Nearer My God to Thee Concert - MCO

Concert weeks are some of the best and most exhausting weeks of my life. I love working with the high school guys in Concert Choir! We are such a family! I love watching my kids perform in such an incredible group, singing their testimonies of Christ with all their hearts! It is an incredible experience for us all.

Miles, Noah and Tommy

Maerin, Lucy and Laney

Lindsey, Laney and Gwen

Heidi, Averi and Laney

Madison Giles and Sara

Sara, Andrew and Lilli

Some of my favorite tenors!

Can't remember all the names, but I do remember Adam and Jonathan Fisk, Bjorn,
and Cooper Martineau

My concert choir babies
Andrew, Daniel, Sara and Freddy

After our first concert, 5:00 pm Thursday
Lots of Elys, Algers and some Spooners

And lots of darling friends from our ward!

Gram and Papa with their choir babies!

With their Alger cousin, Emily

Carpool buddies!
Heidi, Laney, Averi, Zanna, Gwen and Lindsey
(We are missing Kendall)

The older crew
Freddy, Josh, Sara, Tommy, Noah, Daniel, Lilli, Miles and Andrew

All my choir babies!
Freddy, Sara, Noah, Zanna, Daniel, Laney and Andrew

Mrs. Hainey talking to all the concert choir men

Sara and Lauryn Ruff

After the 5:00 pm Saturday Concert

Daniel and Isabelle Hunsaker

Jessi with her beautiful girls!
Lilli, Tori, Heidi and Gwen

Sara with some of her buddies, Tommy Lundquist, Seth Smith and Noah Clark

Andrew and his sweetheart Lauryn Burr.

Noah and Lilli

Tommy, Lilli and Noah

Sara and I with our buddies, Lucas Miles and Sebastian Damiani

Harassing poor Lilli, she just wanted a picture with them.

So cute!

Josh and Lilli

Grandpa Alger with his babies and Leilani's mom

Andrew, Josh, Tommy, Noah, Freddy, Daniel and Miles

They are funny about always wanting to do this pose.

I know a lot of these are blurry, but I couldn't cut them out because it shows how they really are.

I sure love these crazy boys!

Sara, Daniel and Isabelle

Our holding area was on the Piper theater Stage, next door to the Ikeda theater, where they perform. There was lots of laughing and silliness of course!

In the hall waiting to go in and perform, they always play this game.
I don't know what it is, but they love it!

Daniel, Josh, Anthony and Freddy

Some of my behind the scenes besties!
Steph, Jon and Krista Baker

Freddy and Livvy Bentley
She just wanted one nice picture with Freddy. Such a difficult task!

First Freddy...

Then Daniel...

Then Daniel and Freddy...

And finally a cute picture!

It's Caiden Cook's and Ammon Andreason's last semester in Concert Choir. They are both mission bound. Caiden is going to Brazil and Ammon is still waiting on his call.

The boys wanted a final picture with them.

They wanted to recreate the prison look that we got last semester. It's not quite the same in the hall just outside the box, and we are missing Josh Jensen. :(

Andrew, Freddy, Becca and Daniel

Steph and Ammon

Steph, Freddy and Jake

Izzy Jensen and Sara
Love these cute girls!

After the final concert! Whew, we survived!

BARELY! Ha!!!

Freddy, Andrew, Becca , Kendall, Bjorn, Noah

Concert week is one of the best weeks of the year! I can't wait for the next one!

Family Easter Pictures!

I got most of these from Facebook. I just love to see how all the families are growing. I didn't get everyone, not even close, but there are still lots of Easter cuties!

Leigh and Josh, waiting on their sweet baby boy to be born. He just doesn't want to come yet!

Sam and Vivi

Dandi and Aaron's crew

Gavin and Cadie's babies

Ben and Nan's cuties

Steve and Natalie's gang

Jon and Leilani's family

Paxton and baby Reagan

Talon and Reagan

Daniel and Leah with Jett and Aurora

Seth and Ariana's baby Josiah

Without Wisdom

Sara's self portrait won 3rd place in the Spring Art Show! Hooray for Sara!!!!

