we have a favorite musical at my house, one that we've been listening to the sound track of since my kids were in their respective wombs. our favorite part is of the musical is at the end, when the whole cast sings
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A OKLAHOOOOOOOO-MA! YA!
it gives me goose bumps.
truly.
all that talk of belonging to the land and a farmer with his brand new wife, the whole thing just makes me happy. all of us actually.
i love that it makes my kids happy too.
plus who doesn't love a musical title that ends with an exclamation point?
oklahoma!
you see the title on the front of your play bill and you just know you're going to have a good time.
lucky for us, it was the jr.high music theater production which meant spencer and allie got to be a part of all the fun this year. spencer was especially excited that there were so many kissing opportunities, too bad for him, he didn't get any of those roles.
however, spencer did play the most handsome cowboy ever, i especially loved his authentic chaps on loan from patsy's son brian. it was especially fun to see spencer dance - i loved the kansas city number the best when all the cowboy boots were making so much noise and all the boys were so out of their element but having a great time any way.
unfortunately, i didn't get too many live shots of allie - because of her heavy dance schedule, she was primarily teacher's assistant but did manage to weasel her way into a couple of dance numbers and she was great! and grandma saved the day for us with a beautiful dress that she made special just for allie.
it wasn't just the kids having hectic rehearsal schedule, i also stayed plenty busy with this production with a big job of my own. i was in charge of costumes. ok, stop laughing, really, i can sew a straight line! ok no, not really. but i DO know how to gather and organize and make a million trips to good will, which i did, and it was hard. and it took a ton of time, but it all turned out so great (the whole production, not just my costumes), that it was worth it and it made me feel proud to have been part of such an awesome production.
and you know, where i am, ethan is also, so oklahoma became a big part of his daily life as well. he loved this production and the cast loved him right back, he was always the hit of every rehearsal, even the director declared him her "favorite moore". he sat completely enthralled at all but one of the performances with me. i think his favorite part was kansas city too because he loved the cowboys, and took to wearing his red boots around all over the place for a few weeks. but his favorite song which you can even still now here him singing, is "oh the farmer and the cowman should be friends..." which is so precious.
he also loved that my van was full of different costume pieces here and there for about three months and took advantage of these things often. once with cousins when we were playing a the park.
after every performance, he was subjected to the girls leaving their heavily lipsticked kisses on his cheeks, but he didn't seem to mind this too much.
over all i would say it was a great experience for everyone and a really fantastic show.
now with pimpernel over for taylor, and oklahoma! over for the jr. high, i'm excited to take a music theater break for a while, until next year....
as a side note, a funny oklahoma related story....
several years ago while on a long road trip to arizona, oklahoma! the movie was playing in the DVD player and everyone was singing along. my SIL april starts singing, "oooook-lahoma where the wind comes crashin' through the corn!" of course, we all busted out laughing because those are definitely not the words, but now, in our family, they sort of are because we sing apey's version of it all the time.
i love that apey girl.
i know i've said this before but we 
mccall put on a fun show and was darling with the kids after the show and stayed to sign every paper that was pushed at her. 
it will be fun to say we knew her when. it was also patsy's anniversary but that didn't stop us from going to chili's to celebrate!
i love these girls!
there were some pretty hillarious requests this year, more than once i had to say, "no i can't paint 'i love basketball, basketball rocks, go jazz!' across your face, how much skin on your cheeks to you think you have? how about just 'go jazz!' " seriously, i kept getting the requests for the long sentences and i wanted to say, "how about a smiley face or a heart?"
ethan was so good, he saw what was going on an decided to give it a try by painting his own cheeks.
then he decided to let allie take over and was thrilled to see what she had drawn in the mirror. 
this year was especially fun because it was so nice and cool outside, usually we bake like potatoes out there! 
a few weeks ago we went to temple square in salt lake to take photographs of the beautiful tulips, the girls really did a beautiful job. i developed all the photos and we met wednesday night to learn how to color them. the girls were so creative and such fast learners, i was so impressed with their artistic abilities.
it also made me excited to go to camp and get to know these girls better. 
she's so excited for jr. high and my level of anxiety about it is less with her because taylor has had such a good experience so far, i think she will be fine. after graduation they celebrate with a dance! 
only a few moms get to witness the fun, one of the perks of volunteering! i had to teach the kids the art of the electric slide but other than that tried to lay low and not embarrass allie too much - is it wrong that i just wanted to go out there and dance with them?! they were having so much fun and their energy was infectious! 
rich has been working crazy hours as the lead programmer for "ultimate band" for the wii. now that the game is more solid and on it's way, they invited the employees' kids to come eat pizza and play the game and to give feedback about what they thought. 
it was fun to get a little tour of rich's brand new office. (you know you're a computer nerd when you have more than one giant monitor on your desk.)
a few months ago the building next door caught fire and so now rich has an interesting view out of his very high office window. (that's a tractor down there!)
ethan loved seeing pixar action figures everywhere (rich works for disney) and sitting in rich's chair.
what do you think - future computer nerd? the kids gave the game two thumbs up, spencer even played it on expert level - that kid has mad gaming skills. anyone know how we can channel those skills to his school work? 
on the drive home i started to feel the dreaded symptoms of a migraine coming on, oh the joy, and had to deal with that for the rest of the night. who invented these dabilitating headaches anyway? migraines suck, that's all there is to it.
patsy did a great job documenting and so i snuck these photos from her blog - thanks patsy. i decided that in my delicate migraine-residue-state that it would be best to skip the flag ceremony this year - the crying alone would send me right back to my darkened bedroom with no sound. i'm so sad i missed it but patsy did get a great photo of the puffy-eyed allie with her fabulous teacher.
she was lucky enough to have her in the second grade also so we knew ahead of time that it was going to be a fabulous year and it was! as i picked allie up from school i thought to myself...wow, no more pulling up to this curb to pick up a load of kids. while i'm extactic to eliminate this errand from my daily routine, it's also sad to say good bye to this great school that we've loved and served and felt proud to be part of. bitter-sweet. the rest of the afternoon and evening came with each kid headed in a different direction for parties and pizza and movies. luckily rich showed up with a bajio salad so i didn't have to cook anything.