A Gold Award

You all know that we are a scouting family here. Pretty much everyone understands the work and effort involved in being an Eagle Scout. It's an awesome accomplishment and two of my sons have achieved that effort (so far).

But what do you know about Girl Scouts? The girls also have an award that is equivalent to the Eagle (although in my humble opinion, it's actually much harder). It's called the Girl Scout Gold Award. My sweet Princess has been working on a project for a couple of months now. But the real work begins tomorrow.

See, she was always a Princess!

Now Princess doesn't always love being a Girl Scout. In fact, sometimes she is downright resentful about it. So choosing a project for her had to be about something she loves....yeah, you guessed it. It's a dance workshop.

Her idea is that lots of young girls drop out of dance either because they can't afford it or because they don't believe that they have a dancer body. She wants to convince people that dancing is fun and healthy and it doesn't matter what they look like. Anyone can dance!

So her workshop starts tomorrow morning and she is SOOO nervous!! Princess is the sort of girl who hates getting up in front of people. When I ask her to sell Girl Scout cookies, the tears slide quietly down her cheeks even though she is always obedient.

At first we were worried about getting enough kids involved. Now, after a month of advertising, she is worried about how to deal with the 40+ kids she has on her lists. And that doesn't include anyone who just shows up. Thankfully her kids are separated into two groups and she has some friends from dance helping her. And of course I will be there to make sure all goes well.

I'll keep you posted...

Riverton Arts Festival

Drama Queen, Bossy holding Baby Doll, and Prima Donna

Crafty

I've told you before that my kids love to dance. Every year in mid-June we are privileged to watch the Spring Recital. And that date is coming up this weekend. But a couple of weeks before that we get a preview of their show at the Riverton Arts Festival.

Crafty in White and Princess behind to the right

The director of our studio was from Riverton (a neighboring city), so she always chooses that venue for the kids to perform. In years past they have had all the time they wanted, but for the last couple of years the show has been limited to an hour. That means only the older groups are allowed to perform.

Prima Donna on the far left

I already mentioned that I spent a bunch of time on a Max costume for Crafty. Well here she is wearing it. Unfortunately, my gold paper didn't come in on time, so she did this first show without the crown. That was OK, except that with her first leap the hood fell back on her shoulders and then she looked like she was just wearing a white jumpsuit with claws. (That's one technical detail we will definitely fix for the recital!)

Prima Donna in the center and Crafty on the right

The stage is much smaller than the one they will use this weekend, so the bigger groups are all crowded together, but they make the best of it and they still do an awesome job! Can you pick out my girls in all these fun pics? Teach was complaining as she downloaded them that my sweetie took 409 pictures of this one-hour event.

Now that's one proud papa!

Princess second from right and Prima Donna third from right

Princess and Prima Donna holding up Crafty in the finale

Princess on pointe

New Jammies!

About a month ago I was in the middle of making costumes for the ballet. At one point I ran out of trim for the king's costume so I invited my sweetie to go to the fabric store with me. He doesn't love the fabric store like I do, but he does love me, so he agreed to go (after I assured him I was only looking for one small thing). I was a bit surprised that Curly was jumping up and down with excitement. How could I say "no" to that?

When we got there, I headed off to find my trims and I sent my sweetie to keep Curly entertained. Little did I know what that would mean...

It took me about 10 minutes to find what I needed and then I started looking for my boys. They were in deep discussions about which pieces of fleece would make the best jammies for Curly. They finally settled on a couple and we headed for the cutting table.

Sadly, Curly's fabric had to take a backseat until I finished the costumes.Every couple of days he would ask me when we were going to make his jammies. Today was finally the day! Besides his cute pieces of fleece, I had a pile of awesome flannels too.

We cut out seven pairs for him! He was so cute, helping me every step of the way. He even helped run the serger! PJ pants are the easiest thing to sew. Most patterns are only one piece now, so they are quick to cut too. When I taught my Scouts to sew, they were the first task. I love the fact that if they don't turn out perfect, it doesn't matter that much because no one will see them anyway.

