Trying to catch up . . . . Conference and Easter

I'm still woefully behind.  Doing my best.  Sorry for the glimpses back into the spring when most of the U.S. is firmly planted in summer.

Grandma and Grandpa Springer were at our house for Conference this year (and Aubrey's play).  They were very helpful, and we loved having them visit.  This year we tried something new instead of Conference Bingo.  Dan typed up some topics which might be mentioned in Conference, and Joseph cut them into individual strips.  We filled bowls with different types of candy and put them by the fireplace. Every time the kids heard the topic mentioned they ran up to get a piece of the correlating candy.  It was a hit!

 

 

We also wrote the topics of the talks on papers, which we posted by the pictures of the General Authorities on the fireplace.

And Joseph and Dan built a tent fort, with an opening so Joseph could see the TV.  Inbetween Conference sessions (and Aubrey's performances) Joseph entertained himself by playing with the "Talking Tom" app on Grandma's iphone. He loved it. Did we love hearing Tom parrot everything we said for hours on end? Hmmmm, let me think about that one.

Oh, and at one point Joseph created a fake bloody injury on his arm.  Very cool and entertaining.

And now on to Easter.  I could only talk two of the kids into decorating Easter eggs, but they did a fantastic job of it.

And, once again, only the youngest two would take pictures next to their Easter baskets.

Below, the letter exchange between Joseph and the Easter Bunny.

 

Aubrey and Joseph hunting eggs in the grass in the back yard.

 

 

 

 

 It was a lovely Easter Sunday!

Fleece sheets all year long

On this rainy, chilly June morning (is there any other type of weather in June in Vancouver?) I am remembering an incident when my sister Ali and family visited us last August.  Ali wanted to take a nap in a quiet place, so she slipped into Brandon's old bedroom.  But, it was a nice warm day, and she was too warm to sleep.  She pointed out to me that it must have been because we had forgotten to take the fleece sheets off the bed in Brandon's room when he left on his mission in May.

And then I had to stop and seriously re-orient to what is reality for everyone else in the U.S. Because ALL our beds were still made up with fleece sheets.  At the beginning of August. Not just the bed belonging to the child who had been gone for three months.

Because, with the exception of a few weeks at the end of July/beginning of August,  it is chilly enough for fleece sheets every night, all year long.  And the chill in the Pacific NW is a very particular kind of cold, which gets into your bones and requires gallons of Starbucks dark chocolate hot cocoa to rectify. 

So, if you come visit us (and please visit us!) we promise you lots of rain, beautiful green everywhere, possibly a little sunshine, and soft fleece sheets.

A sad birthday tale and other stories of a crazy day

I can't believe my baby girl turned 15 years old. I have lots of sentimental and mushy things to say, all of which will purposely embarrass her completely, but I will save those for another post.  This is a different sort of post, a story about a birthday filled with tears and laughter.

We'll start at the end, because that was the most significant part.  Bailey enthusiastically went to Mutual on the eve of her birthday, dressed in her cute new birthday clothes.  It was an outdoor Olympics-themed joint activity with the young men.  In completing the activities, her super spectacular new sparkly boat shoes got muddy.  But wait . . . it gets worse, much worse.

Near the end of the Mutual activity Bailey, along with three friends, was running across the parking lot.  She tripped on a loose piece of metal grate (cutting up her ankle pretty badly) and then fell HARD off the sidewalk curb and onto the asphalt parking lot. It happened so fast that she couldn't use her hands to catch her fall, so her chin hit the ground first.  Followed by some skidding across the ground which roughed up her arm and knee.  People who were watching said that the impact caused her legs to go up backwards toward her head.

Bailey reports that at first she just felt embarrassed to have fallen, and she stood up and thought she was pretty much okay.  It was when everyone around her gasped in horror at the blood coming from her chin that she knew there was a problem.  Even then, she was pretty calm until some leaders started to explain in detail how serious it looked, and that she would definitely need stitches.

Pause the story for a moment.  I would like to point out that we made it through 20 years and 3 months of parenting without ever having a child need stitches.  In fact, I was the first person to need stitches in our family, when I had an unfortunate run-in with a hedge trimmer last fall.  Bailey was pretty understandably freaked out by the idea of needles and blood and pain. 

Young Women leaders immediately started calling Dan and I to come to get Bailey. Unfortunately, we were standing in our entryway talking about alarm systems (more on this in a minute), so we didn't hear the calls for awhile. Finally, Dan looked down at his phone and noticed an urgent text, at which point I jumped into the car, raced to the church, and found Bailey with at least 25 people gathered around her.  Very unfortunately, our Bishop who is a doctor and is OUR doctor, wasn't at this activity.  So, the leaders in charge did their best to put pressure on the wound with a baby wipe while the young women tried to distract Bailey with funny stories.

