March 2011

Oh, the drama of March 2011! We were so busy with The Boxcar Children, the kidlets literally had rehearsal everyday (except Sunday).

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It was Piper's birthday on the 18. On her actual birthday, just our little family went to The Garden Restaurant. She had rehearsal that night.

I'm so proud that she loves fried pickles as much as I do.

This is what Teague gave her. Aaron and I got her the electric scooter that she had been wanting.

She got to let off a balloon with a birthday wish, this is the two of them watching the balloon. I honestly don't know if I made them pose for this picture or not... it really seems a little too good to be true.

For her friend party, she just wanted to invite her two best friends for a sleepover and a night spent at Claires.

And dinner at the food court.

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Teague had to cut off his beautiful long locks (this was major drama).

He's trying to make the best of it...

He looks 'cute,' he seems to like it, Mom on the other hand doesn't even want to talk about it.

******

It was our 14th wedding anniversary on the 21.

sorry, no pictures.

******
And of course, it was the long awaited performances for The Boxcar Children.


This is a picture of Piper in the dressing room that I just love!

This is the Alden children and "the kid" before the show.

Benny and Violet before the show.

This is everybody on stage.

And The Alden Children at an after show open house.

I just love Teague's expression in this picture, I laugh every time I look at it.

It was NOT intentional, it just happened...

Aaron and I always wanted to give our babies' names that couldn't be shortened, we wanted to call them what we named them. I've always thought it was strange to give your child a name and then call them something different.

(this is my own opinion, it's totally okay if you disagree with me)

You can shorten Piper, but we never have and neither has anyone else, except her ballet teacher. Miss Megan started calling her "Pipes" when she was only three - any of you that know me, know that this would most likely drive me nuts - BUT it didn't, in fact, I thought it was the cutest thing ever, I still do. Miss Megan still calls her Pipes, and she is the only person that does. I love it.

Piper spent the first week of her life in Primary Children's Hospital. Whenever a nurse walked by her, they would comment on what a "Pretty" baby she was. The trend continued when we brought her home. She was always "Pretty," every once in a while we would get a "Cute," but rarely.

Then, I started calling her "Pretty." I have ever since. I don't call her this on a regular basis, it's just my special nickname for my daughter. I usually don't even notice that I call her "Pretty." People will ask "What's her name?" Of course, I'll respond with "Piper." Then they will say something like "Oh, I thought you called her 'Pretty.'"


There is one person - who shall remain nameless, but is very closely related to me - who HATES that I call her Pretty! Literally HATES it! And gets after me every time *she hears me call her it. This person thinks that it going give Piper an attitude... I don't think so...

*HINT

You can't really shorten Teague, but people always tend to lengthen it...His name isn't a nickname for Teagan, it's just Teague. We've run into lengthy nicknames like Teaguey or Teaguer Weaguer (cousins came up with this one). We call him by his name.

Aaron and I also had some discussion about nicknames in general and how we never wanted to call our son "Sport," or "Son" or "Bud/Buddy."

Teague has an array of nicknames. Depending on the situation, here are some; Monkey, Stinky, Midge (short for midget), Kiddo, Handsome, Teaguer Weaguer (as mentioned before) and based on Teague's personality you can probably see why all of these nicknames work! But...Guess what I call him? I'm almost embarrassed to admit, but it totally works for me...again, I don't call him this on a regular basis, it's just my special nickname for my son, I (again) usually don't even notice that I call him this, and it's one of the nicknames mentioned on the list of "nevers."


I call Teague "Buddy/Bud."

Like the title of this post says,

"It was not intentional, it just happened..."

I didn't intentionally choose either of these nicknames for my kidlets, they just happened.

These are their special Momma nicknames,
nobody else calls my kidlets
Pretty or Buddy,
only I do,
and that's what I love about these names.

February 2011

Just like January, I may have lied a bit!
However, I was still SO busy with Target, it wasn't until February 28 that I started working one day a week.

February was the month that the kidlets auditioned for, made and rehearsed for "The Boxcar Children," Piper was Violet and Teague was Benny, so it was really busy.

Usually when the kidlets are involved in productions, they aren't at every single rehearsal. They are usually in some musical numbers and/or some scenes. However, with Boxcar Children, they were in every single scene,
so they were at every single rehearsal...
...every single day...
...for six weeks.
They loved it.
I will talk about the performances for my March post.

Aaron turned 37 in February
(so he'll be one year closer to 40 in a week!)
I can't remember what we did for his birthday!
Oh. My. Gosh!
I know I got him a red hoodie...


