Taryn's Let's Play Music Recital

Last Saturday Taryn had her music recital. Miss Becca, her teacher, is amazing and we have enjoyed the year. Taryn loved to practice on her bells and I loved the fact that she was learning music concepts, while playing. It is the best program for kids. So glad my friend teaches it.

Taryn's friend and classmate Emery. In her class there were 7 kids. She went every Tuesday and I accompanied her every other Tuesday. So I was able to see and participate in the learning process. Loved it!

Here is Taryn receiving her certificate of completion from Blue Bugs Year 1.  We are so proud of you Taryn!

With certificate in hand, she is one happy kiddo.

Ms. Becca and Taryn.  Becca is amazing and had such a plethora of patience with this little ones.  WHOA!  We loved music class and cannot wait until fall when she becomes a Green Turtle Shell.

Chloe, Taryn, Emery and Will.  Chloe and Taryn are in the same class time next year which we are glad to have someone we know.  We will miss our other friends but we have had an enjoyable experience with them.

Hello Dolly Finale

It was the last night of "Hello Dolly". I was so proud of all the high school kids, and my talented son. Tyson gave it his all and was rewarded with tons of praise from the play's patrons. It was a lot of work, I am not gonna lie, but seeing the kids perform as well as they have all week makes it all worth it. I am very grateful to Caryn for allowing me the opportunity to work with her students. I love every minute of it. And the little stinks even gave me flowers tonight and made me bawl. I don't cry, but they made me. Love them. What a great end to a wonderful run.

Hello Dolly

 For the past three and a half months I have been cheorgraphing Karn's High School's play of "Hello Dolly".  7 dances later it is finally finished and Tyson has been asked to be in another of the productions.  They had a full costume rehearsal last Friday and I was able to take some candid shots of him on stage.

 He loves to be on stage, even if sometimes he forgets what he is doing because he is too busy watching the high school kids perform.  He forgets he is performing too.  It can be funny and frustrating at the same time.

The Finale.  He is going to do great and so are the kids.  I have had a ball working with these fine youth, teaching them an array of dances and seeing the results.  The play runs everyday this week and I am praying for a packed house and lots of good reviews!!!

Fantasy life

I have come to the realization that I don't like reading novels that are non-fiction or ones that are fiction but set in the real world in real world situations. I am perfectly happy to live in that fictional fantasy world where none of it is real and could never happen. I love to read fantasy stories; the ones that could happen or are real life, not-so-much. I like the vampire, witch hunters, and the walking dead because I know there isn't a chance that anything like that is real.  However, the stories about kids missing or ladies killing their husbands, or vise versa or the ones about the kids being kidnapped, un NO!  I can't read stuff like that because then I start to think, "What if that happened to one of my children or to me."  Not cool!
So I will live in the beautiful and safe world of fantasy and be completely content.

I Am Officially Mother-Of-The-Year

Just give me the award now.  Here is what happened in a nutshell.

Tyson lost his last tooth several weeks ago and set it out in his little envelop, like he has done with every other tooth, on his windowsill.  Well...this tooth fairy and helper totally forgot to set out the money and take the tooth.  So when Tyson wakes up the next morning only to find that the tooth fairy didn't come, I had to make up some cockamamie story about why she didn't make it.  Luckily he bought it and on went life for the day.
  I wrote myself a note that day reminding me to be the tooth fairy the next night.  Night comes and goes and Vaughn gets up early for work around 6 am.  He leaves and my eyes pop open as I realize that I have not played the tooth fairy yet.  So I quietly creep into Tyson's room, leave a dollar where the envelop was, take the envelop and proceed to leave his room when I hear him say, "Mom are you the tooth fairy?"  CRAP!!!  I spun around quickly and told him to go back to sleep, then I rushed into my room, hid his envelop and laid in bed listening for sounds.  I heard him get up and sounder into the bathroom and knew he was disappointed.  He came into my room and I answered his questions about the tooth fairy, the New Year's Baby and even the Easter Bunny; TRUTHFULLY!  He then asked if Santa was real and I dodged that question with something else.  I am not ready to admit that one.  I don't want to see anymore magic leave his little eyes.  I mean, he has been asking a lot of questions lately and I know that he knew something was up, but he still believed.  So for now I will dodge the Santa question and hope he still believes for a little bit longer.

The Fat Lip Syndrome

By the look of the picture, Taryn looks like she has been run over and backed up on. Poor baby. We were at the high school on Friday working on the play Hello Dolly. I had the kids with me and told them to sit and not move. Sure mom! Little did I know that they would learn a lesson about obeying.

Taryn was running up and down the auditorium isles when she tripped, fell, and her front teeth went through her bottom lip. Funny thing is...I never knew she did it. I never heard a yell or a scream. When I finished teaching and sat down to watch the results, Taryn came over to me and I saw her bloody lip. Poor thing! Then the flood gates opened and she started to bawl. Luckily we were almost done and I could take her home and doctor her up. I am proud of her for not crying and being a BIG girl in front of others. Now we just have to go through the healing process. She has since learned that when mom says to sit and not move, she sits. Hard lesson to learn. Darn it!

