Spring Serenade

Cooper and Phoebe had their final school concert of the year. All the seniors were given boutonnieres to wear, probably so the audience members could identify them. 

Phoebe sang with Nightingales, the select treble choir.

Cooper sang with Cantus, the select SATB choir.

They both sang with the concert choir as well.

Can you find them both in this picture?

Near the end of the concert, the choral director read off the names and post-high school plans for all the seniors. Cooper's included his mission and BYU. We all thought it was very cool that his teacher read off the whole name of our church, people often truncate it.

We grabbed a few pictures with our singers when it was done.

 It's been so great to watch them both blossom as singers over the last year.

Excellent concert, Cooper and Phoebe!

Have Your Picture Took*

Friday evening Cooper went to his senior prom with his lovely friend Delaney.

His prom-posal included roses and a box of donuts.

One challenge was finding both the right color suit and the right color tie. His date wanted to keep her dress a surprise. Her mom showed me and the girls a picture a few weeks ago, but we were having trouble remembering exactly what we'd seen. Thankfully, she texted me a picture when I promised not to show it to Cooper. We ordered four ties from Amazon and one of them worked!

Even though he went with a group, Cooper drove himself and his date. That meant he needed his in-house tech support to connect his phone to the Bluetooth in the car he doesn't usually drive.

The group decided to meet at a university about five minutes from the prom venue for pictures. I drove separately and got to play photographer. I think Cooper looked quite dapper and his date looked beautiful.

These girls did not coordinate their dress selections. I guess the southern belle look is in right now.

Now that prom is over, Cooper is one step closer to graduation...

*Name that musical, without Googling it.

Oh So Fancy

On the day of the wedding, the girls and I joined the other women in the family for hair and makeup. Initially I had only singed Phoebe and Sophie up to get their hair done and Phoebe for makeup. Sophie was so sad to be left out, especially when she saw her younger cousins get their makeup done. I quietly asked the makeup artist if we could add Sophie to the list. She said yes. When I told Sophie she was shocked and thrilled. At the last minute, I added myself too. So we all left much fancier than when we arrived.

I had planned to just wear my hair straight, but after spending the day watching other people get curled and coifed, I realized I needed to up my game. Bryan's sisters came to my rescue and let me borrow their curling iron and flat iron. Then Bryan's sister Kate curled the back of my hair while I curled the front. I felt like it came together.

While we did all of this, Bryan and the boys went to the park and tried to wear Topher out. Spoiler: he still had plenty of energy for the festivities that night! When we got back to the hotel, they were all getting into their Sunday best.

And with that, we were ready to go to the wedding!

Service Through Song

On Sunday Cooper and Phoebe attended our old ward in the morning because they had a school chorus performance in the afternoon during our ward meetings. They had planned to come home after the morning meetings, change into their concert garb, and rest a bit before driving the fifteen minutes over to the retirement home where they were performing. But when we realized that meant they would miss the last ward choir practice before our concert that night, they changed plans. They still went to church in the morning, and they still changed into their concert clothes, but they moved much faster. Then they drove the thirty minutes to our church building just so they could practice with us. That was followed by a twenty-five minute drive to the high school performance. I'm thankful that they were willing to give up more of their time to serving in our ward choir.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This weekend is one of the craziest we've had in a while. It included multiple rehearsals and performances. Somehow, packed around all that busy, we finished putting our Christmas decorations up.

Just Dance

Cooper and Phoebe had a great time hanging out with friends at the Homecoming dance this weekend. Just before they needed to leave, Cooper's buddy Cameron texted and said he wanted to caravan over together. And the next thing I knew, Cameron was walking in our front door. I asked if he wanted to jump in the pictures and he happily said yes.

Tangled

Church prom was this weekend! 

He went with the white shoes, in case you're curious.

The theme was Tangled. I think Phoebe's dress definitely had Rapunzel vibes.

She took advantage of the nearly two hour drive to get there and did her hair and makeup in the car.

Here's the whole group that Bryan drove down. They had a fun time!

La La Land

Saturday night was church prom for the region. It's hosted by the Cherry Hill New Jersey Stake. Cherry Hill is just over the river from Philadelphia. Before traffic our drive was an hour and forty minutes one way. Once we added in traffic and a stop at McDonald's, it was closer to two hours. That's the nature of church dances on the East Coast.

The theme was La La Land. Phoebe asked if we could find a yellow dress to go along with the theme and Amazon cooperated. We added a poofy petticoat underneath and I thought it was perfect! The boys went slightly more casual, but were still dressier than the guys that showed up to the dance in shorts.

We were the designated carpool for the night. Phoebe sat in the front seat with me and played DJ (most of the time) and helped me stay alert. All the boys were good sports and were happy to report on the dance afterward. We listened to and sang along with several songs during our four hours in the car. I think the entire carload added their voices to the Hamilton selections.

Peter took this one inside the dance. It has their whole group, plus a friend from another Stake.

The dance ended at 9:00, but we didn't leave until just after 9:30. There was a Phillies game that night and the traffic coming home through Philadelphia was insane. We pulled into our driveway to drop off two of the boys (they live an additional thirty minutes away and their dad was waiting for them at our house) at 11:34. After they were on their way home we drove our final passenger the five minutes to his house. We were exhausted when we finally made it into the house.

But I'm sure we'll do it again when the opportunity arises.

Fancy Baubles

We've been trying to spring clean. Bryan did a great job clearing space in the garage on Saturday. Cooper folded and put away all his laundry so he no longer has to perch on the edge of his computer chair while the unfolded laundry takes up all the sitting space. And Sophie attacked a basket that has been full of random stuff and tucked under her desk for months. She's not done, but she did empty it enough to find these earrings. The last time she saw them she didn't have pierced ears yet. She wore them to church on Sunday, her first time wearing dangly earrings!

What a World, What a World*

Apparently my front door got so hot that my wreath melted. For real.

*Anyone know how the title connects to this post?

PROM!

Peter checked off a high school milestone on Friday evening. He and his friend Amelia went to prom!

They joked that this was what social distanced prom pictures look like. 

According to Peter (and Amelia, we talked after church on Sunday), the dinner that came with the dance wasn't great, the music was mostly hip-hop and R&B which was hard to dance to, and that led to only a few people dancing. The good news? Peter and Amelia were in that dancing group (when the music allowed) and still had fun chatting with friends.