Danny Awards

Klaira is very involved with the drama class at her school. I have mixed emotions about it. Jeff and I both were in drama in high school and have fond memories of the experiences we had. I am excited that Klaira has found something that she enjoys doing in school. Now the mixed side of it....Here is Fresno/Clovis there seems to be need to have kids grow up faster than they need to. I find that several times the drama teacher has chosen plays that really are not age appropriate. I am very uncomfortable when young kids are having very heavy love scenes on stage. Do we really need all that? Can we change the scene to get the point across without having the kids all over each other? Are we giving the kids mixed messages? Don't make out in the halls, only on stage! Then we have these OVER the top parties. One being the Danny Awards. I understand the need to award the kids for a job well done. That is not my complaint. It is the outfits that we encourage the kids to wear at these events. The girls are barely dressed. There is so much of a "Hollywood" feel to it that it feels like how we are having "Proms" for 6th graders with all the hype of limos etc. This is just not age appropriate. We can have a great awards program without breaking the bank and dressing up more than the prom.
I'm not saying this the way I wanted to....
I work at school with so many confusing rules. In the handbook it says that there is a dress code and anything you do that is school related it to be in dress code. Then when we have a car wash, (7th and 8th graders) the girls are allowed to be in tiny bikini's. This made me SOOO embarrassed for these girls. Then we have swimming at school for P.E. and again, girls are allowed to wear very skimpy bathing suits. (but you can't show your tummy in class...)
We say no P.D.A. (Public Display of Affection) and then have the kids make out on stage...These are our future leaders and we are not teaching them to be leaders.
So how do we change? I have had some interesting discussions with the kids at school about dress code. There is one boy who wears a shirt that had a half naked woman on the front. It is his favorite shirt. He is allowed to wear this shirt. I tell him that if it was up to me that shirt would not be allowed because the girl on his shirt is not in dress code. Then we talk about WHY this is his favorite shirt. I am finding that parents are not having conversations about clothing with their kids. They allow their kids to dictate what is fashion (Parents WAKE UP!) and the kids are choosing their choice in clothes by shows on T.V. that the kids should not be watching.
I guess I am on a soap box.
Lets go back...The Danny Awards....Klaira went to the Danny Awards. A sweet girl at church let her borrow a dress because I was not about to buy a party dress for one night. I was proud of her for finding a dress that was age appropriate that she could borrow. I understand her need to be apart of what is going on at school, I am just not ok with how the activities are being presented.
I guess it is many talks about "Being in the world, Not of the world!".


I love this girl!!!!

Hide and Seek

LuvLump's school put on the production of "Hide And Seek". Now this is a bit of a dark play to begin with and so when LuvLump didn't make it into the 9 people cast, I was a bit relieved. I know that she was really upset, but she then said that she was willing to do what ever just to be apart of the crew just so she could be busy. Well, one of the girls had to drop out and LuvLump was in. As a mother I was happy for her, but the thought of, "Not another play" did go through my head. Not to mention again that this is a bit dark in content.


I don't have any pictures of the play since you are not allowed to take pictures in the theater and I am not shelling out the money for the cheep CD with very few pictures of my daughter and tons of kids that I don't even know their names. Yes, I am a terrible mother but I have other things that are keeping me up at night, not this one.
LuvLump plays a 40 something year old housekeeper for a young expecting couple who rent out a farm house way out in the country with their only neighbors living about 5 miles away. Now LuvLump sends me a picture of herself the first time they do make up on her..(to protect the innocent, we will not be sharing that picture. The make up was done by other students..not professionals..)My first question to her was, "How old are you suppose to be? You look like you are 80!" She tells me she is suppose to be about my age....HELLO, I don't have gray hair and heavy wrinkles!!!!) Well before she comes out after the play, she cleans up her face the best she can and brushes her hair out..still is a bit gray...

One more week! One more week! One more week...What do you mean you want to do the summer production of "Wizard of OZ"? NO way! You are already busy with summer school (her choice...) girls camp and you want to get your drivers licence. Not to mention that I have a list of things that I would like to do before going back to work in August! Like clean my house! (I know it is a silly thing to want my house clean...)

