I started bawling because I just couldn't hold it in. Those poor wedding people thought they had ruined my life :-).

Obviously, a wedding comes first in the series of important events supposedly happening that day. So Lori, the big boss, called in the troops and we frantically tried to come up with a plan B.

Fortunately for us, the Pleasant Grove library had their stage available that day in a few hours. So we just pushed everything back two hours. And went to get cupcakes in the half hour we had to wait to get into the library to set up.

A trip to the party store, the storage unit, and borrowed trees from Thanksgiving Point later we had a newly decked out stage. But the amazing part--a few of our "called in crew" took the time to get all of the ripped and crinkled parts of the kids' poster and tape it back together!!!! And it actually looked presentable and we were able to display it! Then we rearranged some of the staging, got the kids in mics, practiced, and performed.

It was crazy. But you know...it might have looked better than the original :-).

And everyone was so understanding. Thank you to the families who rearranged their whole days without complaint! I mean, what do you do?

Here are some pictures of our crazy fun day:

The fixed poster. Amazing!

Random pole holding up the ceiling turned into a palm tree!

Our group getting ready to perform!

The big finale!

Me, Corinne in the back (producer), and Megan (choreographer)...and of course Tommy

Act 4; Scene 28: A Perfect Moment

This past Sunday morning, we had just finished eating breakfast (I actually made something--biscuits! Well it was Sunday morning, after all), and everyone had a full belly. We weren't in a rush anywhere, because we had plenty of time to get ready before church. Thomas was playing happily with his toys, talking and making the funniest sounds while experimenting with his language skills. The morning sunshine was streaming through our windows. I went over and gave Robert a hug. While he was holding me, I realized I was so happy. I was joyful. This was a perfect moment. On that calm, slow, nothing special, crazy hair Sunday morning I was exactly where I wanted to be and doing what I wanted to be doing (without me even realizing it). What's more--we were ALL where we wanted to be. It was a family perfect moment. And I guess that's what made it so perfect. 

Here's to noticing all the perfect moments in our lives!

Act 4; Scene 27: Some Crazy Awesome Things We've Done This Week

1. I went to Hobby Lobby one day (for my musical theater class's supplies) and ended up coming home with materials to make this:

2. Tuesday I went crazy in the kitchen. Have you read The Scorpio Races? If you haven't you should. And then you should make these November cakes, like I did for book group. They were delicious! But took all day.

3. On Tuesday I also decided to be awesome and make cauliflower crust pizza. Another attempt to get all of my vegetable servings in. Can you believe that is just cauliflower making up that dough? Pretty tasty, I must say, (as you can see from most of it being gone in that picture--I forgot to take a picture until after we had eaten!) but a bit time consuming.

4. We've been looking into an entertainment center for a while now, and wanted to take advantage of some President's Day sales. In my research, I decided to take a look on KSL classifieds. On of course the busiest day of the week (no car at home, helping with scouts, ward dinner night), and found the PERFECT entertainment center. I went a bit crazy and reserved a U-Haul and sent Robert and my Dad to go get it between work (5:30) and ward dinner (6:30). Did I mention it was about 20 miles away? But it was TOTALLY worth it. Isn't is beautiful? It will be more beautiful when it is cleaned and decorated. 

5. On Thursday night (after a we-won't-get-the-car-back-today melt down; a what?-this-has-to-chill-for-an-hour?!! melt down; and an we-don't-have-enough-powdered-sugar meltdown (but actually...we did), Robert and I made these lovely truffles for Valentine's Day:

6. On Friday I took both Tommy and William (boy I babysit--same age as Thomas) to the Dinosaur Museum with two of my friends and their boys (similar ages). And there was a field trip there. Like, 120 9 year olds running through the museum. It was hard enough to have two 19 month old kids to keep track of, but keeping track of them along with the two other boys (their mom's are both pregnant and not feeling so great) in a hoard of crazy Valentine/field trip high 9 year olds is C.R.A.Z.Y. Needless to say, this Waffle Love was much needed after the museum trip! Us with William (hiding his head behind Annie) and his Mom, Annie. Glamorous picture, I know. But our only souvenir from the day!

7. On Valentine's Evening we baked heart-shaped pizza (which sadly isn't that heart shaped. Can you even tell it's a heart? I mean seriously, Papa Murphy's, I could have done better than that!) and I cut up some sort-of heart shaped carrots.

Then we decided to ditch our plans of going to Rocky Mtn Chocolate Factory for dessert and just stay home (crazy field trip infested day, remember?). We spent about a half hour on the floor wrestling with Tommy. And you know what? That was the best end to any day. Rough housing with my two Valentine's was the perfect way to spend the holiday.

Hope you had a great week!

Act 4; Scene 26: Some Saturday Fun for the Boys

There is a couple in our ward who have a son 3 weeks older than Tommy. We all have a great time together, and have started doing temple swaps on Saturdays--you know, you-watch-ours-then-we'll-watch-yours-so-we-can-all-get-to-the-temple kind of swap. 

Last Saturday, we were cracking up with these two. Here is some of the footage we captured:

Some copy cat and some wrestling. I love how they choose the strange hallway on the kitchen floor....weirdies.

Happy Playing!