Week 17

This week was another extremely chaotic week including 4 Passion performances, egg-decorating with all 15 grandkids, a party for Madison, and figuring out Easter outfits. It was also public school vacation week which meant the 3 oldest kids bounced around to different friends' houses.

Monday, April 18th

Here's a teaser. I will do one big Easter post separately. Tuesday, April 19th
Madison's surprise party, posted separately.

Wednesday & Thursday- no pictures, but I have this cute video. The kids love to come in our bedroom in the morning as we finish getting ready. Rocco will point to the lap top and ask for "Nah, Nah."

Friday, April 22nd

Closing night of The Passion of the King. It was bittersweet to see it come to a close. Some of these pictures are from closing night, others are from dress rehearsals. (all from Lisa)

Saturday, April 23rd

Summertime haircuts and baths for all the boys!

Madison turns 10!

April 6th

Madison's 10th birthday hit me hard. Yet another obvious reminder of just how fast time goes by. I cannot believe she has been with me a decade!

Her whole birthday plan was a bit disappointing in my estimation but as it all turned out, it was very special.

It fell on a Wednesday and given the choice she wanted to go to church as usual. That meant it would be a very 'regular' day. I was bummed, but tried to compensate. She wanted breakfast burritos for breakfast.

She also carefully chose her shirt!

We also met Ninny at Panera for a quick lunch and a chance for her to open Ninny's gift.

I made cupcakes for her to take to her Wednesday night class. Luckily her best church friend, Ahzhane, was there, so that was special for her.

The BIG deal for her 10th birthday was that she could pierce her ears. BUT because of competition in May and recital in June, she would have to wait. Kinda anti-climatic. That is why I was kinda feeling sorry for her. And to top it off, her birthday book had not come in on time. So, I planned a little surprise party with 8 of her friends. The date was set for April 19th and I sneakily prepared for the party, made favors, and even baked 9 cakes for the 'cake-decorating' party! (At some point months earlier Maddy had come up with that idea for a party.)

In the time between, her May competition was cancelled which meant she had time to pierce ears before the June recital. She was ecstatic! The plan would be for Juliet to come and sleep over and we'd make a girls trip to the mall for dinner and piercing. Colombo wanted to go and watch this rite of passage for his only daughter, but Madison lovingly asked that it just be the girls.

We had fun! Madison was just giddy about the whole thing.
The BEFORE...can you tell how excited / nervous she is?

Juliet was so encouraging and held her hand.

It was a VERY difficult Mom moment for me. I just can't believe how old she is getting. How blessed I am to have her! I told her about 4 years ago she had to wait til she was 10 for earrings. I thought it would be a good double-digits reward and she'd be old enough to do all the cleaning and care on her own. And honestly, I thought it sounded like a llllooooonnngg ways away, as if the day would never come. But no. The day did come. My little girl.

The AFTER:
Madison wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday's and have the salad bar. We girls talked and giggled and had a great time! It was a perfect evening, topped off with Juliet spending the night.

And THAT would have been enough- very fun, very special- but I had planned a surprise party for the next day before I knew that the ear piercing could happen.

So on Tuesday I had Colombo take Madison out of the house to run a quick "errand". I had exactly 20 minutes to pull all my stuff out of hiding and create a party zone before the 1st guests arrived.

We all yelled surprised and got her so good! It was so much fun! All her friends were elated to be a part of it all.

The girls quickly got working on cakes. They started off taking their time. It was funny to see the different personalities as some painstakingly evened out the frosting and some globbed it on.

By the end, most of the cakes were completely covered in icing, sprinkles, m&m's and all sorts of stuff, but I think they had fun. I liked Maddy's so much I asked her to do the same for Rocco's 2nd birthday!

At my request, each guest brought a pair of earrings as their gift to get Madison's collection started. Such sweet friends and sweet memories.

L to R front: Janauya, Ahzhane, Madison, Kelly

back: Amanda, Anna, Juliet, Sarah, Brianna

She was very grateful for such a special day, thanking me many times. At the end of the night, she sheepishly asked if there were any more surprises. I said no, and she looked disappointed. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "What about my birthday book?" Oh, goodness! I had forgotten to give her the book when she was opening presents!!! Indeed, there was one more surprise before bed.

She also has a special birthday plan with Pop and Kiki. They found a tap show to take her to in June. That will be a special day, I'm sure.

She is an amazing girl, so compassionate, sweet, loving, helpful, considerate, kind, giving. I learn so much from her. She is so valuable to this family; like a rare jewel. We love her so, so much.

Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up,

don't you ever grow up

Just stay this little

Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up,

don't you ever grow up

It could stay this simple

I won't let nobody hurt you

Won't let no one break your heart

No, no one will desert you

Just try to never grow up, never grow up

~Taylor Swift, "Never Grow Up"

(Madison's favorite artist, in lime green, Madison's favorite color!)

Dance Competition-- season 3, episode 4

Kids For Kids -- North Haven, CT -- April 15 & 16Friday night: Madison missed opening night of the Passion to dance her lyrical. She was disappointed that she had to miss the show and doubly disappointed feeling like she didn't dance well.

Saturday: The whole fam made it a day and went down to support Maddy and her four other dances.

Here we are hanging in the hall with another dance mom, Becca.

Madison and Julia

This is "Almost Alice". It received a special judges award for the costuming.

Week 16

I'm behind on blogging. Actually I'm behind on life. It's been a couple of VERY hectic weeks of dress rehearsals and performances. The laundry is piled up. The house is a wreck. School is barely getting done. I think I've been to the gym three times in two weeks. BUT, I've been here before. Actually I've been here every year for the last four years that I've been assistant producer of The Passion.

From experience I know that the madness of the last two weeks will soon be gone, leaving a bittersweet void and a return of discretionary time. A week from now I will have the house back in order, I will be fully committed to our last five weeks of school, and maybe I will even have the chance to check in on blogs and facebook which I have not done for some time now.

All I can say, is IT IS ALL WORTH IT!

So for now, here we go with a week in pictures...over a week late!

Sunday, April 10th

We went out to my Dad's church where Tim and Elizabeth dedicated little Wyatt Zane. My Dad did a beautiful job personalizing the service. The pictures are from Lisa.

All the grandkids sang the dedication song my Dad wrote.

The '06-ers.

Monday, April 11th

Bob took a picture from his office window and emailed it over, joking that the cute kids in the cul-de-sac were distracting him from his work.

Our fog machine set off the fire alarm during rehearsal. After a long wait for the fire department we were back on the stage for a late night of rehearsing.

Tuesday, April 12th

I had to go over to church to hang plastic on the walls in the bathroom to prevent blood damage where Jesus gets makeup done. The kids came and had a BLAST having a Nerf gun war in the hallway.

Thursday, April 14th

Friday, April 15th

Opening night for Passion of the King. The kids have obviously been impacted. This is Jesus (Max Steele) hanging on the cross.

This is Peter (Anakin) who they later 'fixed' by turning upside down since he was not worthy of dying the same way as Jesus.

Saturday, April 16th

Madison had her 4th competition. We went to D.Q. during a lunch break. What a treat! I'll post about the competition separately.