Bailey and I took off quickly to the closest emergency room, where we waited for half an hour.  Last fall I got a lot quicker response when I showed up at the Urgent Care to get stitches in my hand, but that might be because I was actively bleeding all over the check-in counter. Unfortunately or fortunately for Bailey, the blood flow had slowed, so we weren't #1 priority.

We amused ourselves by taking pictures:

Bailey wouldn't let me take any pictures of the most serious injury on her chin.  Just use your imagination as you look at this picture of her applying pressure with gauze.

Bailey also quickly realized that she could utilize the power of facebook to get sympathy, so she posted this:

For the next two hours in the ER she distracted herself by checking facebook on her ipod repeatedly to see who had commented on her status update.

Once we were back in the pediatric ER (Bailey takes exception to being classified as a pediatric patient)., the nurse set to work picking gravel out of her wounds.  Luckily, they first poured a wonderful numbing elixir onto the wounds - and she never felt a thing!

Dan joined us in the treatment room after picking up Aubrey from a theater practice and getting the kids situated at home. 

We made sure to tell everyone who entered the room that it was Bailey's birthday.  Ya gotta get your birthday fun somehow, right?

Once Bailey realized that the stitches weren't going to hurt at all, she was back to her optimistic and cheery self. We did a lot of laughing while we waited.  I also love what she said on the way home: "Today I got a lot of attention at school for it being my birthday. Well, tomorrow I plan to milk it and get even more attention for getting injured on my birthday!"  And she did.

At about 11 p.m. we finally were able to go home with her battle wounds.  After we got home and settled the younger kids to bed, Bailey and I enjoyed a slice of her amazing chocolate cheesecake (at midnight) and she opened her presents.

A little postscript: when we arrived home Aubrey and Joseph were still awake. We couldn't possibly be upset that they hadn't gone to sleep, though, because they spent hours straightening the house, including Bailey's bedroom, and left Bailey sweet notes and messages all over the house.

Now, if anyone is till reading, I am going to record a little bit about the rest of the crazy day.

It's the end of the school year, and that means that every day is filled with homework projects to finish, tests to take, and programs at the elementary school. Add to that the frenetic end to the baseball season, piano recitals, "tech week" for the show Aubrey is in this weekend, AND, of course a birthday.  It was quite a day.  Starting at 5:30 a.m. with breakfast in bed for the birthday girl. Inbetween everything else during the day, I ran to the Dollar Store to get some bday decorations for the house, ran to the grocery store to get supplies for Bailey's fancy birthday dinner, and made a triple chocolate cheesecake (for the first time!).

We had to go into overdrive to fit in the birthday dinner before we had to leave to take Joseph to his first "playoff" baseball game.  So Dan got home early and we started eating at 4:45 p.m.  We ran out of time to have cheesecake and for Bailey to open her sibling gifts, so we decided to save those for after Mutual. Aubrey had rehearsal after dinner, but Bailey really wanted to go to Mutual on her birthday.  So she did.

Meanwhile, Dan and I were watching baseball.  Two of Joseph's buddies were watching the game with us.  At the end of the game we brought home the two buddies, plus we picked up three more little boys from a friend at the church (she needed someone to watch her kids while she was at Mutual).  We brought all six boys home to find . . . .

Brother D waiting on our doorstep. You see, a few months ago when I was Nevada with my mom and sisters, Dan attended the YW Service Auction fundraiser.  He was very supportive of the fundraiser and bought all sorts of things, including a "home inspection and safety evaluation" from Brother D who is a police officer.

Somehow we forgot that Dan had scheduled the safety evaluation for this very night, the night that we had six extra kids.  And a huge birthday mess/busy week mess throughout the house.  And I mean BIG mess. It had been so crazy that there were piles of laundry, clean and dirty, in our bedroom, and the remains of our big dinner we ate in a big hurry still all over the kitchen.  So Brother D proceeded to do the safety inspection, which necessitated walking through almost every room of our house to inspect the windows, doors, etc.  I was so humiliated.  I seriously have nightmares about people unexpectedly dropping by my house and walking through a huge mess. Several times I excused myself to "check on the kids" (who were doing fine) so I could go into an adjoining room and scoop stuff out of the way. It was an agonizing experience for me to sit and talk about security systems and door locks for an hour and a half while walking through my messy house while six rowdy boys raced in and out of the house. 

We were still standing in the entryway talking about home invasions and burglary and other cheery stuff when we heard our phone ring. We ignored it.  But then cell phones started going off repeatedly.  Finally Dan looked down at his phone and noticed that we were getting urgent messages from the church: "Come quickly - Bailey has been hurt."

So, now we're back to where I began my very long tale.  I ran to pick up Bailey.  Dan waited until parents could pick up the extra kids and then retrieved Aubrey from practice before meeting us at the ER.

And that's apparently how we do birthdays around here. Thank goodness birthdays only come once a year - I can't handle all the excitement!

