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It's hard to believe that it has been over two weeks since the kids performed Willy Wonka Jr. My typing fingers must be getting pretty lazy.

This year Number One Son played the role of Grampa Joe and Sweet Pea was Little Orphan Annie. I know, there is no Annie in the Willy Wonka movie. Well, this production included the Bucket family recklessly splurging on extra electricity to listen to the Little Orphan Annie Radio Show.

This year so many kids auditioned that they had to form three casts. Each cast performed two shows. Lady Di and I were lucky enough to see one show from each of the other casts in addition to our kids' two shows.

Here's Charlie and Grampa Joe singing about their lucky 'Golden Ticket'.

Here they are meeting Mr Wonka at the gate to his factory. It looks like Mr. Wonka could stand to eat some of his own chocolate.
Our Little Orphan Sweet Pea. Do you think she knew where the camera was?

Singing her solo. She was also voted "Best Wig Ever!"

Here's N1S's good friend 'Violet'. She has been in other productions with N1S and has the best voice in the fifth grade. Violet's solo was called 'Chew It' and the songwriters did a good job rhyming to 'chew it'. My favorite line was 'There's no reason to poo poo it'.

Oompa Loompas! Sponsored by Chia Pet.

The candy boat ride with the ghoulish ghouls scaring the naughty children.

N1S's friends Violet and Augustus posing for the 'parentarazzi' following curtain call.

At least they can 'act' like they like each other for the camera.

Every year these shows get better and better. And I can honestly say this show was the best they have done. I'm not just saying that because I'm a parent and I have to say it. The directors do a great job getting over 180 kids to perform to their greatest potential and have so much fun doing it. The best part is the pride the kids have in their hard work. SP and N1S are certainly not shy on stage and definitely not shy about telling you all about their shows. These positive experiences are providing confidence and memories that the kids will have forever.

N1S's upcoming projects include a summer theatre camp production of The Music Man Jr. and possibly a show this fall called 'Show Choir'. In between gigs you can find him spending time with his beloved Wii console.

This summer Sweet Pea will be working hard kicking a soccer ball, basketball camp, girl scouts and a community ed theatre workshop.

Today is the last day of school for the year. How many days until next fall?

What's New?

Big news this week! First of all, the kids got exciting news from the director of Willy Wonka Jr., this year's musical. Sweet Pea made the cut and will be an orphan girl named Annie. This will be SP's second play and her first role with a speaking part. Her director said that she will get to say 'Leapin' Lizards!' multiple times. Which begs the question, "Which play are they actually doing?" It sounds an awful lot like Annie. I guess we will see in May when the performance is scheduled.

Number One Son also got a call from the director informing him that he will play the role of Grampa Joe. At least that's a name I recognize from the movie. Needless to say, he was quite excited to get the part he was hoping for. Lady Di and I were just glad each kid got any part. Even though there were three casts with sixty roles per cast, over ninety kids had to be turned away. Which speaks very highly of the popularity of our local children's theatre program.

That was our first good news of the week. The second news we got was a call from school. This week they informed us that N1S had been nominated for student of the month. This is the first time this has ever happened and we couldn't be prouder. Wednesday morning we were invited to the middle school cafeteria for a Student of the Month breakfast before classes. We dined on cinnamon rolls and cartons of milk with about a dozen other nominated kids and their families. The teachers then presented each student with a laminated certificate and a laminated picture of the student which will go on the bulletin board at school. They also put together a short slide show for each student on the big screen. Lady Di had submitted some of her favorite photos of N1S for the slide show. Too bad the school used this one instead. It's a nice enough picture but it looks like his hair had stocking cap static just before the flash went off. I guess you have to expect haystack hair in a Minnesota winter. With hair like that he won't have to do much styling to match Grampa Joe's hair. Or even Annie's hair for that matter. Oh well, since his hair looks like this ninety percent of the time anyway, at least the kids in school will recognize him on the bulletin board.

After N1S had received his congratulations from the teachers he came back to sit with us and show off his laminates. Lady Di shuffled through the papers looking for the item she had been anxiously waiting for. Then she found her golden ticket. The Student of the Month bumper sticker. She was so excited to now be able to drive a van with a bumper sticker stating, 'Proud parent of a Student of the Month'. Now we can finally cover up the 'Honk If You're ..... , (Author's comment deleted due to severe spousal embarrassment).

