'Tis the season...

...for confirmations and graduations and senior-year concerts and plays....

This is a crazy couple of months for my family! After Easter (close to home at my sister's in Lincoln, due to all the upcoming events), this was our agenda:

Josh's confirmation in Kansas (3 hr drive one-way) on Sunday April 26th. Amanda & I left our house Sunday 4:30am to hitch a ride with Barb and her two dogs. Abby had asked her to bring them down. It was a good drive, after Jake settled down and stopped whining (who knew there were dogs who were anxious travellers? I thought all dogs loved riding in cars) and after Amanda stopped yelling at Jake to stop whining, and at Paco for whatever reason. We headed back after 2:30 and drove thru torrential windy rain that worried us for tornado reasons, but no problems as we finally drove out of it. Amanda missed the first 20 minutes of her last swimming lesson (testing night) but I was glad we tried to make it (altho' her "report card" said that she did not pass - she does a lot of churning in the water but doesn't actually make any progress, and she's still pretty naughty: not listening, getting out of the water all the time, etc., so just as well to repeat this level). The confirmand and his family:

It worked out great to ride along with Barb, because I wanted to stay in town the previous night because I had an actual DATE to go to my company's "Club 25" - a dinner/dance party for people who have been with the company 25 or more years. Since the company is celebrating its centennial this year, it was especially neat to go. I bought a new dress for the occasion, which I also wore to Josh's confirmation. Don't you think it's cute?!? I liked it, and got quite a few compliments.

I found a cute dress for Amanda at a consignment sale earlier that weekend, along with a bunch of other clothes for her. It was fun to shop for cheap, cute clothes, and she did a good job amusing herself with the toys that were for sale while I looked at the clothes (and tried not to feel guilty about the signs that said "please supervise your children" - I did check on her quite often, and kept her in my sight). I had her wear her new dress for confirmation (it's all about us....sorry, Josh)

Next agenda item: Brittany's class play (back in Kansas). I had taken Friday May 1 off for Kindergarten roundup:

It was a rainy day so the kids stayed inside, but Amanda had fun at her "new school". I didn't realize it was only a two-hour thing - I didn't have to take the whole day off, but since I had, I thought we'd go down to Kansas on Friday and make a long weekend of it, rather than travelling both Saturday & Sunday (or doing the trip in just one day, as we'd done the weekend before). Brittany's school was very damaged by tornadoes last year, and since they have no auditorium now, the play was held in a neighboring town. It was such a funny collection of skits, done by all the seniors who chose to participate. We laughed so much we were crying. Here's Britt in the opening number - I like how they chose to have the zeros in 2009 be tornadoes.

Next we had Brandon's final choral/swing choir concert, which was Tuesday night. Oh, and Amanda had her dance recital Monday night. Oh, and Sunday night, we got home from Kansas in time to mow the lawn, take a shower and have supper at cousin Lloyd's. *Whew!*

More on these later - I haven't the time to finish this catch-up blog and get those pictures and stories included. (teasers: hugging air, watching her spot, X and you're not my friend)

Next up, we'll have Amber's college graduation party in Lincoln this Saturday, then back to Kansas for Brittany's graduation May 16-17. Brandon's graduation is on June 6th, and then I think we can take a break from all this family togetherness!!!

Easter recap (I wrote this out prior, so it's a bit more wordy):

We had a very nice Easter. Because there was breakfast at church, I didn't have to worry about getting us fed before we left the house. After we got dressed, Amanda got to look at her Easter basket (from Mommy - I didn't give any credit to the Easter bunny) and enjoyed getting those fun gifts (Dora DVD, candy, gum, odds and ends). (the picture is dark, but remember, it's only 6:30am). We got this cute dress from Aunt Cheryl. The front has this pretty white crochet band that is so pretty, but you can't see it well in any of these pictures (but she also wore it for her dance recital, so when I get those pictures from Aunt Barb, I'm sure there will be a better picture of it).

At church, I let her wander around and be sociable as I ran upstairs to join choir practice/warm-up. I got a picture of her and Sue & Lois, two of her favorite people at church, with the camel they brought back for her from Israel! Very cool!!

She joined us upstairs and made herself at home with a music stand by the alto section, which was pretty cute. She likes to "sing along".

I was able to stay and sing the Hallelujah Chorus after the late service, and then we raced out and headed to Lincoln, arriving at 12:30 for dinner. Barb and I put the plastic eggs I'd prepared in Cindy's backyard (along with some eggs from Grandma, some with MONEY in them - she was pretty excited about those) and Amanda went out and gathered them up while all of us adults watched and shouted directions (she pretty much ignored us). It was sort of a ying and yang experience, as we'd reminisced about one of Amber's first egg hunts, as the first grandchild and the only one at the Easter in question, and all of us adults watching her (methodically) do her Easter egg hunt. Now Amber was one of the adults watching the youngest grandchild (hyper-actively) do her hunt. She enjoyed eating candy much of the rest of the afternoon, and changed into her new jeans from Aunt 'Nette. They fit her IF I adjusted the waist as tight as it would go (size 5), and it looked so funny as much of the excess material was poofed out in back (her rumpadoodle, as a friend at church called it once). From the front, not a bad fit; from the back - whoa, bubble butt! Pretty cute to watch her run around. She was pretty good about watching her Dora DVD while the adults played cards, and then Aunt Barb spent time with her, which was awesome. We were the last to leave, as usual, but Amanda had fun playing hide and seek with Brandon after Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Barb left, and I was able to catch up with Cindy.

That's it for now. I'll leave you with some action pictures by Aunt Barb of The Hunt!