Book Club Fun

Two months ago our family was invited to join a "family book club."  Previously this book club had included three families who live in the area who meet once a month to discuss a book. Everyone 12 and older is invited to "host" a month by choosing the book and planning the meal and activities to coordinate with the theme of the book.  Before we joined the group, everyone in the book club was related - the three women are sisters, so it was truly a family book club.  I've been secretly envious for awhile - because discussing books is one of my favorite things to do. Discussing books along with my husband and kids is over-the-top awesome. I have been impressed over the years with the very intellectual books they have discussed, and I think it's a great experience for teenagers to be part of the discussion.  The families have reported that their older teenagers have been able to use their increased knowledge about books to help them in high school and at college.  Also, I really miss loud and chaotic family get-togethers that happen when family lives nearby; eating together, laughing, visiting, and younger kids running in and out and making lots of happy noise.

So, we were pretty excited when the book club voted to envelope the Porter family into the book-themed fun.

One more notable thing about these book clubs:  the families involved are very dramatic, super creative, very opinionated and really into the "theme" part of the book club/dinner.  We knew we had to come up with something fun when it was our turn.

This last week we hosted book club.  We chose the book The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.  It is a classic book, made up of letters from Screwtape, a master devil, to his nephew Wormwood, with advice about all the sneaky ways devils can tempt humans.  We had owned the book for at least a decade, have heard it quoted in Conference almost every year, but had never read it.

This is the email we sent out a week before the event:

Attention

You have been summoned to a meeting of the Heavenly Hosts

On June 3rd at 3 p.m. at the Porter Home

Dear Heavenly Hosts,

It has come to our attention that one of Lucifer’s minions is sending letters to his nephew detailing mortal frailties.  These letters have been intercepted and bound into a book called The Screwtape Letters.  Since we found these letters early there is still plenty of time to prepare our loved ones for these specific temptations.  We need to devise defensive tactics which will be used to combat these attacks.  As one of the Generals in Zion’s Army, you are invited to a strategy meeting.

Please read at least a few of these letters and come prepared to discuss some of the greatest threats to Zion leveled by our nefarious foe.  Be ready to present any counter-offenses we should mount to help our loved ones avoid these attacks.  If you would like, you can bring quotes, scriptures, etc. which will support your planned counter-offense.  We encourage you to come in uniform (any white shirt or T-shirt).

Sincerely,

General Tiffany

General Daniel

This was Dan's book - I'll get my turn to choose another book in September - so he planned the activity. We set up a "war room" in our family room, complete with a table filled with battle ships and army guys.  Dan prepared folders for each of the participants of the War Council:

Inside was a strategy sheet.  As fellow angels attending the meeting of Heavenly Hosts, Dan led a lively discussion about the types of threats that the devil "Screwtape" and his counterparts were leveling at humans.  Once we identified the threat, we talked about the appropriate defenses. Dan took notes on a big white board and everyone else took notes on their strategy sheet.  It was a great discussion, and uplifting, also. I especially liked seeing the teenagers involved and excited about the things they had read in The Screwtape Letters.

Before we discussed we ate dinner.   Bailey and Aubrey created a menu to post by the food.  They referenced the virtues talked about in the book:

The girls really enjoyed helping to prepare the menu and the food. Joseph had fun running around with the other kids his age while the big people talked.

It was awesome - a really happy day!

Our Belle

It has taken me awhile to get to this post, because I couldn't find the time and emotional energy to sort through my memories of the highs and lows of "play week" and the huge number of pictures we took of Beauty and the Beast.  I'll just include a few pictures on the blog.  I'll make Aubrey a book soon with all of the pictures documenting her Beauty adventure.

First a little background on the goings-on prior to the play.  A warning: I am going to be detailed, since this is functioning as my journal of the events, so feel free to skip to the pictures.

The cast of the play prepared for months and Aubrey was so excited for her first leading role in the play, which was held the end of March and beginning of April 2012. One week before opening night Aubrey started sniffling.  Within a day she was pretty sick with an intense respiratory virus. And thus we began the craziness called "tech week."  That's the full week before the play, when practice is held  for four hours every night in the venue to do the final touches and practice with costumes, makeup, etc. (Unfortunately for us, the venue is 45 minutes from our home. So, every day Aubrey and I drove out to Washougal for practice and returned home very late. I don't remember even talking to the rest of the family much that week.)

Her sickness complicated the situation considerably. We did everything we could to help her recover quickly, but she lost her voice early in the week and was intensely sick and miserable.  She missed 3 1/2 days of school that week, but still had to attend the practices if at all possible. Her director told her not to even try talking/singing on stage all week, in hopes of helping her voice recover. On the night of dress rehearsal she did try to sing and wasn't able to hit anything in the upper register.  It was a challenging moment for her, but her director was amazingly good about it.  He told her that she had options. She could choose to have someone else sing her lines off stage while she lip synced, or she could just do her best, and he wouldn't be embarrassed about whatever happened.  (As for myself - sitting in the audience and watching the dress rehearsal - I was so nervous about how it was all going to work out that I ate an entire large bag of jelly beans all by myself. Sugar therapy.)

