the white house at the right time

Madalyn having a little Halloween get together of her own. tombstone cupcakes

or New York.  Madalyn's honor choir performed their spring concert and she sang a little solo line in the song "I'm the King of New York" from  the Disney musical Newsies.  She was confident and clear and most importantly...on tune!  My little "M's".

My younger 3 kids often go to school with black and blue eyes. "No" not from hitting. From crayola markers to the face. Madalyn has this creative streak. Dressing up.  And easily coaxing the younger two to play along. Full costume.  Full make-up.  Full of fun. Animals with whiskers.  Moms and princesses with make-up (most easily applied by marker). Sick patients.  Chicken pox the number one disease. Crash victims.  Blood everywhere a red marker can go. It takes a few days and washings to get it all off before one character fades and another one is created. So bring out the clowns and the black and blue eyes.

Madalyn's artwork was chosen to be part of the art collection on display at the District offices. Woohoo our young artist! She has been vested in developing her artistic talent starting at the age of 2. It started on the side of our new piano. Lucky me, private "gallery stroll" with the artist. I am betting on getting the first print edition personally signed.

I took my Madalyn McCall to McCaw Hall to see the Nutcracker for her birthday. Makayla came too as a a birthday guest. I've seen the Miss Margene's dance school's Nutcracker, nice but not quite the same as this. Sitting on the fourth row, we were able to see all the set and costume detail. The sets were designed by Maurice Sendak , author of "Where the Wild Things Are." It was also wild to find out that the construction of a tutu can take up to 200 hours of labor and cost around $5,000. All day with my big girls, we ate out, rode the monorail into the shopping district, bought shoes, ate out again, and added one more memory to our family cache. The magic set in when the Clara and the Nutcracker walk from the Stahlbaum drawing room out into the Land of Snow. The lighting, the dancing, it was so real, so ethereal. The girls were most entertained by the Pasha's dancers, a Moorish couple, a brilliant peacock in a gold cage , a Chinese tiger and his attenda...

Madalyn loves, loves, loves her teacher, Mrs. Hogan, the school play director. Since some of the kids in the class didn't make it into the King Arthur's Quest, Mrs. Hogan, had a readers theater that turned into a play. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Our Maddy Moe was given the saucy, sassy part of Lucy . Perfect Casting. She only had a few days to learn all her lines. Once again, her mental steel shone and she recited her parts with feeling and stage presence. I think a little actress has been born. Some of the cast -

Miss Madalyn as Lady of the Lake. The main characters cast - Madalyn was Lady of the Lake in King Arthur's Quest, a production put on by Madalyn's school and the Missoula Children's Theater, http://www.mctinc.org/ . She told me she wasn't nervous for tryouts. She was ecstatic when she got the part of Lady of the Lake. A magical wizard that lives in the lake and gave King Arthur Excalibur. She had 24 lines and several songs to memorize. - The entire cast. Our smiling drama mama. This was taken one night when she came home from a practice. She just radiated happiness and confidence. She practiced her lines primarily on her own. They had a school performance and two public performances. She did sooo well. In fact, when I showed up for the Saturday performance, not having attended the Friday because of a dinner party Randy and I had, several people came up to me and commented on how natural, confident, and good she was. They asked if she had taken acting lessons. Nope...

On December 29 th we celebrate her birthday as a family. But for anything else, my little artist has a roving birthday party date. I urged January she wanted November. Theme? P ART Y . Artist - Madalyn, Gallery - Our house, Art Show - November. Dinner, paint, brushes, colors, smocks, crafty stuff, googly eyes, lipstick = Art Party Fun! We made penguin water bottles . To expedite the project and minimize paint, I painted the bodies ahead of time. We were so crazy busy, I didn't get a pic of the girls, but this is how they looked. Cute idea from Family Fun. Created dry-erase frames for the girlie's rooms. Custom paint job on these! Hot cocoa anyone? Painted edible one of a kind masterpieces on a sugar cookie canvas. Universal idea for lots of occasions . Edible paint - 2 egg whites 1 tsp. water food coloring Presto! Friendship . A fine art form indeed. Friend picture keepsakes. Afterward, we gave a copy to each girl. Classic " face art ". Close...

A little R and R at the M and M, Mom and Me Activity Day Leaders: Makay , Shawna, (9 yr. old leaders) Barb, Melissa, (10/11 yr. old leaders) Me, Bridgette (not pictured, 8 yr. old leaders). This is my 3rd go around in activity days, I keep getting put in because I've just had a baby and/or Randy has a time consuming calling, or I am lucky. I'd seriously do activity days over a lot of other callings, especially compassionate service. Topic for another blog, but seriously when I was asked to pull someones weeds for a family that had older kids when I was big ole pregnant with little toddlers to boot, among other stories, well...... let's just say this is a much better fit for moi! Barb is the master mind behind our lists, e-mail updates, and anything else that needs secretarial type skills, thank you!! The rest, the creative force. We hosted a potluck dinner. Each age group brought in a part of the meal that they made with their mom. Madalyn and I made easy peaches and ...

Northwest Salmon. A part of 3rd grade curriculum up here. Cayden's salmon picture from last year. Madalyn's class visited the Issaquah salmon hatchery. Madalyn took her camera on her field trip and captured all these salmon. The Cedar River is mostly full of sockeye salmon. Madalyn and some of her friends. Swimming upstream.

So while the boys were at their camp out, the girls had their friends over for a girls night, I skipped out for a bit to play games with 3 other couples, I went stag, had fun, ended up "being the lesser peon" in the Great Dalmoodi game, shucks missed wearing the crown, it matched Sara's shirt perfectly anyhow, I think she planned on winning early in the night. Makayla and Maddie - Hannah and my Maddie - Makenzy just being the cutest toddler there is -