Anybody that knows me, knows that Valentines is the one time of year that I get all crafty for the kidlets. I make homemade Valentines. 2011, it was ladybugs.


Aaron and I went as saw the world premier of " The Persian Quarter" by Kathleen Cahill at
Salt Lake Acting Company

Click here for a quick preview

It was very interesting. I really enjoyed it. I think I may have enjoyed it more so because when I was a young teenager at Theatre School, I had a huge crush on one of my acting teachers. That acting teacher was Shane Mozaffari, the actor that played Rumi. The rest of the cast was also fantastic! I love Nell Gwynn, she is amazing.

Click here for the cast bios/pics - you may or may not understand my crush...

Either way, it really was interesting and I thought about it a lot, the play even came up for discussion in my playwriting class.

February was a fun and busy month.

Primary vs. Relief Society

Teague is going through a phase
(who knows, it might not be a phase, it might just be him)

After Sacrament meeting one Sunday last month, he started in with his whole,


"Ugh, I don't want to go to Primary, I hate Primary, it's stupid..."


Blah, blah, blah.

I hear it every single week, but he goes anyway.

But this week, I decided to actually be a good mom and figure out why Primary is so stupid.

"Why don't you want to go to Primary? All of your friends are in there with you!"


"I know, but it's just stupid."

"But WHY is it stupid?"

"It just is! I already know everything that I'm supposed to."

"What do you mean?"

"I already know that I'm supposed to be nice, read my scriptures, pray and go to church!"

Okay, the kid has a point!

I had a great spur of the moment idea...

"Do you want to come to Relief Society with me?"


"Okay! Yeah!"

In my mind, I thought that he would never want to go to Relief Society with me! I mean, a bunch of old ladies or his friends... I thought he would choose Primary. But, then I had to remind myself, this is Teague.

I had to take him, there was no turning back at this point. So, Teague and I went to Relief Society and sat down.


"Mom, is there going to be a lot of crying?"

"You never know! There might be."

He was awesome! He sat there and listened to the entire lesson! He didn't squirm, he hardly moved at all. After the closing prayer, he turned to me and said,

"That was AWESOME! That lesson really made me think."


Every Sunday since then, Teague has asked me if he can go to Relief Society with me. I remind him every week that it was a one time thing and that it probably isn't going to happen again.


I think about that Sunday often. Are we, as parents, teachers and leaders giving our children enough credit? I mean, just because they're little doesn't mean that they can't think beyond
"be nice, read my scriptures, pray and go to church."

Opinions?

Oh, there was only a little bit of crying that day!

What would your talent be?

Piper and I were watching Miss America.

Yeah, don't ask, 'cause I don't know why.

When the talent portion was playing Piper asked me,

"If you were a contestant, what would you do for your talent?"


I began to answer,

"Probably the only thing that I do well enough would be..."


Then, I was ever so rudely interrupted by my sweet husband who said,

"EATING"

I was going to say

"...singing."

However, Aaron is probably right, eating suits me better.

AND?

I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Do you think that if I actually was a contestant for Miss America they would allow my talent to be eating? AND, How exactly would I perform that talent?

Profound Experience

There are so many things I want to blog about...so many. However, I MUST blog about this and I'm afraid that if I don't do it now, I won't be able to convey the feelings the way I want to (I still might not be able to).

This is an experience I will NEVER forget, I will make sure of it.

Please be patient with this post, it may end up being pretty long, but I promise, it will be well worth the read (that is, if I can convey the feelings I want to).

While I was in class on Thursday, my Relief Society President called me, when I got out of class I listened to the message. She was wondering if we were going to be in town for the weekend. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was reluctant to call her back - mostly because I have had a bad attitude lately about certain things - I didn't want to be stuck in a position of having to say yes to something I didn't want to do (see? BAD ATTITUDE) Honestly...I'm such a great person...jeez...

Luckily, I fought my initial thought and called her back. To my surprise, one of her counselors answered her phone. But she didn't answer with "Hello," she answered saying, "Karlyn! This is Vicky."

I'm not going to include the entire conversation that we had - I will remember it though - because I want to respect the privacy of our dear neighbors. During the conversation, I was told that our dear neighbors across the street had lost their sweet three year old little boy after his 27 month battle with leukemia...the day after his birthday. I was informed that the family had very specific wishes for the funeral, one being no children. And, another that they wanted my sweet ten year old Piper to sing "If I listen with my heart."

Needless to say, I LOST it.

