Behind the Scenes

Pictures can tell the tale better than I, so I won't write toooo much about this past weekend's performances of Alice in Wonderland.  It was a full, yet fun, weekend. Millie, Hayley, AJ, Mark, and I attended the fourth & final performance. Of course, it was a wonderful show. :-) 

Tessa posed with Fairies Kyla, Liesey, Emily, and Cheyenne.

Cheshire Ruth

Sienna -- Caterpillar/Butterfly

Liesey the Duchess & Cook Anna

Where's the pig/baby?

The (Lobster?!) Duchess & Friends

A trio of Smiths

(How 'bout that castanet man?!!!)

The Duchess & Fairy Naomi

Darian (The White Rabbit) & Chloe (Alice)

Hayley, Fairy Haley, & Millie

The girls picked some pretty flowers.

The Smithlings were allowed to sleep in this morning. (A homeschooling perk) Ahhh! That's a collective sigh of relief. We may be tired, but this really is a fun family activity, or we wouldn't keep it up.  Alice is the 10th Placer Theatre Ballet production that our family has been associated with, and I have a feeling we'll be participating in many more in the years to come.

Only four months until Nutcracker auditions...

Shake! Shake! Shake!

Who says that you can't teach an old cat new tricks? Well, maybe that has never been said...

Thanks to our friend Janice, we learned that even six year old brown mackerel tabbies can learn to do things on command. Or at least sit & shake "hands" for a treat. :-) It took less than 10 minutes to teach Jemima this new trick. What's next? Roll over? Speak? Fetch? Vacuum the floor? Do the laundry? I am certain that we will progress to more difficult commands as time goes by.

See the video below. The noise in the background is from our fountain. If the water was still you'd be able to hear Jemima purring loudly as she shakes. She LOVES to perform. Bartholomew is somewhat envious of his sister's newly-developed skills, but he will not participate in such an activity as this, even if it does garner a few tasty cat treats. 

We obviously have had too much time on our hands.

Easter 2009

He is Risen!

We had a WONDERFUL day today. We started out by attending an 8 a.m. worship service at Bridgeway Christian Church. After returning home, we all talked to G-ma & G-pa on the phone, sampled the goodies in our Easter baskets, had fun on Raleigh Court with the neighbors, ate dinner, made a quick trip to the airport to pick up AJ & Mark, and ended the day with watching Ben Hur. Of course, I had to make sure that plenty of photos were taken. And we even managed to get a family picture. Hooray! Check out our photos:

Let the hunt begin...

Cre-egg-tivity?

After a trip to Costco, we "hatched" a few eggs on the driveway. We opened the back hatch of the car & out the eggs came. Despite the water conservation mandate that forbids hosing down sidewalks, driveways, etc., I washed the scrambled eggs off the concrete. I am sure that there is some creative design in the yolky mess -- kind of like an ink blot test. What do YOU see?

Not a single egg was spared...

The girls & I did manage to NOT crack any eggs as we learned a new craft -- Pysanky! Thanks to Denise & Nicole, we created some lovely Ukrainian Easter eggs.

Look at that concentration. Look at that skill.

Now she's playing with fire...

Millie & Mimi discussed color selection.

What EGGcellent designs!

Millie was egg-cited about this artsy activity. Her kitty/angel design was purrfect!

I am sure that this is a traditional Ukrainian pose.

All of our eggs are in one basket. We should be okay as long as we don't put 'em in the back of the car.

1/2 of a CENTURY?

Mr. Smith turned 50 today!

The Smithlings gave their daddy four "nearly indestructible" Cornilleau ping pong paddles (with "Michelin Man" surfaces) that should last for another 50 years. (I can just see us all playing table tennis with these paddles and a few canes on D's 100th b-day!) Ha! Ha! I ordered a backgammon set for the guy who likes fun & games; however, it had to be returned as it didn't look as nice in person as it did on-line... He didn't even get to see it, as the game set didn't get past Smith quality control. Isn't that lame that I didn't have a gift for my boy on his special day?! Guess I will need to take him shopping with me. 

