St. Patrick's Day

Taya's favorite holiday has always been St. Patrick's Day.  I don't know why, but it cracks me up.  So every year I try to do a small treasure hunt for the kids with activities & games to celebrate.  We had a busy day on March 17th, so we fit the hunt in between everything else we were doing.

Each clue led them to another place in the house, another activity, & another clue.

I love it when they all dress up in green.

This year we did a GREEN Scavenger Hunt in our house to see how many green things we could find.

And green snacks at lunch are always fun.

We also drew leprechauns,

while daddy slept.

Their favorite game this year was "Who Am I?"  I put "lucky/St. Patrick" words on their backs & they had to ask questions to try & figure out who they were.

After mint-chocolate chip milkshakes, the last clue led them to the treasure in my craft room.  Cadence got a little hyper with the chocolate coins.

The kids always love the treasure at the end of the hunt.

For dinner we made green pasta with green homemade alfredo sauce, green cucumbers, green jello, & green grapes.  The kids loved it.

March Madness

I can't believe how crazy busy March was.  I always know February is going to be nuts with all the birthdays, but March threw me for a loop this year.  But we had a blast doing everything we did do.

Here are some highlights from March.

Cadence worked on her final PE project for 9th grade.  She had to do a cardiovascular activity 4 days a week for 30 minutes a day for a month.  Then on top of that she had to do a food diary of everything she ate & also had to record her water intake for the month.  She chose biking for her cardiovascular activity & really had fun.  She especially enjoyed riding her bike in the rain.  She always came home covered in MUD.

And since our Potter family motto is

"Always an Adventure,"

Cadence somehow managed to get attacked by a stray dog while riding her bike which resulted in hours upon hours upon hours in the ER fixing & watching the bite, & getting the dreaded RABIES SHOTS (more on that next week when we actually FINISH the month long adventure known as rabies shots & can celebrate!)

And Cadence learned how to build, code, & fight robots in her computer programming class.  She is SO good at coding.  Her robot was AMAZING.

We also had our cousins come visit in March during Stake Play.  Carolyn was wonderful & helped me with the kids while I was at all the final play rehearsals & performances.  The kids LOVED being with their cousins, even when they fall on rocks & split their heads open.

A big step for Bladen this month . . . 

he earned his Wolf Scout merit badge & is now officially a Bear Scout.

He's super excited to have more complex "adventures" in scouting this year.

Lórien invited her school friends to a Young Women activity where they played "Chopped."  They were given 4 ingredients:

rotisserie chicken

a hershey's chocolate bar

strawberries

yellow peppers

& a secret ingredient that had to be used in all 3 courses:

cream cheese

They had 30 minutes to create an appetizer, main dish, & dessert using their ingredients & anything else they could find in our pantry.  Lórien's team was quite amazing.

For their appetizer, they made buffalo nachos (which I couldn't stop eating!!!).

For their main dish they made chicken/cream cheese tacos.

And for desserts they baked strawberry cupcakes withe strawberry pieces in the batter, cream cheese frosting, & topped with chopped strawberries & peels of chocoalte bar.

Their team won.  It was all delicious & pretty impressive for a bunch of 13 year olds.

Also in Potter news for the month of March.  Lórien got a part in the play "Homeschool" in her musical theater class, as well as a fun little solo in the main song.

And Taya & Bladen both got parts in the Elementary School play

"The Frog Prince."

Bladen (who didn't want a lot of lines) got a pretty decent part as the Herald.  He's having a blast learning what to do on stage & how to project his voice for his parts.  He's already got half his part memorized & has decided that plays are fun.

Taya came home jumping up & down last Friday & announced to us that she got the part of the Princess.  .  .  which means A LOT of lines.  And not only is it a LOT of lines, but the princess is also under a curse (like the frog prince) that makes it so that she can't speak normal english.  Her entire part is in jibberish which makes for a LOT more practice than usual.  But you know Taya, she's already got most of them memorized & is loving being center stage.  She is a total drama queen like her sister.

So, just when one play ends, two more pop up.  Isn't that the circle of life here at the Potter house?  Plays, plays, & more plays.  ha ha ha.  I wouldn't change it for the world.

