The Salisbury Seven plus one : May 2013

No birthday, or Saturday or Sunday for that matter, is complete without one of these . . . this was Amber's gift to Daddy

Heidi drew a picture of Mommy getting married for Dad. She is obsessed with fancy dresses right now, be it church, dress up, wedding or otherwise. She told me the other day that I wasn't married and neither was her best friend's mom because we weren't wearing our fancy white dresses everywhere.

I limited Ryan's gift wrapping to 2 boxes--since we were out of brown paper bags (see last post from Mother's Day)--so he loaded those two up with special things for Dad.

Isaac made a clay guitar for Dad

What could this be?

Thanks Mom and Dad S. and Heather!! (He had special requested this after Christmas--but I had told him earlier it wasn't going to be possible after looking at the costs of used ones--but leave it to Mom S. to find a great deal on a new one!!) I think we may have even surprised him!!

Apple pie!

The kids were quoting Kung Fu Panda during dinner/dessert

Awesome Mayan "And it came to pass" tie from Mom and Dad P. and their Book of Mormon cruise to Central America.

making use of the big box the banjo came in

Brett's latest hobby--babysitting

This first picture was from Nicole's Wrinkle Writing play--her class was chosen by this group that goes into a few select grade school classes and does lots of writing/acting activities with them throughout the year. Then at the end of the year they get to perform a play that they wrote themselves. To decide what the play was going to be about each of the kids in the class wrote a story line and then the teachers and wrinkle writing people chose one--this year they chose Nicole's story!! She was pretty excited about that. From there they wrote the lines and developed the details as a class. It was a mixed up fairy tale with characters from lots of different stories ending up together. Nicole was the fairy godmother. They had to come up with costumes themselves as well and Nicole helped outfit A LOT of the kids. However this was all taking place days after the baby was born so I was not much help in figuring out a costume for her. Her teacher noticed how helpful Nicole had been to everyone else and also noticed that Nicole didn't have a costume, so she got permission from her college age daughter for Nicole to use a dance recital dress of hers. Nicole was SO happy.

Other uses for large popcorn bowls

Mother's Day--Curt lined up the kids on the couch and had them say a few things about me that he video recorded.

Presents from the kids--please disregard not so great photos of me. I have realized I may never ever wear makeup, do my hair or look presentable again, so I'm trying to learn to live with it!!

Ryan was hilarious. He had wrapped a random assortment of things in about 15 paper bags. Papers he had drawn and written on, cool rocks, tithing envelopes, you name it. His love language is SOOOOOO obvious. I should be giving him more gifts!!

funny

sleepy smiles

Heidi's Joy school graduation. It was pretty funny. They walked to their chairs with "pomp and circumstance" playing, had a speaker (one of the girls' dad--who is also our bishop and a pretty funny guy--that's him all dressed up with them) handed out "diploma's" and report cards, and even threw up their hats at the end, then walked out. They also sang some of their favorite songs to their parents. Heidi posed for us each time we asked for her picture. I promise I have no idea who taught her to grab her dress and curtsey. It is totally innate--she is VERY girly.

Saying goodbye to Grandma. We got to have my mom here for two weeks and it was so great, and too short!! She had to leave really early in the morning, so the kids had to say goodbye to her when they went to bed. Thanks for all your help Mom, it was so nice having you here!!

Ryan's Kindergarten picnic

Boys in the dugout

trip to the aquarium with Dad

love the feet sticking out

Ryan reading his Kindergarten biography to his class and all the parents

His teacher that he is in love with--do you see he is blushing!! He is always writing her notes, giving her candies, or cool rocks, etc. telling her he loves her.

Nicole's 5th grade graduation luau

more sleepy smiles . . . although she gave me a wide awake alert smile when she was two weeks, then gave a big one to Curt before he left on Monday, and we've gotten one big smile a day since then!!!

Sisters, Sisters there were never such devoted sisters . . .

The boys made pictures to give to their bus driver

Heidi LOVES when Nicole dresses her up. She is all decked out in fairy-ness here.

Then Nicole made her a "throne" on the couch, even put stairs up to it, and brought her a chess board to do a puzzle on. Occasionally something would happen with the wings, or some flowers would fall off or something--Heidi would call, and Nicole would fix it.

Isaac trying to carve a boat out of some tree branches that fell off in a windstorm. The wood ended up being a little too hard and brittle, and now he will not rest until we find him some good carving wood.

Nicole's class' Shakespeare play. Nicole's teacher has a tradition of doing a Shakespeare play with her class every year at the end of the year. Her teacher condenses it a little, but it was still an hour long!! They did a Midsummer Night's Dream. They all had their lines memorized and seemed like they understood what they were saying so as to use the right voice fluctuation etc. Another parent commented that they have seen that play several times, and this is the first time she really understood what was going on! Nicole was Titania queen of the fairies and Oberon's wife. (In the picture below he is the one with the silver cape and green leaf crown--in the middle of the top row) With a few small accessory changes she got to wear that fun dance recital costume from her teacher again. I was amazed that all these kids memorized parts for and performed two plays within a week of each other!!

After the play (yes Heidi wore that to the play--she was Nicole's understudy-hee hee) She is also Nicole's biggest fan. Every time Nicole came out Heidi would say "Nicole is the prettiest" "I love Nicole's dress" "When is Nicole coming on again?" (about another girl who was wearing Nicole's princess dress) "That's Nicole's dress!!" (when Nicole was laying on the ground as part of the play) "When is Nicole going to wake up?!" You get the idea.