May Madness!

The end of school craziness has begun.


On Thursday, Roderic performed with the First and Second grades in their annual Spring Concert. The theme this year was patriotic. Roderic got to learn "You're A Grand Old Flag", "America the Beautiful", "My Country Tis of Thee", "The Star-Spangled Banner", and "Yankee Doodle". The kids did a great job.

On Friday morning, Sabrina played cello in the orchestra and then sang in the choir during the Orchestra Band Choir concert. During lunch, she played violin and cello with a couple of ensembles for the volunteer luncheon.


On Friday night, Sabrina played violin with EHO in the Boise Music Week School Night Gala. (No pictures, but you'll have to take my word that the music was awesome!)


On Saturday afternoon both Roderic and Sabrina played in the Boise Bench Studio's violin recital. Roderic played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star variation B and Boil 'Em Cabbage. Sabrina played the duet part for most of the students throughout the recital and played Gavotte in D major by J.S. Bach as a solo.



Here is Roderic playing his solo. Sabrina's solo didn't get recorded due to operator error.

Why I Love Living in Boise, #653

Boise Music Week

I've only known about Boise Music Week since 2008 - it has been in existence since 1918. That year I went to "Singin' In The Rain" with Sabrina and her friend Sara. Now I've enjoyed watching "Brigadoon" (2009) and "Bye Bye Birdie" (2011), watching the Silent Movie at the Egyptian Theatre (2008 & 2009), and the Public School Night Gala (2011). Sabrina has been playing in the Elementary Honor Orchestra (EHO) this year with Sara Smith and Maddie & Kayla Midgley and they were a part of the Public School Night Gala this year.

Every year, Boise has the first week of May filled with FREE music events. Daily Organ recitals at the different churches downtown, International Dance Showcase, Showcase Concert, Musical, Silent Movie (with live organ accompaniment), School Night, Church Night and Music in the Park.

The talent is amazing. The music is fun. I wonder what came first: the siren on the movie-house organs or the fires in silent movies?

Here is an unrelated picture to enjoy:

Hyrum is brushing Toto and Leo wishes he was also outside.

Bunny Pie

First, some history about Bunny Pie. When I was in junior high, my older siblings sold solid chocolate bunnies as fundraisers for choir or band. We had an excess and had to come up with a way to use them up. And that was how Bunny Pie was born. (They also sold solid chocolate Santas as fundraisers, but Santa Pie never sounded as appetizing as Bunny Pie.) When you don't have a bunny and still want bunny pie, 2 cups of chocolate chips can be substituted.

Ryan gave me a lot of chocolate for my birthday, including this bunny. He later mentioned that he was hoping I'd make bunny pie out of it. I've never made it for my children and thought it was high time to introduce them to the wonders of

BUNNY PIE

First grate some of the ear so you've got some shavings to put on the finished pie.

Put remainder of the bunny in a double boiler and melt. Stirring often. (After I took this photo, I removed the bunny and broke it into several smaller pieces to speed the melting process.)
If you don't think there is enough chocolate from the bunny, add some chocolate chips. I put in an additional 2 handfuls. This chocolate is not smooth because the bunny was "crispy" with rice. (Never made it with this kind of bunny before. It actually adds a good texture to the pie.)
Put the cool whip in a bowl, getting ready to mix. I pulled the cool whip out of the freezer maybe 5 minutes before this step. It worked, but it is easier to mix when thawed.
Pour the melted chocolate onto the cool whip. Mix quickly. The chocolate hardens when cooling.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared graham cracker crust. (Sabrina made this crust using her recipe from last summer's cooking class and it is delicious!)
Sprinkle with the reserved bunny ear shavings, cover and freeze until ready to serve.



Bunny Pie
1 solid chocolate bunny or 2 cups chocolate chips
1 tub of cool whip
1 graham cracker crust

Grate some of the chocolate bunny ears for shavings on top of the finished pie. Put the bunny in a double boiler and melt. Put cool whip in a bowl. Pour melted chocolate over the cool whip and mix, quickly. Spoon chocolate cool whip mix into prepared graham cracker crust. Sprinkle with shavings. Cover and freeze.

Look who just took 2nd

in the Medley Relay at the Boise Elementary Regional Track meet:

SS (100m), TS (100m), Sabrina (400m), MM (200m)

They qualified for the District meet next Tuesday! I'm going to try to remember to bring my stopwatch to see how fast Sabrina runs the anchor leg.

Happy Birthday Sabrina!

My little girl continues to grow. Now she is 12! She planned and executed a birthday party at Manitou park yesterday, inviting 10 friends. They played Ninja Attack, Pass the Parcel, Whiffle ball toss, Hide-n-seek and Red Rover. A good time was had by all.

Since she likes to read so much, she asked for a book-shaped cake. I think it turned out pretty nice.

We took her (and Roderic) to see Sleeping Beauty. Beautiful music (Tchaikovsky's). Amazing dancing. This picture from the Idaho Statesman is during the pas de deux in second act.

Let Him Eat {more} Cake!

I made Leo a lion cake for his first birthday. I used a 4-inch bowl to bake the cake for the head and then surrounded it with cupcakes dipped in OREO crumbs for the mane. Pretty cute and clever if you ask me.