We finished up the week on yet another high note. Saturday afternoon found Sweet Pea and myself at the Girl Scout Pinewood Derby. This is our second year of racing and instead of striving for speed, we opted for design.

SP designed her Spongebob bathtub car from the color to the shower curtain. I shaped her block of wood a little bit and attached her wheels but SP completed everything else. And her hard work paid off. Out of 126 entries, her car was voted 'Funniest Car'.Her car beat out a 'brownie, birthday cake, crayola box, roller skate, piano and a host of very creative cars. She was so excited to get her 'first' real trophy. She made me promise not to tell Lady Di until we got home so she could surprise her.

So as you can see, we're just a house full of winners this week aren't we? Well, I guess I didn't technically 'win' anything. The kids did all of the winning this week. But when the kids win, Lady Di and I feel like even bigger winners.

Where's The Lifetime Supply Of Chocolate?

Last Tuesday, the kids had auditions for the upcoming community children's theatre musical, Willy Wonka Jr. This is Sweet Pea's second try out and Number One Son is trying to land his fifth role. This was also the first time that I was able to attend the auditions, luckily having the night off from work.

Auditions are pretty simple in that the kids get on stage in front of the directors in groups of five and sing a verse from a favorite song to show where their voice range fits, and recite a few lines from the play to gauge their expressiveness. Three years ago when N1S tried out for Kokonut Kapers as a second grader, he sang Jingle Bells and got a role as a dancing pirate. Even way back then, Lady Di noticed how comfortable he was on stage. For some reason, he doesn't get nervous at all while performing.

Our kids were about the sixth group to audition. I didn't know how excited they were until their names were called. I leaned over to offer some last minute encouragement only to find two empty seats and a small whirl of dust. They ran up on stage and N1S got a small whoop from a few of his friends which he answered with a 'rock-n-roll' hand sign. Did I mention how comfortable he is on stage?
SP sang 'You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch' complete with her own original choreography. N1S sang 'Benjamin Calypso' from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat musical. They each read a few lines from the play and were done. I'm glad we got there early and were done early because I heard auditions went pretty late into the evening.

That night you could sense quite a bit of nervousness from some of the kids. I guess I would have been nervous too since the auditorium was full of kids and parents watching all of the auditions. This year's production has two casts of sixty roles each. On the first night of two audition nights, over one hundred and eighty kids tried out. The unfortunate thing for Sweet Pea is that about one hundred and sixty five of them were girls. She has much more competition than her brother. It's really too bad that more boys don't get involved with theatre as much. Our kids have had a blast with it! They learn music, dancing, teamwork, discipline (it can't be easy keeping 60 kids quiet back stage) all while having fun.

One of SP's friends was all ready to try out until he heard that he had to sing a song on stage. N1S also has a friend from church that said he was excited to try out this year. Unfortunately, on Ash Wednesday we found out that he had changed his mind also. His mother told us that he too was intimidated by singing a song in front of people. He said, "Singing? Nope, I'm not singing on stage." His mother then asked him, "You did read it was a musical, didn't you?" She then confided to us that she thinks her son only heard the word 'chocolate' and figured that would be the extent of his involvement with the Willy Wonka Jr. production. I hope that both boys attend this years play and change their minds for next year.
We are really lucky to have such a strong children's theatre program. This year they had to limit auditions to only our local school district and the turn out was still overwhelming.

We will find out next week whether the kids get a role in one of the casts or not. With that much competition for roles I'm guessing that there will a lot of Oompa Loompas on stage.

As a side note, I mentioned that we talked to N1S's friend on Ash Wednesday. Two years ago SP was nervous about going to service because she thought the ashes were going to hurt. This year she had no such worries. In fact, when people were lining up to receive their ashes, SP noticed some people lifting up their bangs to expose their foreheads. I then noticed SP immediately pull her headband out of her hair and comb some of her bangs down. She was deliberately messing up her hair just so she could lift her bangs for Pastor. When I told her to put her headband back in she complained that it hurt her behind her ears. I guess it only hurts on Ash Wednesday, because she wears one to school every day with no complaints. She reluctantly replaced her headband and we all received our ashes.

Don't worry, our pastor didn't get overzealous with the ashes. This is SP from last year's production of 'Alms For The Poor'.