Dances, and Cameras, and Little Girls All Grown Up

Tonight is Senior Ball. Our camera was temporarily unavailable so I borrowed one from a friend. I don't normally post a ton of pictures, but the camera was so nice we had lots of fun figuring out how to use it and pretending we knew how to set up a shot. What a great daughter I have to be ready early so we had time for this! Here are some of my favorites.

She did have a date, too, but I tried to not be an obnoxious parent and take a million pictures after he got here. That means I just snapped a couple of them together and sent them out the door. Tanner was her date to Prom last month, in case his picture looks a little bit familiar.

We Grow 'Em Big Here

So, this Spring all the daffodils and tulips popped up just like they were supposed to. Mixed in among them we had a couple that never bloomed, but I didn't think much about it. They kept growing and growing, though, and today were about twice as tall as any of the other plants.

I was out talking with my next door neighbor this afternoon. His little boys broke the tops off of the tallest plants and suddenly we could smell onions. Wally's garage was opened, so he got a shovel and we dug up what we discovered were the biggest green onions I've ever seen.

This is one that I bought last week at the store:


These are the ones we dug out of the flower bed this afternoon:


I think I'll look up a recipe for onion soup unless anyone knows something better to do with them! (Then, I'm going back to gardening school until I can tell the difference between all the plants.)

Happiness for $1.66

This is currently one of my favorite dresses.

(Pardon the lovely presentation. I didn't think to take a picture with it on me. Instead, enjoy the closet background.)


I'm kind of a suit person. This one not only is light weight and cool, it also has the ability to make me feel like I look nice, AND it is machine washable as well. A dress made in Heaven.

Imagine my dismay when it came out of the wash with the shoulder looking like this.


There must have been something in the wash the last time that bleached it a bit and the fabric turned pink. I tried washing it again, on the 1:1,000,000,000 chance that it was a washable stain and not a color washout.

It didn't help.

I was sad and the dress hung in my closet for several weeks because I just couldn't bring myself to toss it.

One morning I had an epiphany.

In the third grade, I was Daisy Duck in the third grade play. (I know, you're jealous.) My costume included 2 baseball hats worn together to look like a duck bill- because everyone knows that ducks have their bills on their foreheads- AND a pair of orange tights because everyone knows that ducks have orange legs with saggy elephant knees and baggy ankles. Guess what. They didn't sell very many pairs of orange tights in the 70's (don't know why) and my mom ended up dying a pair of white ones to give me beautiful Daisy Duck (not Daisy Duke) legs. If I ever find my childhood pictures again I'll have to post a picture for your viewing pleasure.

So, 30-something years later, I remember Daisy and wonder if there might be hope for my dress.

Here is my hero for last week.


It was close enough to my dress color that it was worth a shot.

Add the dye with some hot water and salt to the washer. Insert dress. Agitate for 30 minutes. Rinse thoroughly.


And, voila!


Slightly darker but perfectly wearable and no pink mark on the shoulder. See.


Right here would be the perfect spot to insert a picture of a smiling me wearing the dress last Sunday, but I didn't take one. I did wear it and I was happy and two of my children asked when I got the new dress and didn't I have one kind of like it already. The other three didn't notice.

Mission accomplished. I am one happy woman with a wearable blue dress.

Hope of America

Steven participated in the Hope of America concert tonight. Greg couldn't be there, so I videoed some of the songs. I'm posting them here in the hopes that they are easier to see. FYI- Blogger is making me title each video, but my computer isn't letting me see which song is which. So, the titles are a little free floating and subject to my memory of what I actually recorded. Also, I sometimes missed the beginnings and once thought I was running out of battery and once did run out of memory. It should be rather obvious why I am not a videographer. I'm sorry you have to be punished.

As for Steven, if you have the eyes of an eagle you should be able to spot him. The concert takes place in the Marriott Center, If you're familiar with it, the choir fills the entire bench seating section below the concourse- that's one entire long side. Steven's school makes up the bottom 1-1/2 rows of the blue field. There are no white stars in either row. Steven was the 4th person in from the right on the next to last row of blue. Let me know if you spot him.

What is the Hope of America concert? It is a patriotic program hosted by Provo's Freedom Festival (they also sponsor the Stadium of Fire on July 4th) and involves 5th graders from all over the county. Beginning last year they had to split it to 2 nights because there were so many children. There are about 8,000 5th graders participating this year over the two nights. The kids practice at their individual schools and then gather for a dress rehearsal for everyone on the day of the performance. It was really quite impressive to watch.

Oh, the last video starts out all dark, it's not a camera problem.

Cute Faces

See this cute face?



If you have a good imagination and can picture it with open eyes and cut and combed hair, it would look just like the picture on my sidebar labeled "Ryan". (Not to give out names, or anything.)

See this cute face?


It does not have a name, but also belongs to the child named Ryan. You don't really need a good imagination to visualize it, but pretend you noticed it on the wall next to the bed of the cute face above one night as he was going to bed and asked him about it. He might give you the same answer he gave me. Isn't that cool?! I made it by scratching off the paint."

Got that all imagined in your mind? Question. What would your face look like?

Good thing Ryan has such a cute face on his head that I love a lot because his cute face on the wall was not giving me feelings that made me have a cute face at all for a second, I'm sure. I think the whole thing is a bit funny, now, but don't tell Ryan because I'm not rewarding this behavior, I'm just documenting it. (That's why all the pictures were taken after he went to sleep and you have to imagine him awake.)

Anyone want to come help him paint?

The Princess and the Prom

Once upon a time there was a princess in the land of Timpview. She and three other royal friends decided that it would be fun to go to the annual Junior Prom, so they planned to go together. There was much excitement and anticipation, but the great day finally arrived.


The 4 royal friends created their own corsages, spent the afternoon at the park, ate a royal dinner prepared at the castle of one of the princes, dressed in their finery, danced the night away and had much fun together, then ate ice cream and visited until the clock struck 12:00. At that time, they were spirited back to their homes in a royal chariot and entered an enchanted slumber and slept happily ever after- until they were awakened early (at least at this castle) to don their finery again and head off to church.

Music Moment

Being up on a hill, we get to see a lot of cool weather. It's one of my favorite things about this house. This is what we saw tonight as the sun was setting after a cloudy, rainy day.


It looked like someone had cut a little slice through the cloud layer with a light saber. After the initial Star Wars thought, the lines from two very different songs took over and I can't get them out of my head. I thought I'd share so you can join me in trying to figure out a way to make them meld: "So, when life gets dark and dreary...the sun'll come out tomorrow".


A little "Annie" meets the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. A great thought, but a very irritating combination. However, some days it's good to remember that somewhere up there the sun is shining and someone hears and answers even the littlest, quietest prayers that we offer. So, ere you leave your room in the morning, I'll bet my bottom dollar that if you think to pray, tomorrow there'll be sun, to change your night to day.

Happy humming. (You're very welcome.)

Don't forget to pray.