Birthdays and Sillies

The twins had a birthday last fall. I don't have any boys so I don't know what to get for teenagers. I should have stuck with food. But we tried something different. This is what I learned. Toys break easily. 

It took us a while to get both of them together. Then they opened their gift. We got them this weird shooting game with floating foam balls. It was funny, because they wouldn't even take it home. I think because they were worried their younger brothers would break it instantly. I should have gotten them spikeball. But I didn't know how awesome it was back then.

Here they are opening their gift. I think Robyn had the phone. She took a ton of pictures, but (I kid you not) only ONE had both of them looking up. 

Don't shoot. We come in peace.

 

 We sure love the twins. They were grounded from us for a while. They were spending too much time down at our house and they got in trouble. I'm not sure what the situation is right now, but we still see them plenty. It helps that we drive them to school every morning. :)

The twins got a phone for their birthday. They had to share one together. Since then, they broke that phone and then got two simpler phones, so they each have their own, but it isn't a smart phone. One night, Robyn and I were taking pictures to send to the twins. They were silly ones. Here are some of our favorites. 

Like I said, silly. I do enjoy playing ping pong with eyes though.

Oh, and I just found these pictures. Bet you can't guess what day we were playing? We were downstairs and we tried sitting down to play ping pong. It is really hard for me since I am so short. But we sure had a good time. Robyn took pictures again. 

Good times. I think a little silly should be a daily requirement. 

Think of the Happiest Things

Robyn did the school musical last year. I'm not sure if she will want to do the play every year. I think she bases it on whether she is interested in what they are performing. This school year, they did Peter Pan Jr. Robyn was on board. I already posted about auditions and Robyn making the play. You can see her on the cast list in this post.

Her character was Silvermist. Robyn was very excited because she considered herself one of the leads. I'm not sure how accurate that was, but she did have lines and got her own script. She was very dutiful about going to practices, although she did skip a couple to go to tennis. (That is how I knew she liked tennis.)

The play was in mid November this last year. Luckily Robyn did not get sick. She seemed chipper and lively, which is perfect for a fairy. I was able to go to most of her performances. I missed one night because of book group, and I only got to see the whole show once because I helped at the ticket table two evenings. It was a cute play. Here is the group taking bows at the end of the performance. Can you spot Robyn in her blue?

Here are the fairies, minus Tinkerbell. Rosetta is Robyn's good friend. I see her all the time. It was so fun that they got to do this together.

The Indian number was one of my favorites. They had fun clapping sequences and a catchy tune. It wasn't 'What makes the red man red?' I believe it was 'What makes the brave man brave?' Tiger Lily had a awesome solo that was great.

Here are the fairies trying to warn Peter not to open the present. It is a bomb!!

All the cast did a great job. It was very impressed with everyone. It is a cute story to begin with, but they each worked very hard.

I took different people each time I went. This night it was Christina and June.

It gets pretty busy in the hallway. Good thing Robyn is easy to spot.

Tyler and Daisy went on the one night I didn't. And I took Pearl and Ivory the next time around. Don't ask me why we didn't all just go together?

The Saturday performance was full of bloopers. That is normal for any show and the kids took it in stride. The fairies never seemed to have too much trouble. Must be the magic that comes with them.

The singing was pretty great. There is always a mic problem at the school. They really need a new sound system, but I felt that you would hear and understand almost everyone and the group numbers were really good.

Here are the fairies making sure Wendy is asleep so Peter can come in and find his shadow.

Aren't they adorable? The colors are a bit wrong. I'm not sure why they made Iridessa purple, but I guess you just go with what you have.

Cute sisters.

The final performance was the best by far. Everything seemed to go right and the kids were snapping with energy. At the end of each performance they would go out in the hall and sing again while people exited the auditorium. Plays are great for building new friendships and putting yourself out there. I don't know what it will be next year but I hope Robyn tries out again.

Raw Art

So, I feel life getting scrunchy. You know how a sheet starts to scrunch up and leaves your feet cold. Well, life is not very smooth right now and my feet are showing big time. But I have this goal to stay on top of blogging and that means three times a week. And today is a current event. But in order to get things done, I am going to skip editing my photos. (Gasp.) True story. All the raw footage, just the way it was shot.