When these neighbors first moved in, we were pretty close, we would have bar-b-ques and such. Their son was diagnosed about the same time that I started school. Life happened and we weren't as close. Our kids didn't play together as much as they used to (Piper is in the same grade as their oldest daughter and Teague is a year older than the other son). They were at the hospital a lot (most) of the time, and we are a busy family. I never knew exactly what to say to them or how to act around them. They are very private people, however, there was always this lingering guilt that I should be doing more as, not only a neighbor, but as a friend. I wouldn't say that I was a crappy neighbor, just not the best neighbor, or at least, I could have been better. I was reading some journal entries from around the time they moved in and they were mentioned as MM's more than once.

I called Aaron and through tears and sobbing told him. When I told him that they asked specifically for Piper to sing, he wasn't surprised. His exact words were, "Does it surprise you? We've always known that there is something special about her...what an honor this is."

I still couldn't figure out why in the world they wanted Piper sing. I do know that there is something special about my daughter. I do know that for a ten year old she has an incredible voice. Her poise is amazing. When she was tiny, she would cry during the sacrament hymns. But still, this was a funeral...for a three year old.

When I got home, I looked the song up on lds.org and printed a copy. I didn't even look at the words or listen to the music. I don't know why. I just didn't.

I picked the kidlets up from school and we came home. I sat them on the couch and explained what had happened. Through tears I told Piper that they asked if she would be willing to sing at the funeral...before I even finished asking, she said "of course."

Immediately, my head started spinning, I was sick to my stomach. There was no reluctance from this ten year old, not an ounce! She was going to start preparing to sing at a funeral for a three year old. I told her that I had printed the song and that it was still on the printer. She went and got it. I asked her if she knew the song. Of course, she did.

I got a hold of a dear friend of ours that is also in our ward, some of you may know her, Vicki Belnap, she is the amazingly talented choir instructor for Olympus High School. She and Piper work very well together, it is actually magical. Vicki came up with THE PERFECT way for Piper to sing this song. They practiced for about an hour on Friday, Vicki went over all of the proper breathing techniques, word pronunciations etc... and it sounded beautiful. For an hour on Saturday - before the funeral - they practiced in the chapel as I sat on the back pew listening, for some reason Piper just wasn't getting it, I sounded gorgeous, but for some reason, the feeling was a little off. Then Vicki told her to sing it like she was bearing her testimony. IT. WAS. BEAUTIFUL. She was crying, but still singing, beautifully - those of you that sing, know how hard it is to sing while crying.

We got to the funeral about 15 minutes early. I was perusing the program and Piper was after two speakers. I told myself that I was NOT going to cry, I was going to be strong for Piper's sake because I knew that if she saw me crying she would cry, and I really wanted her to be able to sing well.

The family came into the chapel. My first thought was, "It's just not right for a casket to be that small." Right as I finished that thought my sweet neighbor let out a cry as she reached toward the casket.

I cried.

I was able to gain my composure, I did pretty well during the speakers. Piper was crying the whole time. I kept telling her to take deep breaths and I kept saying little prayers for her.

It was her turn, Aaron scooted closer to me and whispered in my ear, "I don't think I'm gonna make it through this."

"I know..."

PIPER.WAS.AMAZING. It truly was THE SINGLE MOST PROFOUND experience I have had as a mother so far.

She made it through the first two versus with absolutely no problem. Her tone was perfect, she was pitch perfect and fluid.

She made it through the first two versus, but I didn't, Aaron didn't and neither did the majority of the congregation.

The third verse was not as easy as the first two. The tempo changed, she was to sing it much more softly and a bit A'Capella.

The spirit was just too strong. Stronger than I have EVER felt it in my life.

My sweet little ten year old had to pause to sob, because she too felt the spirit a little too strongly.

The Stake Primary President (who was one of the speakers - and is in our ward) went up to the pulpit to comfort Piper, it was perfect.

She may have paused, but she finished. She finished with perfect tone, pitch and poise.

IT WAS...

I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW THE WORD.

AMAZING? INCREDIBLE? PROFOUND? BEAUTIFUL? SWEET? ANGELIC? LOVELY? MOVING? TOUCHING? PERFECT?

HELP ME OUT HERE

There was not a dry eye by the time she was done. And, I'm not lying. Even the member of the Presiding Bishopric and the General Authority that were sitting on the stand were teary-eyed.

This is the third verse

I feel the Holy Spirit as he teaches truth and right
He comforts me in times of need, (she started to cry) He testifies of Christ
(the pause)
He speaks to me in quiet ways that fill my soul with peace
And if I listen with my heart, I hear the saviors voice.

I still don't know the exact reason Piper was asked to sing at this funeral, I may never know. I only hope that her sweet voice and the feelings that were felt through it at the funeral were of some comfort for this wonderful family that is mourning the loss of their little angel.