Spring Fun

I love spring time. It is one of my favorite times of year because all of the flowers are blooming, the air has that sweet, fresh smell and everyone is friendly. In honor of this beautiful time of year I took Taryn outside to take some beautiful pictures.

Caught her smelling the flowers. We all should stop and "smell the flowers" and drink in the good ess of what our Heavenly Father has given to us.

. My little beauty.

Mom and daughter pictures. She and I had a brilliant day!

Being A Good Citizen

Tyson's last scout meeting was all about being a good citizen. He and his wolf pack picked up trash along the ten mile greenway. He loved cleaning up, which was surprising. His pack master has a way of making even the most mundane activities fun. He promised each of the boys a ring pop if they could find a candy wrapper, something from McDonald's, or a plastic bottle. The boys took off and went looking for trash. And found some. The greenway wasn't as trashed as you would have thought. Tyson also got a chance to do an outdoor flag ceremony. He finally finished his scout requirements and is now ready to advance to a bear. Yeah!

Soccer and Baseball Season Has Begun

 A morning soccer game and we are all ready.  We got our hair in braids, had a coaching session from brother on the ride to the field and the shoes are on...we are ready!  Except the games were behind 40 minutes, so instead of Vaughn being able to watch some of Taryn's game before going in on call, he helped me set up chairs and had to go to work.  Bummer!

 Taryn has never played soccer before and has only had one practice before today's game; since the crappy, rainy weather has contributed to that.  So she, and most of the kids on her team, was completely lost as to the basics of the game.  They all just wanted to kick the ball down the field.  And my little bossy girl, was a timid mouse.  WHAT???  I thought she would be swinging elbows and throwing kids down, Nope!  She was not about to steal the ball from anyone.  We will have to remedy that one.

 But she did get to kick the ball some and always had her arm out when she did it. 

 Run Taryn, run.

 And there is the arm in the air again.  It was funny to watch!  Her team won and she got a sticker for good defense.  She was happy with her performance and that is all that matters.

 We were supposed to be playing baseball at 3 today, but the games were all pushed back 2 hours, so it was at five. I was hoping to be able to watch some of conference today, but by the time we got home from Taryn's soccer game President Iring was just finishing his talk and that ended the first session of conference.  Then we had to leave for Tyson's game as conference started for the second session.  Thank goodness for the power of technology that we can watch it later on the computer. Tyson played second base, pitcher, third base and outfield.  He did really well and even got a few kids out.

 He turned for about half a second and I got a partial facial photo instead of the normal butt shot you get when trying to take pictures of baseball.

She was board!  So we took posing photos in between innings as they were switching from the field.  She was ready to be finished 30 minutes into the game and was really done when the 90 minute game was over.  Me too!  Both Taryn and Tyson's team won their games.  Yeah!! We are all finished for today.  And because it was finally a nice day, we all have little red faces from the sun.  YEAH, just call me mother-of-the-year for forgetting the sunscreen.  I will have that in the bag next time.

Easter

Easter Time is near and here.  One of the ladies from our church ward had a great idea to have an Easter Egg hunt with all our kids.  We each brought 12 eggs filled with treats and goodies to hide.  The parents ran around, in the rain, and hid the eggs; harder for the bigger kids and easier for the little ones.

Even though the rain was falling, Taryn still grabbed her eggs with gusto and vigor.

A great action shot of the kids running to gather eggs.

Kylie and Taryn with all their goodies smiling even in the rain.

Love this boy.  His facial expressions are priceless.

Tyson found a camo egg and that was his highlight of the hunt.  He didn't care about its insides, he just wanted the egg.

Yep, she made a haul!

Checking out our egg-cellent surprises found in the eggs.

During this week it was Spring Break and Vaughn went with his buddies to watch the Sweet Sixteen games in Anaheim, Dallas.  I, of course, was jealous but enjoy the time I had just the kids and myself.  We painted their bird houses.  Tyson is an all American Boy.  Anything he paints has to have an American flag on it somewhere.

Then we made rice krispie eggs.  We made the rice krispies and then stuffed it into the eggs for them to mold and become krispie eggs.  They were both yummy and gooey.
I then took the kids for a movie date.  We saw The Croods and laughed till we were sick.  We also took along our Easter Candy from the hunt and got us a BIG coke while at the movies.  Needless to say, everyone had a tummy ache and no one wanted dinner.  Yes, it was a good day.

Saturday night, while the kids slept, I played the Easter Bunny and hid candy all over the house.  My parents used to do this for us when we were little and I love the tradition.  I have more fun hiding, and sampling, the candy than the kids do finding it.

Some eggs hidden on the stairs.

Candy by the pictures.

Two happy kids.

Yes, the Easter Bunny was quite generous this year and we will have enough candy to last us till Halloween.

Grandma T sent the kids new Easter outfits.  I love Tyson's mint green shirt.  These two are my life.  Love them.

It took several pictures to get the above one.  Here is one where Taryn was yelling "Easter" instead of smiling.

And then the master photographer that I am, I cut off Tyson's head.  Good job mom!
After a wonderful day at church we went to dinner at Heather's mom's house.  She is an amazing cook and the food was wonderful.  Then it was one more Easter Egg hunt and then bed.  Whew!  What an amazing few days.