Well, except for Curly, you are all seeing him...all ten of you..

You notice we left them long. This kid grows about an inch every week!

Dance Recital 2011

You all know that my girls love to dance. Last Saturday was our dance recital and Teach finally got around to downloading the pictures. This is the first year that Scout has been in “real” ballet, not just creative. The transformation was amazing! She slipped into her costume and then the Drama Queen did her makeup and I pulled her hair up in a bun. What happened to my little girl? She’s barely six, but she looks much older, don’t you think?

The recital started at 5:00 for the lower school and that means pretty much all the kids under the age of 8. Scout’s dance was the very first one, so after she was finished performing, my sweetie hauled everyone to the van and ran them home for a while except for me and the dancers. They wanted to watch all the performances, of course.

The older girls started dancing at 7:00. I love watching my kids dance! Prima Donna had a little trouble with her pointe shoes. The shank had broken in one of them a couple of weeks ago and she had only gotten the new ones last week. I guess it takes a while to break them in properly and she just didn’t have the time. But she still did a fabulous job. 

Since my girls dance in several different groups, sometimes it’s hard for them to make the costume changes quickly enough. Even with a nude leotard underneath to make things faster and tights over tights, pulling it all together in time can be hard.

There was a significant pause before Prima Donna’s jazz group took the stage. We were sweating because when the girls started dancing, she wasn’t out there. Then suddenly the director of the studio ran onto the stage, demanded they stop the music, and they started the dance over. The second time they started, the Prima Donna and another girl also joined in the dance. That happened again later in the evening. That’s what I love about our studio…they would rather be a little less professional if it’s important to one of the students. I know we would have been very disappointed if our daughter had missed the performance altogether.

One of my favorite dances was this one by Crafty’s group. They used the music from Nightmare Before Christmas and they wore these little black capes. It was certainly different from what we normally see at the Christmas Recital.

The final group was Princess’s pointe class. These girls have been dancing together for about 10 years now and they do an excellent job. They look right at home on stage.

You know there’s always the ones who look like they shouldn’t be there…and they are the same ones who just can’t wait to get on stage…

A Birth Story - Princess

It was January 1996, and a cold miserable winter day. Except for one bright spot…that pregnancy stick had a plus sign! We weren’t sure if it was a good idea to get pregnant or not. I was still recovering from my knee surgery in November. At 31, I wasn’t bouncing back nearly as quickly as I wanted to. Our fears were eased when my surgeon assured us that the best thing we could do was get pregnant. He said a child growing inside me would stimulate growth and healing to my recently replaced ACL.

All in all the pregnancy was an easy one, one of those tender mercies for which I am so grateful. The Dog Walker was barely 2 and we were clueless about the whole autism thing. At that point he was pretty normal except that he didn’t really speak or play with others. We just assumed he was anti-social like his daddy.

Spring turned into summer and slowly and steadily my knee improved. My doctor reminded me that walking normally could take up to a year or more. September rolled around and we scheduled an induction ten days before my due date. I always knew Princess would be induced. If you remember, Teach was over 10 pounds and when the Dog Walker weighed in at 9 lbs 2 oz, the doc said we would induce from now on.

We arrived at the hospital at the crack of dawn but it took them a while to get things going. By the time we had the epidural and things were really moving along, it was getting close to midnight. I was so tired! My sweetie slept for a while. It had been a long day and he would still have to drive home in the middle of the night. When the nurse said seven, I knew it wouldn’t be long. She called the doctor and I woke up my sweetie. It was approaching 2:00 in the morning.

One of my biggest worries (other than a healthy baby, of course) is that because of the epidural I wouldn’t feel any pain in my knee and I would do something that would cause me much trouble during recovery. When the doc got there, I reminded him of my concerns and he told my sweetie that he was in charge of taking care of my leg and if anything happened it was his fault. My sweetie took this charge very seriously and he held my leg steady the entire time. (And he did a great job of it because I didn’t have any additional pain in my leg when the epidural wore off.) My tiny beautiful Princess was born at 2:36 AM.