She came home that night and we greeted Grandma and Grandpa Springer, who had flown into town for the play. Dan and Grandpa gave Aubrey a blessing of healing.  The next morning I called a good friend who is a professionally trained vocalist, and she worked with Aubrey to let us know whether or not singing was going to be an option.  Amazingly, she was able to sing quite well - dramatically better than the night before.  She continued to drink lots of warm chamomile tea with lemon and honey, and we decided that the show was ON!

Oh, one more thing we had to fix the day of the first performance. The director had wanted Aubrey's hair dyed a little darker.  He had bought "Fanciful" temporary rinse and told us he was going to apply it to her hair prior to the publicity photos to test it.  That never happened and and they had to photoshop her hair darker in the newspaper photos.  

Now, the director of Aubrey's musical theater program has a lot of positive attributes including patience, great enthusiasm, and loads of musical and theatrical knowledge.  However, he is not organized and sometimes doesn't always follow through.  And yes, that is frustrating.  All "tech week" he insisted that he wanted to apply the rinse to see for himself if it was going to work, but he never did.  Finally, the night of dress rehearsal, as most of the rest of the cast was in costume and getting ready for the performance, we were still waiting for the director to show up to do the hair rinse.  It was becoming ridiculous and nightmarish.  So, another Mom and I grabbed gloves and started applying the rinse ourselves in the tiny lead's dressing room.  It was very messy, and it didn't work.  All the dye did was make Aub's hair slick and oily, but it didn't make it much darker.  We then spent 45 minutes trying to get her thick hair dry, by which time the show REALLY needed to start. So much for getting makeup and hair done for dress rehearsal.  She ran onto stage and did her best.

Getting ready after the unsuccessful hair dying experience.

So, we also called a good friend of mine who is a hairdresser, and the day of the first performance she applied a semi-permanent dye to darken Aubrey's hair somewhat.  It still wasn't really dark, but it was good enough.

Onto the performance.  I was backstage helping and the rest of the family watched the play.  Let's just say that I was a little nervous waiting for her to walk out and begin the first line . . . "A little town, full of little people . . ."

She pulled it off. Aubrey did a truly awesome job of singing and sometimes sing/talking.  It was great on-the-job experience for one of toughest situations in musical theater. She had to think ahead and choose which notes she could hit, and work around the notes she couldn't reach given her compromised vocal chords.  She did it amazingly well. And she is a great actress!  I was amazed at how she held it together emotionally during a very stressful week, even though she didn't feel her best.

Oh, another last minute thing . . . the director neglected to teach Aubrey and "The Beast" how to do their waltz for the Beauty and the Beast song until . . . the day of dress rehearsal.  Yikes!  But, they did great. Even if it was painfully uncomfortable for them to look each other in the eyes during the song.  (Oooh . . . gross!)  Aubrey managed to make eye contact better than her lead counterpart.

 

And and up close look at the ever-so-lovely Belle hairstyle!  And Bailey (who helped backstage the last day) photo bombing.
 

And another photo bomb, after the play.  Nice.

A few pics with fellow cast members.  Guess what?  The kid who played Gaston was totally like the character on the movie.  As in, a little bit surly (and Aubrey would say annoying).  Perhaps some type casting?  I had to beg him to put down his DS and pose for this picture.  Overall, though, there were so many amazing young people who were in the production. They were hard workers and did a great job!

Just for fun, after the last performance the entire cast did the Electric Slide dance to the song "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson.  It was an awesome way to end the play.

 

 Aubrey greeting her adoring public after the play.

She absolutely loved meeting all the little kids who were dying to see Belle up close. Some of the kids seemed to really believe that she was the "real" Belle!  I didn't get a picture of it, but after the first night of the play a little girl ran up to her and hugged her . . . and wouldn't let go!  It was like being a Disney princess at Disneyland!

 

Grandma and Grandpa were unbelievably helpful during our crazy weekend.  I was basically never home. I had bought lots of food to prepare but then never had time to prepare it.  So, they cooked and cleaned and kept everything running.  Thanks to them, we pulled off a decent showing of Conference comfort food.

 

Aubrey will always have fond memories of her experience with Beauty and the Beast.  There was a lot of excitement, the thrill of performing before an audience, and some difficult challenges.  But she gained valuable experience in rolling with the punches through it all.  After the play the director gave out the traditional "paper plate awards."  Aubrey received the award for "Best  Leading Lady" for her professionalism, positive attitude, hard work, and persistence even when things were tough.  Congratulations Aubrey!