Stake Play - The Greatest Show

The biggest, most challenging, stressful, but absolutely amazing experience we had in March was Stake Play.  In our church, several congregations based on location make up a "stake."  For Stake Play, we gathered up all the youth ages 12-18 & put on a HUGE road show style play for the community.  We had about 230 youth, 85 adults, over 500 costumes, & 3 months of extremely dedicated hard work in rehearsals.

It was a BLAST.  These kids were put into about 3 numbers each & they got to learn things they'd never even dream of attempting.  Some kids learned Bollywood dancing, others clogging.  There was hip-hop, ballroom, singing, dancing, a full on drumline number (that was the one I directed), a full comedy routine, even Mario made an appearance.  The theme for the entire show was

"THE GREATEST SHOW"

which was perfect.

For the opening number, Cadence got the chance to be the "bearded lady."  She loved that.  And Lórien got to be in the front of the stage as well as a dancer.  The opening number was "This is the Greatest Show" from the movie "The Greatest Showman."  I got a chance to help with the organization & choreography for it.  It was a ton of fun.

I'm adding links to the videos of closing night.  Eventually we'll have a digital copy of the entire play & I'll post that on here as well so you can see how amazing the whole thing was in its entirety.

The Greatest Show - Opening Number

The girls made SO MANY FRIENDS.  Everyone was put into numbers that weren't they're usual "group of friends" which forced them to meet new people.  I was amazing at how many new friendships were formed over the 3 months of rehearsals.

I got a kick out of Cadence's bearded lady costume & beard.  She's the cutest bearded lady I've ever seen.

And Lo looked adorable in her opening number gold & black dress too.

Just look at the sheer number of costumes hanging in this hallway.  And this wasn't even all of them.  It was INSANE.

Lórien was also in the Deacon/Beehive (12-13 year old) number.  Their age group only got to be in the opening & closing numbers & the deacon/beehive number, bringing their total to 3.  Lorien danced to "I Will Get Back Up Again" from the movie trolls & she was ADORABLE up there.

"I Will Get Back Up Again!" - (Lo)

Cadence got to be in the opening & closing numbers, as well as 3 others for a total of 5.  She was in a  number called "True Colors" (from Trolls) where she learned how to do contemporary dance.  It was a stretch for her little awkward self, but she did a really great job & even survived a nerve wracking trust fall in the middle of the song.

I was the producer of this number which means I helped with the props & costumes.  I have been SO busy so I opted to buy the costumes with my budget rather than make them.  I think the dresses were perfect for this type of dance.  It was really beautiful on the stage.

"True Colors" - (Cadence)

Cadence was also in the comedy number "Moving Right Along."  Though the jokes got old after months & months of practicing, the delivery & performance on stage was hilarious.  It actually was one of the favorites of the show.  She really had to break out of her shy shell to be silly on stage.

"Moving Right Along" - (Cadence)

The 3rd number Cadence was in was my boys' favorite of the whole play.  It was a Mario Brother's themed hip hop dance & it was SO COOL.  All the kids were dressed at toad with the main Mario characters leading the storyline of the dance.  Cadence had the most fun with this dance & she learned a lot about hip-hop movement.

Mario Brothers Hip Hop - (Cadence)

And finally, I was asked to direct a number for the play.  I got to work with the amazing Johnathan McPhie & we put together a Star Wars themed drumline number using wood, drumsticks, & boom whackers.  Most of these kids had never read music before & in 3 months we were amazingly able to teach them "The Imperial March" & "Star Wars Main Theme" along with drumming, sticking, & rhythm.  They did a great job & I coudn't have been prouder of them all.

"Star Wars" Drumline - (Dani)

Though it was a crazy busy 3 months & hours & hours & hours of work were involved, this was proabably one of the best experiences of my entire life.  I love the theater, I love music, I love costumes, & I love seeing my kids perform on stage.

It really was

THE GREATEST SHOW!

San Francisco Zoo

Early in March, our friends took us to the San Francisco Zoo one morning while the big kids were all at school.  It was some great one on one time for Canyon & I & we had a blast with his friends.

Canyon had never been to a zoo before so he was overly excited to see the "real" animals.  He couldn't get enough of the super tall giraffes.

And he couldn't believe that a real tiger was just taking a nap right next to a window.

He loved the oversize playground area & even got to spell his name on the library mobile.

It was a fun day with fun friends.  We can't wait to go back.