And now it’s 2011 and she is nearly grown up. I don’t usually end a birth story this way, but she is so excited! A couple of weeks ago she auditioned for the Sleeping Beauty ballet. Her greatest wish was to earn the part of Carabosse (or if you are a hick Disney fan like me…Maleficent). The cast was announced today and that is exactly what she got! Such a long stretch from the tiny sweet girl born 15 years ago. Congrats Princess. You will be amazing!

The Big Dance

About three weeks ago, the Dog Walker came home and told me he had been invited to Bingham Ball and that he had told this cute little trumpet player that he would go with her. “That’s it?” I asked. I’m secretly thinking…is this really a date? There was no amazing invitation or physical evidence of any kind and sometimes the Dog Walker gets confused. “Yeah, she just asked me if I wanted to go and I said yes,” he responded. “Why don’t you ask her the color of her dress?” I suggested.

A few days later he told me she didn’t know yet. So the date still remained a mystery. Just before he left on his California trip, he texted me the word “Silver.” (He always thinks I know exactly what’s going on in his head.) “What?” I asked, confused. “Her dress is silver.” That should have been good enough, but still I worried. I didn’t want to order an expensive flower or get the Dog Walker all excited about a date if he didn’t really have one.

So after he got back from California, I decided it was time to put it all on the line… “Ask her if you are doing a day activity,” I suggested. He punched out a text. Communication is way faster than when I was in school. “She says we are going to the play at the high school,” he commented. He was never worried, he always knew he had a date. I sighed with relief. “Let’s go order a flower,” I suggested.

The next morning I was giving a Happy Birthday wish to my best buddy. Her son also had a date to the big dance. “Where did you order his tux?” she asked. Huh?? This dance was never that formal when my older kids went to it. After we were finished with our conversation, I quickly called the high school. The office lady confirmed that now the Ball was right up there with Prom and yes, tuxes were appropriate.

It was Thursday and the dance was Saturday. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to order a tux that quickly, so I convinced myself that a new tie would be good enough. After school the Dog Walker and I headed for JC Penney and bought him an awesome silver and black tie. When we got home I proudly displayed it for my sweetie. Then, like an idiot, I proceeded to tell him what my friend had said. “You better see if you can still get him a tux,” he remarked. I glanced at the clock. It was too late to do anything.

So first thing Friday morning I was working the phones, looking for a one-day tux shop. I found one just down the street and as soon as the Dog Walker got home from school, we headed over. Seems like everyone else had the same idea. There were at least 30 people in that shop and lined up outside the door, all waiting to check out tuxes. We got through surprisingly fast and the assistant assured me we could pick up the tux on Saturday morning.

When Saturday morning rolled around, we were in the middle of a Volleyball tournament. We had a half-hour between games, so the Dog Walker and I stopped to grab the tux. Unfortunately, the pants were too tight, but they assured me they could fix that problem in about 5 minutes. After 10 minutes they returned the tux to us all bagged up and sent us on our way. We tossed it in the back of the van and headed for our next game. On the way I called the Drama Queen and asked her to pick up the flowers.

After we were eliminated from the tournament, we raced home so the Dog Walker could shower and get ready to be picked up. I pulled the flower from the fridge and noticed that all the white roses had edges of brown! I frantically called the floral department and told them quite firmly that they needed to make us a new arrangement. Then we took off for Sport’s football game.

We grabbed the new flower on our way home. When we were all finally back at the house, it was just after 5:00 and time for the Dog Walker to dress for the dance. He looked fabulous, except that the gray bow-tie was missing! Thankfully, he had a black one that he used for band concerts and it looked fine. I guess at that point I should have just been grateful that he really had a date.

27 Dresses...at Least

I wrote a post about my dad for Fathers' Day, but today is his 76th birthday...Happy Birthday, Dad! Hope all your wishes come true.