I did throw him a FUN party, but that was the easy part. All we needed to do was add great friends -- and a little food. Grilled salmon with pesto, brown rice, spinach salad, Caesar salad, bread, corn on the cob, & Italian sodas were on the menu. YUM!

The inside of the card says, "You will soon!" 

Perhaps our resident quinquagenarian will soon be able 

to explain this great mystery to us.

The black & "old" gold balloons actually matched the napkins & plates that were chosen for Mr. Smith's BIG party. This was not a Purdue Boilermaker-themed event, although it appears that way!

He's 50?  Wow! I must've married a much older guy... HA!

These dear friends created a photo album just for the b-day boy. The book is filled with photos & memories from MANY years of fun with our 

"Family Game Night" family.

What great pictures -- what fun memories!

Nathan is a long way from being 50!

Cool spectacles!

Pettits, Millers, Ericksons, Weihers, & Smiths

Yes, we really had 50 candles on the "cake" -- well, there wasn't just ONE cake. There were 25 gourmet cupcakes of various flavors, and each treat held two candles. It took four people lighting the candles as fast as possible. Then we had to sing quickly to avoid a 3-alarm fire. (The fire extinguisher was handy...) 

In addition to all the chatter, laughter, silliness, and other fun & games, we were all treated to a lively (original) ditty, It's Your Birthday, by the musical Pettit duo.  

What a memorable evening! Thanks to everyone who helped the "old guy" ease into a new decade. The gift of friendship is a blessing, and we are blessed indeed. :-)

179 out of 182

The landscape design was drawn up last summer.
Our friend Debbie did a WONDERFUL job creating our garden.

We patiently waited through fall & winter to begin implementing the plan...

Let the transformation begin!

We borrowed our neighbor's Tundra & loaded up every available spot with the plants on our lengthy list. Well, we got almost all of the plants. We have 179 out of the 182 plants required for the garden plan. We are waiting for our local nursery to sell us 3 pots of Bee Balm. (The girls don't really like this photo because of their sun grins. I think that the plants are grinning, too.)

Some of the favs: Coral Bells, Liriope, Daylilies, Ajuga,
Hydrangea, Geranium, Peonies, & Hostas

Even the back seat of the pickup got loaded up!

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago --
we only had a handful of plants in the ground at this point.

Lots o' pots!

Millie, Millie, oh, so silly, how does your garden grow? :-)

All three of the Smithlings have helped with this project, but I 

only have one photo of Millie in the garden with her daddy.

"We" still have irrigation work (Mr. Smith's specialty) to complete & lots of "barking" to do, but you can pretty much see how the finished project will look. We are amazed at how quickly things are growing. Let's just hope that California has enough water to keep these plants alive! We're now ready for butterflies & hummingbirds.

Now that you have seen these photos, you know why I have not been adding any new items to my blog this month. I'm in the garden & not at the keyboard.

Wow! It looks as if I need to get our lawn boy out there to give the turf a trim... I guess we have been too busy playing in the dirt to notice that the grass is tall!

Double Duty

Double your pleasure, double your fun... 

We've been summoned!

Mr. Smith and I BOTH have to report for jury duty. He's up for the week of March 30th, and I get the first full week in April. What are the odds that a husband & wife get called one week after the other? I'm really looking forward to making that $15/day. :-) HA!!!

The silent treatment?

There has been a lot of activity going on within the Smith fam. the past several weeks, but you'd never read about it here. No news -- no updates. Nothin'.  I have been noticeably silent, huh?! Complain/reply/comment all you want -- I'm not going to read any of your responses, since I turned off the "comment" feature. I guess that was more of a rhetorical question anyway. :-)

We have all been busy with life, and sadly, I really do not have time for virtual stuff. I have purposefully not been spending a lot of time sitting at my computer lately. Why? 

(Note: Answers are not necessarily in order of importance.)