Garden

For years our church has been telling us that we need to know how to grow a garden and that we SHOULD have a garden. We have moved so much and the houses we rent have gardners attached. (Its a Fresno thing for sure!) Well the gardners spray the ground so weeds won't grow so they wont have to pull them. So the ground is not the best for starting a garden, not to mention that there really isn't a good place to put one. We have really felt that we need to learn how to garden and why not do it in something that we can take with us when we move. Jeff thought about it and his crazy brain came up with the idea,(I think he has seen it somewhere before) with trying out planting in rain gutters. WHY NOT? And I thought, Lets put some stuff in pots! WHY NOT? And Klaira wanted some flowers, so WHY NOT?
Klaira and Jeff went shopping and came back with some seeds, soil and gutter stuff. I had the pots..LOOK AT OUR GARDEN!

A strawberry plant that Klaira ate the one and only strawberry that was on it and said that it was perfect!


In our pots we have herbs, squash, peppers and a tomato plant and flowers.

In the gutters we have radishes and onions.

In the ground we have Sun Flowers and Carrots and we have a crazy Black Berry bush that last year did not do to well and so Jeff chopped the snot out of it and this year it came back very happy. The test will be this summer when the berries come out. Not a bad start! I like our little garden!

Hike

Saturday I had a full day planned! I had a camp meeting in the morning and while there one of my favorite people ever said, "Hey, I'm going on a quick hike, do you want to come too?" Now this favorite person of mine is always going on hikes and tells me of her adventures and I always want to go and I always have an excuse. I had a meeting that I had to be back for by 3:00 and she said, "No problem!" I asked her when she was leaving and she said, "Right Now!" So I am thinking to myself.."I can do this, run home, drop baby girl off, change my clothes,pack a quick backpack and be over to her house in less than 10...home by 3, have my meeting, get the rest of my list for the day done! It will be great!"
Well, silly me, I should know better! Any time I am with DaNae, there is NO clock!
I didn't ask where we were going or who was going or anything, just that I wanted to go!
When I got to DaNae's house, Jill was waiting and very anxious to get going. (So glad she waited for me...just going to throw that out now...)

Back ground...DaNae is a mother to 5, all grown and most have children of their own (I know..hard to believe!) She is a lover of words and outdoors! She needs a T-Shirt that says, "Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt" cause she has! And is very much in shape!... Jill is the mother of a gazillion boys, she raises Llams, is an incredible lady and very athletic.

Ok, getting back to the day...So Jill is waiting for me to get there and the 3 of us jump into Jill's very little car that goes really fast. I find out that we are headed North. Great! About 1 hour North, maybe a little more than that. We are going to scope out a hike that she wants to find for taking her YMYW on. (Realizing that some of her YMYW and some of the leaders are not hikers and we don't want it to be too difficult for them that someone will have to carry them off of the trail..)(I am the perfect one to go on this hike..If I can't make it..try a different one..)
Soooooo, after a bit of turning around in a few spots, we find the beginning of the trail. DaNae assures me that it is only a 6 mile round trip hike and we should be able to do it in about 2 hours. Well my brain starts doing the math on time and realize that I will be cutting it close for my meeting. Jill says, "No problem, lets give _____ a call." (Wow, you have phone reception up here? AND you have ______'s number?) (_____ says no problem, better yet, lets meet tomorrow after our first meeting that we have at 7:am. Great, no more stress to be home at a certain time.)
Well, the first part of this trail goes I kid you not, straight up. Ok, maybe not STRAIGHT up, but it is a bit of a start justoutofthecarnothavingdoneanyexercisinginyears straight up. It starts to level off a bit and we come to a great waterfall!

Photo moment! (Not to mention a great time to catch my breath!!!(Insert heavy breathing here!)
We see a group on the trail and talk to them for a minute...Keep talking DaNae....PLEASE!!!!
Feeling better and we get moving again. We see some remarkable large Red Woods. We see little patches of snow...then we see big patches of snow...What tha...