So last night I told you the Dog Walker had arranged himself a date for the Homecoming Dance.  He is SOO excited! And thanks for all of your fun “invitation” stories btw. It was so great to get some new ideas since I have all of these kids to get through high school still, although the “sack of crap” one is not happening on my watch…

Anyway, all this talk of high school dances got me thinking back to some of the dances the kids have attended, most especially the girls. Then Teach went downstairs and dragged out all of her old formals (and even one that belonged to Bossy) and tried them on. I took the opportunity to snap a few pics with her fancy camera although I’ve decided that it takes more than just a camera to make good pictures. Hers always look so much better than mine.

I have made about 20 dresses for dances (not including the ones I made for myself) and Bossy’s wedding dress. Bossy had a boyfriend through her junior and senior years, and they went to all the dances, and of course she wanted a new dress for each and every one of them. Being the kind and thoughtful mom that I am (can you say Pushover?), I sewed most of them.




Some, like Bossy’s Prom Dress, were absolutely outrageous in maroon and black with a long train. Maybe I can get her to pull out some of those pics and put them up. Teach’s were a little more tame. Unlike Bossy, she didn’t like having a dress that she could trip over. The blue/green one is the closest she came to ever having a train.

I only made a couple of dresses for the Drama Queen. She was never really interested in dancing unless it was for a musical on a lighted stage. The very first fancy dress I made for Bossy was during her Sophomore year. Since it was Bingham Ball, I chose the school colors, blue and white. It was one of the few dresses that were two separate pieces, a skirt and a blouse. The white blouse was covered with lace and pearl buttons and the full skirt was a sparkly metallic blue. Yeah, styles were a little different 15 years ago.

They had the dance at Saltaire, a huge dance hall out near the Great Salt Lake. But it wasn’t a very nice venue then, and when she leaned up against the stage to take a breather from all the action, she caught her lacy blouse on a nail and tore half the lace. Not a very fun ending for her first big dance.


That white and gold dress was made for Bossy. It was one of my favorites. You can’t see it from the pictures, but it has about 50 pearl buttons running down the back and 15 more on the inside of each sleeve. They were a pain in the butt to sew on and a pain in the butt for the wearer…literally. Not the smartest dress, but definitely one of the prettiest.

I’m glad the Dog Walker is a guy. Now all I’m faced with is helping him order flowers and picking up a new pair of pants from JC Penney. Maybe I’ll splurge a little a grab him a new tie as well…I’ll keep you posted.

The Invitation

Teach at a high school dance

You all know we’ve had an extremely busy weekend! So Monday was kind of a down day. We took all the kids to Mt. Mikes for pizza. I tried to unbury and I canned up three boxes of pears. It was way past bedtime when the Dog Walker wandered back in and casually mentioned that Saturday is the big Homecoming Dance and he’d like to go. As you can imagine, this is a “date” dance with flowers and fancy dresses and a nice dinner. Five days is barely enough time for planning, let alone executing…but I try to be a supportive mom, so we discussed for a while who he might invite. A sweet girl from the neighborhood came to mind.

Now I’m not generally a meddling mama, but I didn’t want him to be disappointed, so I called her mom on the phone. Unfortunately, said girl answered. Undeterred, I picked up the phone again and rang up another friend who might be a good source of information. She called me back a couple of hours later with the green light. No, this girl didn't have a date, and yes, she wanted one.

It was time to get creative. In Utah, it is customary to ask the intended date in an unusual way. My best thoughts always involve food of some sort. When Teach was in high school, she took an entire homemade layer cake like we have for birthdays with her name stuck between the layers. With the Dog Walker, I wasn’t sure an entire cake was appropriate. Maybe his girl was on a diet or being silly about her weight. With guys it’s much easier, they never seem to care about stuff like that when they are in high school.