Do you recall the fun art field trip I got to go on back in October? Of course, I only blogged about it back in January, but it was just in time to stay ahead of the second art field trip. This second field trip had a bit more to do with art, although the yearbook squad came along again. I've decided the yearbook team is not very creative. They can't think of their own field trips, so they just tag along wherever the studio art kids go.

So we went to the Springville Art Museum. It was actually amazing. I haven't been there in so long. And the last time I was there, it was for a wedding. We went on a guided tour to begin and then the kids were able to browse the main floor with art from high schools in the area. Upstairs we started in a section called Wit and Whimsy. All the art has an element of humor to it, whether with situation or color. Here are some of my favorites:

We talked about the symbolism of this lady wearing the cow mask. Is she trying to fit in with those around her. What masks do we wear to fit in?

Cass Barney lives not far from me. She is an awesome lady, beyond the fact that she is the daughter of famous artist James Christensen. She did this piece that was on display. I'm just not sure what it means. It is called Tree of Knowledge. How do the knives fit in? I'll have to ask her next time I run into her.

Haha. This one is great.

Here is another by Cass. I love this. The blurb on the side talked about two girls meeting and not seeming to have much in common, but after talking for a while, they realized they were more alike than they thought. Now, they are synchronized swimming partners. Then you view the art and see why it is so interesting.

There were quite a few monster ones. The kids seemed to really like them. This one was kind of sad.

There was a whole section of what looked like doodles done on Sundays. (Robyn does the same thing.) All the pictures seemed to be drawn while listening to a lesson or observing things at church. This one cracked me up.

We left Wit and Whimsy and went to a very different gallery. It was all about transforming hate. Many pieces had to do with this book that was racist and downright awful. They took hundreds of copies and gave them to artists to see if they could find a better use for them. One lady knit hats to cover them up. Notice how they are all unique.

This was possibly my favorite. It shows how hate is passed down through generations as something attractive and enticing. Kids don't even see it coming.

One lady dyed the pages and had people fold them into cranes. I believe she was trying to fold a thousand before she passed away from cancer.

I really like this one too. Giving into hate and evil ideas is a trap. Don't get caught.

I don't know what to think about this one. It is called Phoenix Rising. It talked about all this stuff on the blurb about the Phoenix. But it is clearly a Dodo. Am I missing something? There must be some symbolism about how we see things...

Finally, this would be Tyler's favorite. Old ammunition boxes are filled with the books to show there are all kinds of weapons and ammunition. Words can be harmful too.

Downstairs was all the high school art. Much less symbolism, but I loved so much of it. I won't blather on. I'll just show you my favorites.

From there, we went back on the bus to the mall to have lunch. I sat with Elyse and we played Boinx there and back. It was so fun. She makes me laugh a lot. She had hard words, although I stumped her pretty well with 'units'. As she is using five letter words to solve the game, she sometimes makes words up. My favorite was when she wrote down 'nices'. I said, "That not a word."

"Yes it is," she replied.

"Fine...use it in a sentence."

"...they are the nices people I know."

"hahahahahaha"

Lunch was yummy. It was fun to hang out with June's friends. Some people thought they were sluffing, but I told them kids don't usually sluff with an adult.

The last part of the trip was to the Woodbury Art Museum. I didn't enjoy this place as well, but there was still some cool stuff. More artwork by Cass Barney. That was cool to see her stuff in both places. One artist made a wailing wall out of painted wooden kitchen knife holders. You could write your prayers and put them in the wall.

My favorite piece by far was the flower made from recycled keyboards. It is currently the background on my phone. So cool.

This crew was fun to hang out with. We had a good time.

Almost time to go. Everyone, quick...find the first letter in your name and point to it. What's the matter June...no 'j's?

Back on the bus. I am always happy to help out on these field trips. I'm still the only parent who comes. I'm not sure if that is because no one volunteers or they figure three adults is enough. I do admit that yearbook and studio art aren't the roughest group of kids.

We'll leave you with a parting shot of Christina. We caught her reading. But she still had a smile for us.