Weekend Scenes: Spring Play, A Birthday & Weekend With Boys

I'm tired, my friends. How about you? It was one of those good weekends with family time, crazy time, but at home time. Semi-busy, but it still feels wearing. These are the type of weekends that begin to fill the calendar as the snow melts and the sunshine lingers. The memory maker weekends.

As I mentioned last week, we had planned that the weekend would be for celebrating Jonah's tenth birthday. While I had plans to be intentional about making a big deal over his turning double digits, he ended up just wanting to keep it simple. He wanted to have two of my brother's boys over for the weekend, so that's what we did. 

Which, if you are a mom with three girls and one boy, turns out to be a revealing weekend. One in which I thought many times "I get it now why I'm a 'girl mom' and wasn't blessed with a treasure trove of boys." Not that ya don't love 'em, but they are busy. And loud. And slightly destructive.

The boys came on Friday afternoon so they were able to join us for the kids' spring musical play that evening. Both sets of grandparents were also able to venture out to join us in watching the kids' first ever performance. It was a musical timeline portraying parts of American history. It had nearly 30 kids from our home school group that played historical figures from Christopher Columbus to a 9/11 survivor. Each of the characters lines were actual words they spoke or those wrote in their journals. Sprinkled within the musical were catchy short songs that even my toddlers and myself can now sing after hearing them practiced so many times in rehearsals. It ended up lasting only 30 minutes, but the cast did amazing performing and the historical costumes were great. I wish I could post more photos for you all to see. After the musical, several of the home school students also participated in a variety show/musical performances for us. So much fun.

A quick photo with my nephews before casting call:

Lily as Clara Barton (she was so excited since that's who she was hoping to get cast as) and Jonah as William Bradford (the first governor of the Plymouth colony):

After all the hard work and two weeks of rehearsals, we all enjoyed the final production:

While the work was grueling and the drives to rehearsals 20-50 minutes away, in the end we were happy with the outcome. With this being the kids' first debut in acting and working with other cast members, I'm pleased to say it was a wonderful experience. We are already looking forward to more theater opportunities in the near future.

Saturday turned out to be at-home day. The weather was misty and gray in the morning, but thankfully cleared up enough for the kids to head outside. Thank you, Mother Nature. While our plans had been to take all the kids out for pizza in the afternoon, turned out that wasn't their plan. They just wanted to hang out, run around like hooligans and play like crazy people. 

We gave in and scrapped our plans.

I needed to run to town for groceries and ended up also picking up pizza for supper. Gianna joined me on the outing and it turned out to be a good time away for the two of us. It's rare that I have just one kid along for an errand and she seemed to really enjoy herself as well. I labeled her my new 'errand girl' and she called herself 'a good reminder girl' since she kept track of the things we needed that I didn't have on my list. I look forward to more outings like this now that I know it turned out to be kind of a big deal to her.

Thankfully, Reed is a trooper and held down the fort with all the other kids. They ended up staying outside burning up energy at the park next door and walking in the woods. Everyone survived despite several mishaps and boyisms that seem to happen with more males around. 

Finally, on Sunday we went to Mass in the morning, had my parents join us for brunch and then both sets of grandparents celebrated Jonah's birthday along with us. The kids took advantage of every moment they could to be outside running around. It was glorious outdoors. 

My parents drove my nephews to meet up with my brother and go back home. I think I managed to get the house back in order and now this week we'll be back on track with schoolwork. My mom will join me for my 20 week ultrasound on Tuesday since she's never seen an ultrasound in person as it happens. That should be kind of fun and a chance for grandma to experience some of that same excitement we get each time we see our babies.

May your spring week be beautiful, the sunshine bright and life in full bloom wherever you are.