I definitely knew I didn’t want him to do some of the things we had seen over the years. Bossy had a boyfriend who was extremely creative, but unconcerned about making messes and gross-outs. One year he floated a dozen plastics ducks in the toilet, each one with a letter of his name. Another time he shredded three large garbage bags full of newspaper and dumped them all over her bedroom. We still found bits and pieces when she moved out and married her hubby several years later!


My BFF’s son asked his girl by buying a bag full of ball-pit balls, you know, like at McDonalds, and presented them to her with the saying, “I finally got the balls to ask you to the Homecoming Dance.” My friend was completely appalled that he would use such a crass idea. But apparently it worked, because the girl said “Yes.”

The Dog Walker and I bounced around a few ideas, and then I remembered the leftover pears. I had a couple of dozen that were too green to can yesterday, so I kept them back for the kids to eat. They seemed like a perfect idea. We found a cute little Tupperware bowl, lined it with tissue paper, and filled it with pears. The invitation read, “Will you go to the Homecoming Dance with me? We would make a great pair!”

I'm so excited...and I just can't hide it...

I had Teach take it to her door. She accepted the gift with a huge grin on her face. Perhaps she already knew? Several hours later, a gift arrived on our own porch. A piece of paper sat under a box of rainbow sherbet ice cream. It read, “If I were Ernie and you were Bert, I’d say Sure-Bert!” So the date is set! Now we need a plan. At least we don't have to worry about a dress. Tell me the best way you were ever invited to a dance…silly? crazy? messy? or was it something about balls…don’t worry, I won’t tell my friend.

The End of the World

Picture Credit

*Sorry the pictures look ridiculous!  The computer is having issues, but hopefully I will be able to crop them in the morning!  ~Teach*

You ever do something, knowing that it is likely a waste of time, but you just have to do it anyway? My sweetie and I have been struggling with a hard question involving Crafty. For a 10-year-old (almost 11), she is quite tall and a beautiful dancer. This past week we had to decide if we wanted to allow her to try out for Ballet West’s Nutcracker.

Three years ago we were faced with the same dilemma for Princess. Except we were told that the effort was probably futile but that it was a good experience for her to try out for a real ballet, she could put it on a resume…you get the idea. Basically we were coerced into giving her an opportunity we were pretty sure would turn into heartbreak. Imagine our surprise when our almost 12-year-old Princess landed a part as a red soldier!

The commitment was grueling. She had to be pulled out of school on several occasions for rehearsals and performances. She had to miss dance classes and the entire experience was very expensive! She needed professional pictures, a warm-up outfit and a t-shirt all emblazoned with “Ballet West.” There were dance bags and luggage tags. And don’t forget that I had to buy 15 tickets to the show! But even from our nosebleed seats we could see her dance her heart out on that amazing stage in the Capitol Theater…we were so proud.

So that brought us back to today. We decided to let Crafty audition, even though we didn’t have the time or the funds. We also didn’t want the guilt. At noon today, I took her down to the theater. She stressed with me for 30 minutes after she checked in and then she disappeared with over a hundred other girls into a practice room. After an hour of intensive rehearsal, they strutted their stuff on the stage.

As parents, we hung out in the lobby, sweating it out as we mentally tried to guess who might get in and who might be cut. Crafty and I were both pretty pragmatic. Even though she wanted to be like Princess and dance with a big-time ballet company, she knew she would have to give up things to participate. I knew that if she made the cast our lives would become incredibly complicated. But still, there we were, putting it all on the line.

They called the five-minute mark. All girls who came out would be cut and those who stayed in would make the cast. Five minutes passed, ten…after twenty stressful minutes, the doors opened. Little girls spilled out, most in tears, looking for parents and consolation. I strained my eyes, trying to see my girl. For one brief moment I thought she was not coming out and then she fell into my arms in a puddle of tears. For the third year in a row she had been cut.