Monday was Zanna's birthday. She is now 11 years old. How did that happen? We got her some cute clothes and shoes on the previous Saturday, for her birthday. These were a few little surprises that she opened on her actual birthday. 

She is such an incredible girl, so smart and hard working at school, and super fun and wonderful to be with. She has always been my game buddy. We play games together every chance we get. She has gotten to the point where we are equally matched in most games. It is fun to be challenged. I sure do love this girl!

We celebrated with homemade mac n cheese and homemade salsa. Then she topped it off with mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. 

  

Papa and Gram surprised us and dropped by to wish Zanna a happy birthday.

Thursday, we had MCO rehearsal at the Mesa Arts Center. It was LONG!!! 5 hours of beautiful singing and really tired kids. We finished at about 10:40 pm. We didn't get home until almost midnight, but they did such a great job, we don't have rehearsal next week, just 6 concerts over 3 days! I'm already tired just thinking about it, but so excited! It will be incredibly awesome!!!

Sending their love to our MCO missionary buddies, Tim, Josh, Rebekah and Makaila,

 all over the world!

Sara and Daniel were asked to be models for what the Concert Choir kids should look like in their concert attire. That's why they are dressed up in these photos and the rest of the kids are not. 

My tenors! I love these guys!

Concert Choir singing Rob Gardner's "I am the Resurrection"

It sounds AMAZING!!! Can't wait for the concerts!

My sister-in-law, Leilani, took these shots from the top balcony. 

What you can't see is that the balcony and mezzanine are also full of singing children. 

It is quite a house full with both casts singing.

Miles sending his love for Elder Josh! 

More love!

Isabelle Jensen, Andrew, Noah and Sara

Friday morning, I took Sara to get her wisdom teeth removed. Luckily, she only had the 2 upper ones. They are the easiest to remove. When she was finished she told me that the doctor said she did great. Then she was confused and emotional and said, "I didn't even do anything."

Here she is still high on the anesthesia. She wasn't very crazy, mostly just sweet and tenderhearted. She would get teary talking about people that she loves, and then she would wipe her tears away with her hair. It was pretty funny. I have never seen her use her hair that way before.

In this one, I told her to show me how she was feeling. I think it describes it pretty well!

We went to the grocery store on the way home to get her some cold, soft things to eat. She was not clear minded enough to walk on her own, so we put her in the cart. We got some pretty funny looks from the other shoppers and employees. She explained why she was in the cart and they giggled a little and then told her they would ride in the cart in her condition as well.

She wanted to smell the Easter lilies. At this point she was more alert and feeling silly.

I love this girl!

You can see her post-op videos here:

Dancing Sara https://youtu.be/-Qz6ajQKHHI

True Confessions https://youtu.be/nYbKonlW2rE

Who do you love? https://youtu.be/3R45zYKD3uI

Happy at the pharmacy https://youtu.be/k7eBAqZZj0c 

Friday evening, we went to East Mesa for the annual Good Friday party with Drex and Laura Davis's family. We always have a wonderful time eating, talking and playing. The kids played volleyball and chair soccer for hours. Sam and Vivi joined us this year. Vivi had fun talking to one of the other guests, John. He served his mission in Brazil and the two of them spoke in Portuguese for a long time. I think they both enjoyed every second. 

Zanna asked me to take this picture of her. She had a hard time getting down. Sammy rescued her.

Saturday, Daniel performed in the district honor choir. They did a great job.

 It looked like a ton of fun!

Kensie Summers, Laney, Daniel, Kyli Summers, and Brylee Cuthbertson

Sara was trying to smile, but it hurts. 

She is pretty swollen today. It's strange that she is so swollen with only two teeth being pulled and the 5 boys, I think all but 1 of them had 4 wisdom teeth, were almost not swollen at all.

She's just special.

She can barely open her mouth and when she talks it sounds like she's choking on her cheeks.

She was trying to smile in this one.

Saturday night was game night at the Alger's.

Sara, Lilly, Laney, Zanna, Andrew, Noah, Lauryn and Jacob

Happy Easter!!! Christ lives, and because He lives we can be together with our families forever. This is the most precious gift. My family is my favorite!