Babes in Toyland November '10

Caden's first community play. He started out as Little Boy Blue, with a several lines and songs and some blocking and choreography, but it was just too hard to focus for so long and know when it was time to speak, move, sing, dance, etc. We switched him to My Son John, who doesn't come on until the very end and has only 2 lines and one song. Much Mohr Bettah. Brooklyn was Mirandy the Rag Doll and Spencer was Bru the Teddy Bear at the toy factory.

Joryn's Prom May 2011

The Sparkly Converse!

Well, Prom ended up being stressful for Joryn because poor David was looking for more than just friendship. (Kids here don't seem to date at all except as exclusive couples. It's a bummer.) But at least she got to wear that dress!

Disneyworld

Judd and I took Caden to Disneyworld last spring. The girls didn't want to miss school! Judd loved the teacups, as you can see. I think Caden's favorite part was swimming at the hotel!






We got to wait hours in the hot sun for Caden to be a padwan learner and defeat Darth Vader 3 times!

Florida

I got a wild hair the day after school got out this last school year and packed the kids up for a beach vacation in Florida. We left 24 hours after I decided to go. We did the 14-hr drive in 2 days. I figured, this would probably be the last chance we'd have to do something like this since Joryn is planning on going to BYU early, and I've always wanted to do a beach vacation with the kids because I love the beach so much. Judd had to stay home and work. :( Cade was very serious about learning to surf, we collected a bazillion shells, Joryn cried because she was about to leave for Utah for the summer and wanted to spend that week with her friends, we flew kites, made sand castles, buried Caden, Joryn got a glorious sunburn, we boogie boarded a lot... all in all, a good vacation.

Hello Again!

It looks like it may have been a while since my last post. :) But Katie has inspired me to put some pictures up here, so here goes. The question is, can I figure all of this out again? I think I'll start with plays the kids have done. (None of this will be in any particular order. Sorry, but my pictures are just not that organized!) In the last community Christmas play, Babes in Toyland, Caden was My Son John (notice the one shoe off and one shoe on?).
It will probably be quite some time before Caden does another community play. The time commitment for me (he doesn't have the ability to focus during the very long rehearsals without me there to focus him) is great, and with the baby coming...
Spencer was a teddy bear named Bru.
Brooklyn was a rag doll named Mirandy.



Spencer was a poor little orphan named July in Annie.


Caden was a Duke in a Sleeping Beauty play he did for Summer School: The Hundred Year Snooze. As you can see, he had a great time.

Caden's 6th Birthday Party

For Caden's 6th birthday he had a Super Hero party. We started with the kids decorating their own super hero masks (from walmart) and power bracelets (strips of foam from walmart) with stickers. They also got capes which I made out of those cheap thin plastic table cloths from walmart. Then they played Save the Citizen: we blew up a whole package of balloons (from walmart, of course. That's all we have in Rolla!) ahead of time and put them into an area we kind of coralled off with furniture. The blue ones were citizens, which needed to be put outside of the area. The green ones were kryponite, which they had to avoid because of course it would sap their powers and possibly kill them. The rest of the colors were super villains, which they had to beat up and destroy by punching, kicking, and then finally popping. The older kids helped by holding onto the 3-6 year olds so they wouldn't kill themselves trying to kill the villains. (Picture a 5 year old jumping with both feet onto a filled balloon. Definate possibility of bonkage there.)
Then they each got a supply of super spidey-web (can of silly string). Posted around outside were pictures of super villains which they had to Get with their webs. We also played rescue the kitten from the tree. Everyone wanted several turns climbing the tree to rescue the pink stuffed kitten. Also, Judd took them into the field behind the house and let them help launch a rocket, which had nothing to do with super heros but everyone thought it was cool. It went a couple of hundred feet high and came down on a parachute. The third time it got lost in a tree. Oh, well. A couple of the little girls who came told their moms, "It was actually fun!" (They apparently weren't really planning on enjoying a super hero party!)

The Promised Land

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner tonight. They told us that a few weeks ago our Mission President, President Seal, got a phone call from Neil L. Anderson, who used to be over our area before he got called to the 12. He said, "President Seal, the 1st Presidency would like to send you 14 more missionaries." That's huge! He said, "Would you like to know why? The 1st Presidency and the Quorum of the 12 have been thinking and praying a lot about your mission lately, and they feel like you will need 14 additional missionaries to be prepared for the number of baptisms that will happen in your mission in the next year."

WOW.

I got a chill. That means that there are a lot of people already prepared and waiting for us to find them. This is so exciting to me to be here for this! Before the sisters came for dinner they knocked a few doors in our neighborhood, and a man around the corner invited them to come back and teach him more! So when they go they will bring us with them to help teach. Apparently they're beginning a new program where instead of having the member just bear their testimony, the member actually teaches a principle. So we have been challenged to study the first lesson from Preach My Gospel so we can be prepared to help teach! There are at least a handful of families we know who we feel like we need to friendship and introduce to the church. I'll keep you posted on what happens from here. It's exciting and humbling to be living in the last days, isn't it?