Valentine's Day

This year's Valentine's was a mix of normalcy, creativity, and tradition. It fell on a Sunday, which would lead one to believe that we were able to spend it together either as a couple or a family, but no, we still had things to do.

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Colombo, Nathanael, and C4 were out the door for hockey by 7:00 am.

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After breakfast, Madison and I sat down to work on some homemade cards. She also thought it would be nice to make chocolate chip cookies for Daddy.

Around noon I loaded my 3 into the van to run a couple quick errands on my way to rehearsal at church. I met Colombo in the parking lot and he took the van and all 5 kids over to his Mom's to be babysat. After rehearsal, he and I met back at the house to get ready for our 'date'.

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Every year, Lisa and Shaun host a murder mystery fine dining experience. I think we've gone about 6 years and it's more or less the same group. We have lots of fun, tons of laughs, and some really great food. Everyone has so much fun reading up on their character ahead of time and taking all of their 'what to wear' tips to the extreme. In the end, the result of the game is somewhat of a let-down, but we all have a great time playing.

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Shaun & Lisa, the butchers

Connie & Eric, the miller and wife

(Eric has been the culprit for like 4 years running. Total coincidence.)

Micah & Sienna, the bakers

Nathan, postman/bartender & Laryssa, town gossip

Bethany, winery owner & Chris, unemployed ladies' man

Bethany even made her own labels.

Colombo, detective & myself, florist

My character was 'completely insane'.

Sienna, myself, and Connie sportin' our looks.And....a gift from The Man.

A Little Home Improvement

While my computer was down, I got a little antsy, so I decided to paint the hutch. We inherited this hutch from Colombo's great aunt. It came with a matching table, which we don't use. We've had it for about 8 years. There were water stains down both sides and I was never thrilled about it's 'honey' color, but I thought since it was a family piece that it was off-limits to altering.

A couple months ago, Karen said, "Amy, have you ever thought of painting that hutch?"

Say no more!!! That was all the permission I needed.

It looks like a whole new piece of furniture. I'm very happy with it. I kept the old hinges, put two new knobs on and it looks fab! Just wish I'd done it sooner!

A year ago I re-did the bathroom, except we never made it to the faucet. This faucet was the ugliest one I think I've ever seen...two tone...shiny chrome and cheap gold!
And the knobs were always tricky for the kids to turn. For this project, I just had to buy what I liked and Colombo did the rest!

Cast Party

We had our cast party for "The Lost Son." We had a beautiful spread of appetizers in the church cafe. C4 and Maddy made the Lego centerpiece.Brent gave everyone a signed poker chip and I had a 5x7 photo of the cast to give to everyone.

Two cast members, Amy and James, did a phenomenal job of creating "awards" for each and every cast member and backstage crew. They were called "The Wilde Phantasmagorias." Here were ours.

Madison – Award for Best Backstage Dancing and Best Joke Female (Valentine's Dey)

C4 – Best Nonverbal Communication Award

Amy DiSalvatore – The “I have 5 kids and rocked this feathered Vegas Showgirl Outfit” Award

They were all so clever and fun. We laughed all the way through them as many were inside jokes.

The best part of the evening, though, was at the end, when these 8 kids asked us to come see their show. They had worked on it for a little while in the atrium. They condensed the 3 hour show into about 7 minutes. It was hilarious!!! Being children of cast members, each had sat through their share of rehearsals and knew the show as well as we did. It was cute to see what they picked up on and what parts they thought were important enough to include in their condensed version.

Very sweet.

Colorado Cousins

Since my brother is deployed to Iraq, my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, and her 3 kids took a road trip from Colorado and stayed with us for 2 weeks. Lainie is 3, Katie is 2, and Trey is 11 months. So, with 8 kids, homeschool, The Lost Son, a big birthday bash, the Superbowl, and more out-of-state visitors it was a very BUSY 2 weeks.

Madison was a great Activities Coordinator.Maddy's Train proved to be a huge hit...every day!



Even Gabby and Andrea visited for a day and caught some of the action.
Luckily there was lots of family around to chip in, including the Boyds over the weekend.
My mom and dad and sisters each had Elizabeth and the kids over for dinner for an evening, so that gave us a little breather to just be our family. It was a great balance.

Bethany hosted the January / February Birthday Bash--7 birthdays to celebrate.

Trey slept through his '1st Birthday' cake.
Tradition...Trevor and Lainie had a bath together in my tub. We kept their undies on...probably won't work next time we see them.
There's the '06 Club...
And the '09 Boys' Club...
We managed to work in a shopping trip and girls' night out...dinner and a movie.
Despite the controlled chaos, we managed to have a very nice visit that seem to go by really quickly. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

The Lost Son

I have a lot of pictures to share from behind the scenes of our church's most recent musical, The Lost Son. Click here if you'd like to see a trailer. We had 4 shows that all went so, so well. I think it even exceeded our expectations. And over 3,000 people came to see a story of God' love.

The writer and director, Brent Grosvenor, was just sharing this weekend how one man came to see the show who had literally never been to church his whole life, but has since attended a weekend service and bought tickets to see The Passion of the King. The testimonies keep coming and coming. People raved about the show, but more importantly, they are sharing how their families and guests were touched by the message. In our our strength, we never could have pulled it off, but God alone deserves the praise.

A cast and crew of about 40 worked tirelessly to make this a reality. At times it was HARD work, late nights, life-out-of-balance, but it all came together. It was a fun ride!

In addition to serving as Assistant Director/Producer, I was also in the ensemble which was so much fun! Besides my family, it is possibly one of my accomplishments that I'm most proud of. It ranks right up there with college graduation.

Madison had several lines and was very popular backstage. Everyone loved on her. C4 was in a 1 minute scene and had fun playing DS the rest of the time. Thank you to all my family who supported me throughout it. Your cheerleading was essential! It was awesome to even have the Boyd's, Andrea, and Elizabeth come from literally all over the country...glad it worked out.

Here are some pictures of our adventure:

Opening Night cake
Karianne (prop master) mixes drink before the show
Me and Elvis (Joey Franklin)
hangin' backstage after the hospital scene
Jake & Bob, the two detectives
Me with Rhonda, a bachorlette for this scene
SCARY!

Madison, James, and Celine goofin' off



Jake, Brent (writer, director, producer), James, Dave
Betsy and Carlos (wearing Betsy's wig)
My FAVORITE picture