We have given all of our kids their own cake to eat play with destroy when they turn one. It is their first taste of cake and frosting. We ate the cupcakes and he got the 4" round.

Hyrum kept pretending to eat Leo's piece of cake - he never did take a bite, though. He started before he had even taken a bite of his own cupcake.

After 20 minutes of filming him, Leo finally dropped the whole thing on the floor. He was sufficiently done.

On the Monday after his birthday, he got to go to the doctor for his well-child exam and his vital statistics are:

Weight - 19 lbs 14 oz (10th percentile)
Length - 31 inches (90th percentile)
Head Circumference - 19 inches (90th percentile)

These stats fit in perfectly with the rest of the family: tall, slender, big head.

We filmed the destruction of the cake, then put it through some software to speed parts of it up 10x. The end result is 6 minutes of watching Leo. If I can ever figure out how to get it attached, I'll put it here.

Utah, Fortune Cookies and Spring Break

We traveled to Utah at the start of Spring Break to do some yard work at Ryan's parent's house. Shelly organized a family work day for Saturday morning and all of the siblings (except Meggan, who is on a mission with her parents) and some of the spouses and grandkids were there to help. Can you believe there were lots of cameras taking pictures, but NONE took a photo of the 6 siblings together?!?!? The pear trees, grape vines, clematis, bush cherries, last year's flower growth, leaves all had work done; many hands do make light work.

Ryan got hit in the left eye with a tree branch that he had just cut. It caused his vision to be blurry. Glen looked in it and couldn't see anything. Ryan called Genette's eye doctor, but the message service said that since he wasn't a patient, they were unable to do anything for him. We thought about taking him to the ER, but that didn't feel like the right thing to do. Daniel and Gene were able to give Ryan a Priesthood Blessing. I got to do the driving for the rest of the day and Ryan took it easy, keeping his left eye closed for most of the afternoon. [On Wednesday, Ryan went to see our eye doctor and was told that he came in at the right time, that the ER wouldn't have been able to do anything for him anyways, and that he had the starting of an infection, most likely a fungus from the live tree branch hitting him in the eye, so he got some prescription drops for that. His vision had cleared by Sunday and was able to drive us home.]
Saturday night we had plans with my mom to go to the BYU Museum of Art to see the Carl Bloch exhibit. It was beautiful. My favorite painting was "The Daughter of Jairus". The daughter is dead. The mother is sitting on the bed weeping. Christ is at the door with the dawning of the new day. I could feel the grief of the mother and it was heart-wrenching, but I knew there would be Joy in the Morning.
I am really glad that we took the time to go to the exhibit. We took all our children - Sabrina liked walking around with the rented iPad learning more about the paintings with her grandma. Her favorite painting was "Christ Blessing the Little Child, 1873". Ryan's favorite was "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane". Hyrum and Roderic most preferred the WWII cartoons on display downstairs. (Ryan spent most of his time down there with them as a result. They also had cool "Cowboy and Indian" paintings--quite a collection.)



On the drive home, Roderic called me to the back seat because he had tied the seat belt around his belly. He had wrapped the chest strap back around his body and back underneath, in a classic hitch--but he must have pulled it all of the way out during his experimentation that got him in this fix, because it was in the car-seat safety locked mode: it would not let any further belt out, and it was starting to cinch pretty tight around him. By the time he called me back, he had already unbuckled it to try to get it off. I sat by him for ten minutes trying to get it undone, while Ryan was still driving through the one of those few uninhabited portions of Idaho in between Sublet Road and the Burley areas. Then we stopped at the rest area and tried for another 20 minutes with Roderic screaming his head off because it hurt! Ryan ended up moving the suitcases and such from the trunk to the front seat (it was raining a bit), got out some tools (hurray for emergency preparedness!) and unattached the seat belt bolt. There was much rejoicing; how good it is to be free! Hopefully Roderic has learned his lesson about what the proper uses of seat belts are. Hyrum thought it was quite fascinating. He was exulting that Roderic had to take of his pants and his shirt (as Mom tried to get him to squeeze through.)

While Ryan was enjoying a delicious Dean-Larson-homemade pizza with the Deacon's Quorum on Wednesday night, we had stir fry and fortune cookies. Hyrum told his father when going to bed that they had read "the jokes" inside the cookies, and that the box said that you needed to just eat one fortune cookie a day. So we'd better eat one a day.

Roderic - Don't let others try to stop you from doing what is right. (Spot on! These fortune cookies must work!)
Sabrina - You will take a chance in the near future. (She is running in her first track meet this next week.)
Hyrum - News of an old sweetheart who still things much of you. (I don't understand what this is trying to say. And I didn't change spelling or order of the sentence. It really said "things" instead of "thinks".)
Me - Your dynamic eyes have attracted a secret admirer. (Must be Ryan.)

While the kids were out of school, I enrolled Roderic and Sabrina in swimming lessons at the YMCA. They had fun playing and swimming all week - Hyrum, Leo and I got to be in the kiddie pool during lessons. We also went to see the movie "Tangled" at the dollar theatre, played at Bodies in Motion, walked around Zoo Boise and did some yard work.