Haley Goes to Mo-Prom

April 16th, 2013

Each year our Stake has a “Mormon Prom” which the kids shorten to “Mo-Prom” for the teens who are in High School and at least 16 years old.  There is a little excitement about choosing a date or the possibility of getting asked and some drama that goes with all of this but of course a date isn’t necessary.  Regardless of who you go with or what you prefer to call the event, it is a cleaned up version of the popular formal that high schools put on each spring.  The music is clean, the dancing is tasteful and the gowns are modest.  Recently my husband asked our son what qualities would be important in his future wife.  Tristan screwed up his face just a little bit and with a blushing smile and a second of thought he responded “well, she’ll be modest… because modest is hottest”.  A little bit of comic relief made us all giggle just a little bit and took some of that “serious” pressure away from such a tough question for a 10 year old boy.  Good to know that’s still important to a few people out there.  

Haley had a few things working against her for this event.  First she wasn’t asked by a date to attend so she had to make up her mind to be OK walking into this “alone” and second she didn’t want to spend money on this event… she is saving for college and money is in short supply for all of us.  I had a couple of friends, however, who saved the day.  One friend cleaned out her closet of formals and passed them on to us.  She has all sons and no girls to pass the dresses on to and no reason to keep them any longer.  Unfortunately none of the dresses fit Haley.  My sister also passed her formals on to our wardrobe but they didn’t fit Haley either.  My visiting teacher also brought over a formal from her daughter around the same time.  A few tucks and stitches on my part and the dress was ready for Haley. 

I grabbed a scrap of elastic, a clean lace doily and a cut of ribbon from my craft stash.  Then I went out to the garden with scissors and snipped a few of the blooms from the yard and made Haley a wrist corsage.  Prom on a zero dollar budget!  That’s better than the $20 budget I had for myself way back when. 

I worked on Haley’s hair that afternoon and when she walked out the door, stomach filled with butterflies, she was a vision of loveliness.  Rick and I dropped Haley off together making a date of it ourselves and she had a great time.

Spring is in the Air

April brought with it true springtime this year… we waited a long time for it as winter slowly let go of its grip.

One quarter left of school; Oscar was a good lunch box helper on many occasions.  Perhaps he wanted to go to school too.

The daffodils poked up in the yard this month.

It is never too early to go out and blow bubbles.

Bubbles grabbed Sandy’s attention.

We got some of our outdoor things out of winter storage.  Sandy loves the swing… to an extent.

It’s a better perch than a swing for her however.  More daffodils.

Sandy has her own “cat house” out in the yard.  She frequently finds refuge there to keep out of the rain and yet remain outdoors.

Nathan made some really amazing castles in the living room.

And he took on the scissors learning to cut and glue collages.

Nathan and I went to the zoo one morning and met up with some good friends.

 

These two are just 3 1/2 months apart in age and have known each other since birth.

Zoo blooms are beautiful in April.

Kaitlyn next to some of her art work on display at school.

More of Kaitlyn’s beautiful art work that she loves so much.

We finished up the month playing veterinarian to several resident “pets”.

Our own backyard flowers bloomed and our garden seeds became seedlings.

Beautiful vintage style blue jars showed up in the mail… I never found out from whom they came but it was a very strong wish of mine to have some.  And I rounded out our years supply of jam with some strawberries we still had in the freezer.  I haven’t bought jam in years now!

Spring time breezes aided in drying laundry while the first lilac scents waft through the yard.

Scruffles repeatedly hangs out on the slide.

Nathan uses bristle blocks to make a space ship that lands on the farm for one very “far out” storyline.  He practices putting his numbers in order as he counts farm animals.

Our fairy garden begins to come back to life and the sand box calls once again.

Beautiful flowers in full bloom throughout the yard.

Spooky caught a baby bird one morning.  When we got the bird away he seemed unscathed.  We found an empty birds nest in the neighbors yard and put it in the low branch of our lilac for the bird.

The bird was so little.  He hopped around the yard quite a bit exciting the children.  But he didn’t fly.

Kaitlyn tried to help the bird as well but in the end, the bird was found sitting very still the next morning. 

Nathan was a very hard worker as we raked and planted grass seed.  I had to chuckle when I came out and found his yard tools laying side by side to mine.  May the “force” be with my gardening this year.

Here is some sort of a galaxy pirate that was busy around my house at least one day.

Digging and raking in gardens as we prepared them we decided to go on a worm hunt one day.  We decided to collect all the worms we found and put them in a pail as we counted them.   We got up past 100 worms in our bucket before we through the worms back to do their own gardening work. 

We found out near the end of the month that the contents of a package from Washington State would be the last we would receive… my sister and her family would be moving back east in May!

Tristan and Lindsay ventured in the world of wild hair color at a Healthy Living Challenge activity at a park sponsored by our ward. 

Nathan worked very hard to create an island with a moat surrounding it.

Island turned volcano was very fun to create in the yard as the weather warmed up. 

 

Doing this experiment several times, the excitement of it never wore off.  Plans were made in hopes of sharing this fun activity with cousin Porter when he would visit in May.

And this was our month of April.