Once Upon a Summer......Presents.......

Once Upon a Mattress..........

Every summer my kids usually make a movie or make up a play and act it out. This year, I decided with so many cousins in town I would formalize things and do a "real" play for them. My sister Del has 5 kids. I have four kids. My sister-in-law Annette sent her two kids from Utah, and my brother-in -law Clint has 3 kids. Also add in 3 other friends and we have ourselves a cast! Okay so do the math, 17 kids, six of which are boys and all the rest girls. What play do you choose? Well, if you are me, you find a good script (once upon a matteress) and then you cast an Evil Queen (Kim), Princess Fred (Kayla), and Daunty (Prince Dauntless = Gavin). You then write in some ninja jesters: Carver, Matthew, Corbin, Michael, and Malachi, who by the queens command go to the nearest Princess Academy filled with Princesses: Rachel, Savana, Caitlyn, Avery, Karina, Farrah, Hailey, Mckei and Parker who are practicing princess skills and gaining pricess attributes. They kidnap the princesses drag them back to the castle where the queen auditions them to be Daunty's wife. Each princess displays a skill or talent and are all rejected until Princess Fred sleeps on the pea, light saber, hanger, nose picker, scythe and anything else Prince Dauntless can get under the mattress. then they lived happily ever after.... Oh yes, did I mention this is a musical, so they sang solos and songs. Whew.....


I wanted them to get the full effect, so we also had a couple of set days to design, build and paint the set. This involved making pink and gray castle walls. Pink for Princess academy. Making thrones, and planning costumes. The impressive thing is that they did all of this during a very busy two weeks. Aunt Del was music director and Grandma Bell was Ninja/Jester coordinator and this could not have happened without them! A shout out also goes to Aunt Jenn who finished painting the set in the garage when it was literally 106 degrees. Gavin, Kayla, Savana and Hailey ran warm ups and games before every rehearsal. It was so much fun!

This is a rehearsal before we had the set done.
The kids are doing warm ups and generally having a good time.

Queen Kim and her Ninjas/Jesters

Princess Academy

Princess Avery's Task: Proper Way to Eat a Cookie: Pinkies Up!

Evil Queen Kim and the Pea

Prince Dauntless putting everything sharp he can think of under the mattress.

Princess Fred counting sheep.

Chariots of Fire Moment followed by High 5!

We all had a great two weeks. No TV was watched at my house for the entire time we worked on this.

Would I do it again? Well...you will have to ask me next summer!