show time - the grace giver secret

madelyn and her buddy, braxton, had the leads in their stage acting class' performance piece. (braxton was not feeling having his picture taken tonight.) how lovely is our girl? she is just beaming because she LOVES performing.

she has an amazing memory and picked up, not only her lines, but the entire play just from class. she didn't even have to work on it at home! we are clearly going to have to work on not mouthing everyone else's lines or stage directing too much. when i asked her about it she told me that braxton asked for her to help him remember his lines and that was why she was saying them with him.

we are so very proud of her - for who she is. love.

show time!

tonight's the night! madelyn performed for the school on friday, but today is the big performance on the high school stage for all for the parents. since i always get left out, i asked for a picture at home (maddux our best photographer). look at the daddy photobomb.

madelyn and her school bestie gwen backstage

the entire second grade was part of the production

madelyn was a clown fish. she started in the chorus and then moved forward for her speaking parts. the video clips show a little of each song and all of madelyn's speaking parts. she is on the far right side of the stage for speaking.

this scrunchy face was seen a lot and when i asked her about it she said that she was trying to find us

last night madelyn asked if her friend ella might be able to come and see her. lucky for us, she could!

mason ready to go, with his zipped up backwards jacket.

madelyn said that she was sad to finish her last performance and would do anything to be on stage again. it was a wonderful experience for the kids and they did a really great job. love.

girls day - dinner and a show

madelyn has been very sad because her great friend, ella, is moving to florida. while we are excited at the prospect of getting to see their family when we make our florida road trips, we are going to miss them very much. so ella's mom and i arranged to have a girls' night out. the middle school put on a production of "into the woods junior" at the high school so we met for dinner first. 

first, madelyn was super excited to go out to dinner with me, but then she was even more excited when i told her who would be joining us and where we were going. i had withheld the information, one, because i love surprises, and two, because i didn't want to diminish her excitement about the birthday party.

so after a delightful dinner, we all rode together (the girls' idea) over to the high school for the show. it was really great. i had never seen it before so had done a little research before we bought tickets. we were pretty blown away at the vocal and acting talents of the middle schoolers! it was a much better performance than i was expecting.

the girls had both decided that cinderella had been their favorite character (although ella's mom and i both thought that the boy who played jack, of jack and the beanstalk, was amazing). they thought it was pretty neat to be able to get a picture with her after the show (i totally missed that ella was reaching for her hat when i took the picture).

it was a great night out with some pretty great girls. love.

wrapping up soccer season

today were the last soccer games of the season!  (yay!)  while i had the games on the calendar for 10am, i got it in my head that they were at 9am and rushed everyone to get ready.  so we didn't have pancakes for breakfast like i had planned and had a lot of free time before it actually was time to leave.  (and i still had it wrong because madelyn's game wasn't until 10:30am...)  madelyn took the extra time this morning to read a book to her brothers.  they were even willing to sit on the ground like instructed.

somehow, i remembered to get a picture of madelyn and mason together on their last day.  it was just coincidence that they were both 'yellow' today and matched.

and one of mason with his handsome coach - daddy.

manning wanted to walk around so i let him out.  i thought he was going to try to play on the playground, but he just wanted to sit on the edge.  his feet were just able to reach the ground while sitting, so he really just tried to balance the whole time.  he is saying "cheese" in the picture.

manning was really being agreeable this morning.  he willingly sat with us on the blanket while we watched mason's game (he and madelyn had games at the same time but his is shorter, so we started at his).  he even let maddux lay down on his lap.  they were being so cute with each other!  maddux was even fine when manning started smacking him in the face.

and since the stroller was free, mason thought that it was the most perfect place to sit while he waited to go back into the game.

mason's team had (embarrassingly) dominated every game of the season - until today.  i think they are all on the oldest end of the limit for the team (mason is one of the youngest).  mason has loved his first season of soccer and is looking forward to next year.

this may have been madelyn's last game/season.  she isn't super in to playing soccer so we are thinking about encouraging her to try some other sports to see if there is something she might enjoy more (like volleyball? :) ).  of course, once she got today's team snack she was all ready to sign up again.

after the games we went home for a quick lunch and for the first time (maybe ever), we pulled a carseat out of the van and matt took the boys to a fire safety event and some other errands and madelyn and i took his car to go to the ballet. madelyn thought that it was the greatest thing ever!  she was more excited about riding in daddy's car than where we were even going.

madelyn was excited about the ballet though.  and just as i had predicted, the second we got there she asked if she could take ballet again.  (she also said that she wanted to play softball since matt showed her some girls warming up as we were leaving soccer.  there isn't much madelyn doesn't like in theory.)  the ballet was a "director's choice" performance; we had attended last year and had a great time.  i made the mistake of telling madelyn that we could get a snack during intermission.  she kept a very close eye on her program and counted down to her "snack".  she did really enjoy the ballet too.  i didn't think that it was quite as great as it was last year, but it was still worth the $10 tickets.  and madelyn enjoyed some time alone together.  she spent some of the ride over to the theater crying about how we do so many things without her when she is at school.

it was a pretty great saturday.  love.

sleeping beauty

a friend of mine from fort myers had posted about a lunch matinee of sleeping beauty at a local theater in july.  since we would be down there i decided to see if any of the dates were while we were in town and there were!  grandma thought it sounded like a great idea so we got tickets and when briana couldn't meet up with a school trip due to a dentist appointment, she was able to join us too!

the girls were very excited.  briana had been there before so she acted as our guide around the theater.  madelyn loves a buffet and it was filled with kid friendly foods.

our little "lady" with cake icing running down her face...

grandma, briana and madelyn

the girls colored on the backs of the placemats while we waited for the show

the show was really good for kids.  there was no intermission and it moved along quickly with lots of singing and dancing.  when it was time for the kiss at the end madelyn said, "i have been waiting for this!"  she really, really liked the show.

afterwards we waited in line to see the actors.  the girls wouldn't take pictures or get 'autographs' from the male actors and briana lost interest after the queen, but madelyn couldn't wait to meet everyone.

the girls comparing autographs on their playbills

when we got to the fairies we had to wait to take the picture when it was madelyn's turn because the woman behind us had the fairies start signing her playbill.  she was so pushy that the fairies thought she was with us and tried to get her in our picture!  rudeness is not just for the 'younger generations'....

it was pouring when we were ready to leave so i took my shoes off and left my back with grandma and the girls to go get the car.  we had a great time and i am glad that it fit into our visit.  love.