Five Girls and their Guy: LOADS of stuff

A lot of stuff has been happening! I’m gonna try to get mostly caught up in this one blog post. Two things are making this possible – #1: Ed got the pictures off my phone onto my computer, which was made possible by #2: 3 days of being SNOWED IN!! (Snow pictures to come later…)

This beautiful girl was the stage manager for the high school production of Phantom of the Opera, which was INCREDIBLE. She had a very difficult job, but she handled it amazingly and all I heard was praise for her organizational skills and the way she dealt with the people and the stress of the job. We are SO proud of her!

It really was an amazing production. Such talent! Musically, and in the acting, and in the sets, and everywhere! Truly, those kids deserve the high school Emmy awards (yes, they have those) for their performances. That said, I have to say, I do not like the story or the music in Phantom. I had never seen it before and I found it to be incredibly intense and troubling. But if there ever was a performance of that musical that I would like, it would be theirs!!

The end of January brings BEAR week (Be Excited About Reading) at school. This is NOT my favorite week. I wish they would do it in May when it’s nice weather outside. Part of the deal with BEAR week is that the kids are supposed to not have “screen” time. This is truly difficult when it gets dark at 5:00 in the evening and there are older sisters in the house who DO have screen time. BEAR week culminates (generally) with a book character dress-up day on Friday. This year, however, we had the dress-up day on Wednesday so that Friday could be BLUE FRIDAY…the upcoming Super Bowl in which the Seahawks were playing (& WON!) somehow trumped the dress-up day schedule, giving parents & teachers 2 less days to prepare. Ah well. We totally rocked the dressing up this year, I must say…

We have here Junie B. Jones is the Boss of Lunch and Nikki (an American Girl). And then…

We were the Cats in the Hats. And 10 of our cherubs were Things.

You can see our other sweeties here, too, but the Things were THE HIT of the dress-up day at school. They made their blue hair hats out of butcher paper and we pinned those round numbers on each kid. It was a blast! And considering I don’t usually like to dress-up, that’s saying something!

As I mentioned, the Seahawks played (& dominated) in the BIG GAME. The girls & I decided we needed to bring some special treats over to Grandma & Grandpa’s for the occasion, so we made these chocolate covered strawberries.

And that is what the bottom of my crock-pot looked like one evening after it sparked and snapped while cooking our dinner. I unplugged it immediately, took out the roast and cooked it in the oven for the rest of the day. And then I ordered a new crock-pot on Amazon and had it less than 48 hours later. I love Amazon Prime!

GEMS Girls Clubs hosted a Saturday morning event for Moms & Daughters called the We Walk Tour. It wasn’t about walking, contrary to the belief of those who didn’t actually *read* the information… Winking smile It featured the band “True Emotion” (they were awesome!) and author/speaker Sara Lynne Hilton. The theme of the day was “There is no such thing as just a girl” – and basically it’s about how God can use you wherever He has put you to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him, (taken from Micah 6:8, which is the GEMS aim). It was a great morning!