Monday, April 27, 2015

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. 


10 comments:

  1. Love sharing your weekend, Sarah!
    Busy indeed!
    But it sounds super fun. : )
    Shout out to your hubby for holding down the fort while you ventured out.
    Steve is the party/ play date/ extra kid guy around here.
    As much as I love my own kids...I am just not about all that chaos!
    Anyway, glad it's over and you can relish the sweetness that is your home.
    Happy Birthday to your son, and so glad he enjoyed his weekend.
    Go Mom! : )

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    1. Aren't those helpful and willing husbands just the best? It sure helps to lighten the load esp when I get a little overwhelmed. Now that the weekend is in the rearview it's easier to see how fun it was for the kids and worth the effort.

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  2. Sounds like a great birthday! I love how you did his cake! I may do that for Peter's first birthday celebration at home. Lately I buy a cake for their party with family because I find it too stressful to bake and decorate a cake while taking care of all the little ones and wanting it to look nice for everyone.

    I'm having my 20 week ultrasound next Tuesday. I think it's so neat our pregnancies are so close!

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    1. I hear you, Kari. I started out with birthday cakes perhaps too ambitiously and have had to scale back just due to lack of time to work on them. I've had to start asking the kids to make their 'dream cake' each birthday a little less 'dreamy'. lol.
      Due date buddies and close pregnancies are the best! It's fun to stay connected and keep a close eye on how one another are doing. I hope you are feeling well enough and surviving your pregnancy too.

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  3. You are so funny about having boys in the house!! That's all I know, and maybe that's why I think I could never do arts & Crafts or homeschool - because nobody sits still! Happy 10th birthday Jonah, good job Mom & Dad!!

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    1. All I kept thinking over the weekend was "how does Colleen do it??!!" And Reed just said "our house wouldn't have held up this long with more boys." lol. You totally rock the boy mom thing and I didn't think your boys were like crazy wild at all. You're doing great mom!

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  4. Interesting! Having 3 boys and just one girl for so long...the only girl did mostly boy things...I tend to like the wild chaos of having boys. Please do not make me play with stuffed animals and barbie dolls. I can do only so many tea parties and dress ups. I am more of someone who wants to play ball...any kind of ball game...anything outside. Last place I want to be is at a store. I love the great outdoors camping. Not a hotel. Hotels are nice...dont get me wrong...but boring. The boys love to hike and get dirty. We are blessed with the children we get.

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    1. It's a funny thing, isn't it? I keep saying that with Jonah we have to be so intentional about getting him around other boys because he really does not know how to be a 'boy'. Not that he's girly, he's just not rough and tough. We are outdoor people, but maybe not so much outdoorsy if that makes sense. Camping, probably not. Hiking, biking, being outside and being active...absolutely! I don't like to be in a store or shopping either, but heck, on Saturday even battling the annoying Walmart shoppers was appealing. It may have had something to do with getting away for a little bit, plus my little companion-helper. :)

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  5. "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.

    I hear 'ya sister!!! LOL

    The play sounds fantastic, and I am thrilled it was such a success! I knew it would be. The costumes, did you have to pull them together, or were they provided. They look perfect for the part.

    I'm glad Jonah had the boy time. He had the perfect party!

    Hugs and kisses to you all!

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    1. The costumes...we were asked to pull them together ourselves with some help from the director. We started looking at what we had at home and bought a few things from Goodwill which could 'work.' For Jonah though we ended up finding the pilgrim costume on ebay and it was cheaper than what we had already purchased. We returned our items and bought the ebay costume. It was just easier at that point for this pregnant mama. :)
      For Lily, we had some items, but then the director looked through the costume storage from the homeschool group's past plays. She found the blouse and skirt and they worked perfectly! I wish I could post (don't want to due to privacy) the whole cast's costumes. Those moms pulled together/whipped up some amazingly accurate historical costumes!!
      They are talking about doing another short play in the fall and every other year the group does a big one in the spring. Currently Les Miserables is being rewritten for the group to perform next spring. Lily esp is eager to try out :)

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