Home-grown Broadway

Sometimes the loves of the older kids pass down to the younger kids....in this case, they little guys have caught our Les Miz love and flayed the beans out of it. Seriously, this musical is in danger of being sung to extinction in our house like Wicked was before Les Miz introduced itself to us.....we need a new musical. :D But all that to say, a few weeks ago when Mama and Dad had their date night, all the younger kids got dressed up and had me record a few of their songs.

Cast:

Benjamin as Gavroche

Grace as young Cosette

Abigail as Eponine

Leah as Mdm Thenardier (well-stuffed, she begged me to tell you.)

I had another video  or two, but our internet allotment wouldn't bear uploading more videos to Youtube. Sorry. They were "Master of the House" and "On My Own"... :[ But I have three for you, and thought it might amuse you to see them. They aren't perfect, because of course I didn't wish to spoil the spontaneity and fun by endless practice. But enjoy my little stage-fever-brood. :)

Shoe!

I had Coastal Baking to do by myself today, and thankfully it went quickly enough, since I didn't have Sarah to help me. :)

Daniel is about to embark up North to his first iGovern camp and had some shopping to do so I asked the girls and Mama if they could cover at home for me so I could go along and so they generously agreed. :) I guess one of the things Daniel needed most was a pair of shoes...that meant I  got to indulge in one of my favorite in-public-pastimes: Trying on outlandish shoes. Here are pictures of the cream of the crop. ;)

What's black and white and red all over? Maybe these shoes.

The Black-widow shoes. These were Daniel's and Benjamin's favorites. :D They insisted I take a picture, and so I did. :) (By the way, did anyone realize how handy for self-portraits those little floor-height shoe mirrors are?)

Really cute black shoes that I didn't have the money to buy, even if  I wanted them. :) 

And Mary Poppins shoes! Don't these look just like the purple ones she takes out of her magic carpet bag at the start of the film? I thought so, and I rather liked them! :) I had a fun time just hanging out with Daniel and Benjamin and looking at all the things I had no money to buy. I tried on a wig at a wig store and had the phone poised for taking a picture when a cross little Asian lady glared at me:

"No no! No wearing weegs unless you buy weeg-cap first!" and I was so startled to be reprimanded that I yanked the wig off and thus you have no picture.

Benjamin and I also went into Bath and Body Works and tried all the samples. I love samples. I love lotion and perfume and lipgloss samples as well as sweet & sour chicken samples. I got all of them today at the mall. :D

So what did you all do with your Wednesday?

She's Chucked Me?

Do you have an older brother who stealthily takes a screen out of an upstairs window, climbs out onto the porch roof, crawls across it (still wet from rain, mind you) raises the window, and chucks a bouquet of roses and a sweet note to you because he heard you needed Cheering Up?

I do. :) Love you, Daniel!

Going Retro...back to childhood.

It is a common phenomenon amongst our circles of friends that the oldest kids in the family didn't grow up with reams of special foods. There were no pantries full of the granola-crowd eatables. You know--gluten-free this and sugar-free that. Agave nectar, oat-flour, honey, dates, coconut oil, almonds,--you get the picture. Of course these things are way better for you than what we were fed as kids, but it obviously hasn't killed us.

Okay. So there might be a tad of rebellion left in me over that issue....

....or maybe I just panic at seeing my child-hood comfort foods labeled under a skull and crossbones...

...That could be why Daniel and I went to the store innocent and came out dyed the deepest black.

At a spur-of-the-moment hungriness my brother suggested we buy peanut-butter and saltine crackers and have a snack. I heartily agreed. I mean, this is our childhood. You have totally missed innocence if you have not spread peanut butter on saltines and squished them together like a sandwich just to see the "worms" come out the holes.

But I digress. We debated over whether the buy Jif or Peter Pan. We opted for Peter Pan because we were never rich enough as kids to pay the extra dollar for Jif. :) I mean, we've got to be period-correct, you know? ;)

So we bought the peanut butter. We bought the all-natural kind that doesn't use high-fructose corn-syrup to appease our consciences. ;) We bought the Saltines. We made our way out to our car and sat inside with the windows rolled down discussing.

Discussing what? What to spread this clandestine gob with. Ever ready, I whipped out my key-chain library card. "Why don't we use this?"
And so we did. We spread the peanut butter thick, clapped the lids on the cracker-sandwiches and ate our childhood memories there in the Walmart parking lot. Sure people must have thought we were loco. But I didn't care. I didn't care that there were white crumbs all up and down my black shirt. I didn't care that I was defacing a library card I never use.

Yes. Peanut-butter and Saltines are key ingredients to fluffy happiness. :)