January 2011

So, I may have lied!
We didn't really have a lot going on in January, I just went and looked at the calendar, and there wasn't anything on it except for our regular everyday stuff, which seems weird, because for some reason I remember feeling so crazy busy!

BUT
I did notice that I was still working at TARGET 20 - 30 hours a week while going to school full-time...

So, I'll tell you my TARGET story...

In October before we had refinanced the house and before we got all of the student loans consolidated Aaron and I decided that I would get a job for Christmas! In the past I had done Western Nut (which I LOVED and miss), but they had a new manager. So, I applied at Target and was hired as a cashier for the Christmas season.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a cashier at Reams, so this sort of fulfilled a childhood dream!

When the Christmas season ended, I assumed that my cashiering job would as well, but they offered me a permanent position and I figured,
Why not?

So, I was working as a cashier at Target 20 - 30 hours a week, being a mom of kidlets with busy schedules and going to school full-time! No wonder I remember the feeling of being crazy/busy!

As the weeks went on and the kidlets were cast in "The Boxcar Children," We decided that it wasn't really necessary for me to work and I should quit,
so I tried...

I guess I better point out at this point that I really enjoy being a cashier, and I would sort of miss it.

When I tried to quit, they were so nice and asked if there was anything they could do to make me want to stay!
I told them that my family was just way too busy and they needed me. They then asked if I could work one night a week.

Um...I can totally work one night a week!

So, I am still at Target. One night a week. For four hours. It Rocks.
I get the employee discount, so it is totally worth it.

Go ahead, call me crazy!


Wow!!! I look SO different now!

HI!

Remember me?

Karlyn?

I took a year or so off from blogging, I didn't really mean to, but it happened.

I think I'm gonna start up again, I've got a lot on my mind that I could blog about!

I will start with updating you on the past year month by month, I will throw some other stuff in as well.

As for right now, this is all, but please stay tuned, January 2011's update will be first.

Frog and Toad and Wizard of Oz..Oh my!

So, here's the deal

Piper and Teague are both participating in

"A Year with Frog and Toad"
at Kingsbury Hall, Nov. 18, 19 & 20


it will be presented by Youth Theatre at the U.

It's going to be fantastic.

Go!

Here is a link with all of the information

A Year with Frog and Toad

Piper will be participating in

"The Wizard of Oz"
at Kingsbury Hall, Dec. 3 & 4


it will be presented by Broadway in Utah, Broadway Across America.

It too is going to be fantastic

Go!

Here is a link with all of the information

Wizard of Oz

MM's
1. Frog and Toad

2. Wizard of Oz

3. YTU

4. Broadway Across America

5. NewSpace Entertainment

6. Kingsbury Hall

(That's a lot of MM's!)

Marriage advice

This is a totally random post, but I have found myself pondering about this particular thing a lot lately.

Before I got married, I had a lot of showers, like 8.


At every one of those showers advice was given, some good, some strange, some inappropriate...you know what I am saying, right?

At every single one of my showers, at least 1 person (usually more) would give the advice...

DON'T EVER GO TO BED MAD.

Okay, whatever.

Um...I SO DO NOT agree with this advice.

In the 90's, there was this really popular book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" I even got a couple of copies as wedding gifts, I'm pretty sure this is where the advice came from.


For the record, I HATE that book. It didn't 'help' me, in fact, according to that book, I am a man and Aaron is a woman.

Now, whenever I am at a bridal shower and I am asked to give advice, this is what I say or write,

It is okay to go to bed mad. Sometimes, you need 8 hours or so to cool off. Sometimes you need 8 hours or so to clear your head. Sometimes you need 8 hours or so to just not deal with him. Sometimes you need 8 hours or so to realize that you are arguing about something STUPID. So, go to sleep and wake up with a clear head and perspective on the previous night. You may not even remember what you were arguing about, but either way, you will have a good night's sleep, which is much more important than winning an argument.

I remember a fifth Sunday meeting about four years ago, our Stake Patriarch and his wife were talking to us about marriage. He said, "...I think it is okay to go to bed mad, you may just need a good night's rest." I leaned over to Aaron and said, "I'm so glad he said that!"

I make it sound like Aaron and I argue a lot.
NOT A FACT!
We actually rarely argue,
rarely.

The other advice I give?

NEVER STOP HOLDING HANDS!


Aaron and I still hold hands. When we are together, we are holding hands, unless we are holding kidlet hands. I love this about us.

MM's
1. A good marriage
2. A good nights sleep
3. Holding hands