1. It's too nice outdoors, plus we have a lot of landscaping/gardening to do. We are implementing the lovely landscape design that our friend drew up for us. That will be a topic/slideshow for another blog entry. We have 33 plants in the ground and 149 more to go...
   
2. Mr. Smith has been traveling every week for the past month -- TX, MO, and AR. It takes more time & energy to do the single mom routine. (I miss that boy, but he'll be home later today. Hooray!) 
   
3. The red pen has a grip on my life, or I have a grip on it.  Ah, the joys of homeschooling! Liesey Lou has completed most of her work for the entire year, but she's (patiently) waiting to see what her grades are. I tend to wait to grade tests, quizzes, and papers until I have a stack a mile high to review. We start out the school year with things flowing a little more smoothly, but now that we are nearing the finish line, I allow things to literally pile up. I also have a LOT of grading for M's classes. Ugh! The good news? I am caught up on grading Millie's work. The goal is to be finished with school by the end of April or first week of May.
4. I have been taking time to read more books. At one point this past week, I was reading four books -- not all at the same time, mind you! I finished reading No (Why Kids - of ALL Ages- Need to Hear it and Ways Parents Can Say It) by David Walsh while I was waiting for the car to have its oil changed. It was an interesting read. As an added note, I have never had trouble telling the Smithlings, "No!" Just ask 'em. I also completed Food Matters by Mark Bittman, but this book will be revisited again & again for the tasty recipes contained in the final chapters. The other two books will remain unfinished, for now... Maybe I'll get them finished next week, if I complete all of my grading.
5. Lie to Me. We rarely watch TV at our house, but I happily allow this new show to steal away an hour of my time every Wednesday night. We have also watched an episode or two of American Idol this season, but it really is not that interesting to any of our family members.
6. I am trying to get back into the routine of walking a few times a week. Those dark dreary winter days make it hard to get out of bed, but now that spring is officially here, I have no more excuses. 
7. We are trying to plan a little birthday bash for a soon-to-be birthday boy. Who could that be? Fifty's nifty?
8. My Canon is throwing a hissy-fit. I don't know what's wrong with it. Honest, I didn't drop it. Spring broken? It refuses to take photos, so I don't have any images to download to iPhoto; therefore, I have nothing to show you. I am "allowed" to borrow Millie's lil' Canon, but I miss having my own camera.
9. There are more reasons, but I can't write EVERYTHING here!

So why am I sitting on my keister typing on my computer when I could be out enjoying the beautiful morning? I don't really know. I just thought perhaps you would like to know why I've been the unblogger this past month. 

Why are you sitting there reading this list? Hmmm... I will only have to imagine your response(s) since I'm not accepting comments any longer. :-) HA!!! (Imagine me with my fingers in my ears as I'm chanting, "La, la, la, la...I'm not listening, I'm not listening. I don't hear you!")

I challenge you to get up outta your chair & go enjoy the beauty & splendor of the real world. 

This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it. -Psalm 118:24

The Duchess Reigns

This is not a pretty picture.

Thankfully "our" Duchess looks NOTHING like the illustration from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Liesey's noggin is a normal size, & she's pretty;
however, she's got royal 'tude...
(The attitude was only for the photo shoot. No drama is allowed in real life.)

Placer Theatre Ballet had a publicity photo shoot today for Alice in Wonderland, and I was able to take some photos of my girl in her costume. I'll only share this one. She looks lovely -- nothing like the hideous character that Carroll imagined. Whew!

Three of Liesey's friends (L to R: Kyla, Chloe, & Anya) posed in this photo as Tweedle Dum, Alice, and Tweedle Dee.

I hope to get some photos of our ballerina girl in her Fairy costume. She gets to wear a beautiful flowing dress complete with colorful wings. I do not recall that Alice meets up with any fairies in the original version of the story.
Ah, but this is a ballet and it is a FAIRY tale. :-)

Stay tuned for more photos. You know how I love pictures!!!