Well we keep going...we have some big patches of snow that we have to walk on (Slushy mushy)and then back on the trail. Ooops, another patch of snow...no we are good...oh, more snow. Yep it is that way for the rest of the hike. (Are we there yet?) We meet two off road bikers on the trail who are basically caring their bikes since they can't ride them through the snow. They came for OMYGOLLYHOWFAR away and assured us that we were almost to the top and then it will go STRAIGHT down from there. We assured them that they were just about out of the snow. We finally got to the place that I think was the top..hard to tell...

What a view. Well, eventually it did go straight back down...(how did those bikers carry their bikes all the way...wooo)so we turned around and started back. About half way back we stopped for a little nibble. (So glad I dumped those bottles of water in my pack and the granola bars.) The girls shared with me some of their favorite new goodies and lets just say, they are both on my new favo list. (will have to share another time..)
We FINALLY made it back to the car, and would you believe it, it was 5:00. Jill became SPEED RACER! We made it back about 6, just enough time to get home, take a shower and get to the church of Stake Conference. I was a bit sore and then I sat for two hours...THEN I WAS REALLY SORE!
Today, I walk funny. My calfs are MOOOOing! I loved the hike! I need to do it more often. The hard part is finding the time to do it.
I love my friends!

Linus

This is one of my sweethearts in Nursery. I have renamed him. He is Linus. When I started in Nursery Linus would cry any time he saw me. It didn't matter where I saw him, the moment he saw me, he would cry. I was starting to really have hurt feelings wondering what I may have done to scare this little one. I was really frustrated trying everything to help him to be happy in class without Mom and Dad. Several times we even tried letting him cry it out. Nope, he is a strong will that would make himself start gagging. I talked to Mom about it to find out that he really loves his class and talks about it during the week, and that he is just a "Klingon" to Mom and is really shy. Well, somehow at the beginning of the year, Mom had many talks with him during the week about going to his class and that Mom and Dad were not going with him because he was a big boy now. He would come in with fear in his eye, and would "Klingon" to Mom, but I would peel him off and hold on to him talking softly to him and singing songs. Soon I fould that if I would give him a job, he was so happy to help. He became my best set of helping hands. The one thing I have found out is that Linus does not handle change or stress. If anyone starts crying in class, He is under his blanket. If someone new comes in to the class, He is under his blanket. The fact that he now comes into class and will say goodby to Mom and is such a big helper says the blanket is working. LOVE THIS KID!

Mothers Day

So many other note worthy things have happened in the past few weeks, and I should write about them, but today...today is Mothers Day.
For those that love Mothers Day, I say, "READ NO FURTHER!!!"
Here we go...
Mother's Day is a socialistic ploy to get us to spend money we don't have to make OURSELVES feel better for ignoring our mothers all year long! Every day should be mothers day! Now if you are someone who gives attention to your mother without society telling you to, on a regular time frame, then I have no problem with you telling your mother once again, how wonderful she is. I usually don't even go to church on Mother's Day because it is a weepy "ode" to the best mom in the world, and once again, I have failed! (Please don't get me wrong, this Sunday I heard about a wonderful woman that I love and adore and I think the world of and I love that her husband can share how wonderful she is to all of us...and I am so lucky to be able to call her my friend!)
If I was not nursery leader, I would not have gone today.
I appreciate the men taking over for me, but I don't appreciate the men thinking that I can't let go...OH, I can let go! (I am headed into a rant here so if you want to go take a potty break and come back after...this is a good time...)
I have 13 precious little ones in the nursery. Several of them really need structure. Several of them are "Klingons" that will not let go of mom unless one of us ladies hug them for a minute and let them know that everything is OK and we get them into the nursery routine and then they are fine. Now, to have well intentional, wonderful men tell me that they will physically pull me out if they have to just makes me boil. I know that they can do the job, that is not my worry. But these men do not spend every Sunday with these kids and don't know who needs a little extra TLC for a minute so that their mothers CAN leave to go to class. I had every intention of leaving and letting the men take over class, I was happy to have them there..I love having them in EVERY Sunday, but don't tell me when to go!!!! Let me take care of the children so that next week I will not have to do damage controll!
I am feeling better.
(You can come back in now..)
Today was cold and a bit windy...
(AND yes, I get my feelings for Mother's Day from MY MOM! LOVE THAT WOMAN!)