We stood for a moment, arms around each other. We both knew it was not the end of the world, although for some of these girls it obviously was. One of Crafty’s dance teachers also had her daughter there for the audition and she hugged my girl and assured her that she was an amazing dancer. Then arm-in-arm, Crafty and I slipped passed the happy girls who were just released to happy parents with a folder welcoming them to the Ballet West family. It only took us halfway to the parking lot before she was talking about next year…she would have her pointe shoes by then…she would be almost 12…yeah, not the end of the world for us. Not by a long shot.

What's the Big Deal?

I’ve told you before that I LOVE a bargain! The only way to raise a big family nowadays is to be independently wealthy, be part of a reality TV show, or hunt down bargains. Since I missed out on the independently wealthy thing and no one is pounding down my door to see if I want to be on TV, my only option has been the bargain thing.

When we were first married, nearly every grocery chain on the planet offered double and sometimes even triple coupons. That made the slick coupon ads that come in the newspaper even more valuable. This was in the early ‘80s, before the days of open access to the Internet and online sales. I was pregnant with Bossy and we moved back to my hometown. We were dirt poor and since our parents were all still raising young children, they were not able to help us. Grandma was always careful with money (still is even at 93!) and she agreed to help us collect coupons to help cut our food bill. She made several trips to the post office each day and pulled coupons from the garbage.

Not our actual dump and not my grandma

Our town also had an open dump then about 3 miles outside of town. The idea was that you drove the dump road with all your stinky, yucky garbage in the trunk of your car. When you got to the dump, you drove to the edge, stopped your car, plugged your nose and flung your bags into the pile. Someone came along periodically and threw matches in there to burn everything back. So Grandma and I haunted the dump. We mostly stuck to the edges and pulled bundles of newspaper before the flames could devour them. We ripped open garbage bags and we also hunted for soda pop bottles (5 cents, please!). In later years Grandma gathered aluminum cans, then brought them home and ran over them with her car. About 20 years ago they shut down the dump and brought in a garbage service. My grandma was so sad that day…My 28th anniversary is in a couple of weeks and Grandma still sends up little bags full of coupons she collects and saves just for me.

Last week I was asked to review a coupon site called www.couponchief.com and give an honest opinion. I eagerly logged on and set up an account. That part was easy. I also asked some of my grown up kids, Bossy, Gym Rat, Drama Queen, and Teach to check out the site. Since it is all about online sales, they are way more techno-savvy than me. This site is huge! They have coupon codes for about 15,000 stores all arranged in alphabetical order. I chose several to look at that were places where I might actually place an online order.



I started with Amazon.com. Whenever I need to buy some strange item and I don’t know where to look, I try Amazon first. Coupon codes there would actually be very handy. Sadly, after trying three different codes, they all came back as expired. So I switched to Wal-Mart, but their coupons were for very specific things and I didn’t want to take the time to find whatever they were trying to get me to buy. The last coupon codes I tried were for Lowes and Home Depot. There were also expired or invalid.

So I called the kids to get their input (since obviously I must be doing something wrong). The Gym Rat tried Barnes and Noble and all three codes worked great for him. The Drama Queen was also able to get it to work, but she reminded me that she rarely shops on line. Boss and Teach spent a little time too but got stuck in the same trap as me.

I think this site is a wonderful idea! Sharing coupon codes with other shoppers can save us all a little money and that makes it easier for us to buy more and stimulate the economy. This site actually pays you for your codes as long as you are the first one to make a submission. What I didn’t like was that the codes didn’t automatically delete after they were expired. That means any bozo could get on and make up a code and publish it and then it would never work for anyone! They do have a nice rating system so you can see which coupons worked and which ones didn’t. I would love to have been able to print off some of these coupons so that I could take them to the actual stores. I’m looking forward to using this site in the future since one of my favorite stores, Discount Dance Supply is on their list. I can’t tell you how many pairs of tights I’ve bought for my dancers…even if I only save a buck or two it will definitely be worth looking.

Since www.couponchief.com paid me a small sum for this review, I want you to know that the opinions I've expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Like Shell at Things I Can't Say, I promote Blog With Integrity.