Dear Family and Friends,

This has been Allison's week.  She had play practices Monday and Tuesday and then performance of the King and I on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with one more on Monday.  I chaperoned the backstage room Wednesday night and we got to see the play as a family on Thursday night.  She was very nervous Wednesday but has loved every minute of it.  She has had 2 friends bring her cookies and tell he what a great job she has done which just has been the icing on the cake for her.  She has been handling the late nights pretty well but has been sleeping in no problem this weekend to make up for lost time.  Our life is going to seem so much more relaxed when this play is over but it has been a great experience for her.  All the junior high kids keep telling me what a cutie she is.

She dances the party of Eva in the Uncle Tom's Cabin Scene who goes back to live with Budha.
And here is the whole cast:
So our week has been mostly about the school play.  It takes an hour for me to do up her hair and make-up but I am getting faster.  Her scalp is starting to have permanent black splotches from all the hair dye but her hair is still blond which I was worried about.  I'll post a bunch more pictures at the end.


Taylor met with his surgeon this week.  Skip this part, if I have already told you the details. His surgery is May 4th.  They hope to do both hips at the same time but will limit the surgery to 6 hours just for the sake of trauma and blood loss.  They will do the left hip first as that is the hardest one to do.  If they can fit in the right hip afterward they will, otherwise they will do another surgery the first of July.  He will be in the hospital for 5 days, no weight bearing for 4 weeks (although he can sit up) and then at 4 to 6 weeks start pushing physical therapy and get him moving again.  Full recovery is 6 months.  The surgeon said the surgery will be to drill a new hip socket as his are so immature and under developed and his left hip will need a plate and perhaps a bone graft to make contact with the socket.  He said not to worry about the surgery so much as the few days afterward as they try to get seizures, digestive processes, pneumonia complications etc under control.  But they won't bodycast him which I was grateful for.  And they said he shouldn't be in too much pain now as long as he isn't having to move his joints in certain ways.  But on the bad side, because this operation is done during puberty there is a small chance it will pop out again as he grows and have to have the surgery again in a few years.  If the plate bothers him because he is so thin, it can be removed in a year or two.

This week spring arrived:
And then last night we had a huge storm and we woke up to snow.  But we sure enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted.  We planted our pansies and vacuumed/mowed our lawn and Robyn broke out the selling lemonade signs in our driveway.
I finished up our bench cushions FINALLY:
Spencer went to his first Priesthood session of Conference and thought it was great because they went to 5 guys afterward.  I had two of my friends over, Allison and Kate with their kids to do some much needed catching up and eat dinner together.
And then today we got to enjoy visiting with Jason, Kelly and kids in between sessions and then touring their new house they are building.
So it has been a great and busy week.  I went to my first every town council meeting with Spencer for his merit badge.  It was really interesting.  We had a lot of moments this week where you think wow our kids are turning out so great mixed with a lot of moments where you think wow, we really messed our kids up, where did we go wrong?!.
But in the end I am just happy to be where we are at.  Love, Heather

Mom - the pan finally arrived and the rustic bread turned out much better.  Plus our house wasn't full of greasy smoke.

This was the dress rehearsal and they didn't have the lounge for the king yet so chairs worked instead.