Happy Thanksgiving

 I am notoriously late at planning Thanksgiving.  I'm always secretly hoping that I won't have to do it; that someone will invite us and get me off the hook.  Unfortunately, that's only happened twice in the 17 years we've lived here, so I really should know better.  However, as usual, 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, we still had no plans.  So I asked Kelly to text his best friend Tim and see if he had plans, and if not, if we could do it together.  Of course, he did.  Luckily he's also really nice, and so he invited us to join him.  So, we spent Thanksgiving at Tim and Ann Cartwright's house along with another ward family, and the missionaries.  It was a wonderful evening and the food was fantastic.  Here is the only picture I thought to take:

Classic Michelle.  I feel bad that the missionaries didn't even get a photo of their last Thanksgiving on the mission!  Good memories were made, though.

On black Friday we didn't feel like shopping, so we wanted to go see The Festival of Trees in Dearborn, but turns out that thing is lame and costs money, so after driving 20 minutes to get there and deciding against it, Christian suggested we do a little shopping after all - for Detroit merch.  He was interested in buying a hoodie from Detroit and I knew of a fun little Detroit merch shop in the Fisher Building, so we headed downtown.  That was a great idea.  So fun to see a bit of Detroit on a beautiful sunny day and the store had fun, cute things.  Also, the Fisher building is always such a great, historic icon to visit.  We made sure to get a photograph with a tree in there.

The only tree we photographed at the Festival of Trees:

The much better one at the Fisher Building:

Note Peter's face? That's his new picture face which he thinks is absolutely hilarious.  Thank goodness everything is a phase at that age!

Peter got tired in that big building, so Christian gave him a piggy back ride on the way back.

To round off the day, we got pizza at MOD and took it to a park. It made me so happy to spend the day with my kids hanging out together.  Beautiful weather, good food, fun at the park.  I have so much for which to be thankful.  

Now we're ready to get Christmas going!  Bella has already begun with multiple Christmas crafts and decorations.  Even Christian has joined in.  It's all Christmas music here all the time now too.  It's going to be a great season!

Bella's First High School Play

 

Bella has always loved theatre and has been in several community plays over the years.  When she started high school she was excited to be in the high school's plays too.  Her first opportunity was "All The King's Women."  It is a series of monologues and short scenes documenting the life of Elvis through the eyes of the women who knew and interacted with him - from the woman who sold him his first guitar at 11 to the woman who runs the gift shop in Graceland 20 years after his death.  Bella played numerous non-speaking roles in the play and she did a fabulous job.  I loved seeing her up there on stage, so confident in front of that giant audience.  Sadly, she didn't like the experience as much as she hoped she would.  The director with whom she'd worked extensively in the past ran the shows very differently with lots of fun acting games and technique improvement activities for those who were not actively working on their parts at any given time.  This director, however, did nothing but run the practice for the play.  Probably totally normal, but just not what Bella was expecting or hoping for.  Thus, unless she was in the scene they were working on, she spent hours sitting around back stage feeling useless and bored.  It frustrated her and made her not want to participate in the production in the spring.  It's too bad, because she would be great.  I'm proud of her for sticking it out with this one and doing her best.  Maybe she'll try again down the road.

Benjamin and I went to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and forgot to take a single picture.  I need Bella with me to always remember to take a selfie!  We saw them perform a dozen or more sci-fi songs - from Star Wars, Star Trek, and a multitude of other scores from sci-fi movies.  It was fantastic and we both loved it.  It was fun to go out with Benjamin and have time to talk.  He's such a fun guy to hang out with if you can get him away from his phone for a while.

In the meantime, Peter and I have been keeping ourselves entertained.  Our favorite thing is library story time.  We hop around to different libraries picking the best ones.  I love all the fun activities they prepare for the kids to do in addition to just reading books.   Here he had to use an eye dropper with warm water and tweezers to remove pompoms from ice.  He loved it.  Definitely doing this one at home.

Despite the cold, we try to be outside as much as possible.  We visited a new playground and found giant slabs of ice had formed on the bottom of each slide.  Peter and I devised a game where we shot the ice down the slide and attempted to hit targets we'd set up on the ground below.  So much fun!!  We had all the kids joining in once they saw what we were doing.

I tried to photograph the ice shooting off the slide, but it went too fast.  

When it gets too cold, these two can always come up with fun games inside too.

Or we head to the museum and play there.  Peter is always a lot of fun to hang out with.

Same old Same old

 I feel like right now there's little to blog about.  Mostly just school, piano, soccer, etc.  All the usual.  Here are a few cute pictures.

Some of the band members recently posted pics to the band app.  It was fun to see some with Benjamin that I hadn't seen before.  

Drumline antics:

Honor society service project raking neighbors' yards around the school.  He's in the far back middle.  He has chosen not to join any honor societies but his friends are in them and there was pizza, so he went and had a great time.  I love positive peer pressure.

Peter's teacher has an app where she posts pictures she takes in class.  It's always fun to see what he's doing when I'm not in the classroom.

Post Halloween tradition - take all the decoration pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns into the backyard and go crazy smashing them to bits.  Christian loves this tradition.  Seeds and pulp ALL over the place!  The best part is the animal party that ensues all that night as all the neighborhood critters come to devoour all the remains.  I really need to remember to take a before and after photo next year  (and a night vision camera!) because it's astonishing how little is left by morning.  In fact, as I prepared breakfast the next day, I could hear little animals still scurrying around and nibbling in the early morning hours.  

One final cute thing to note - I've noticed a few cute Peter-isms lately. 

How he describes dreaming:  "In the movie that I watched in my head while I was sleeping..."

What he calls hand sanitizer (every time!): "Sand Hanitizer" 

How he describes when a song keeps running through his head: "Can you hear the song my brain is singing?"

I just love this little guy.  He's growing and learning so much!  He's really gotten interested in piano too.  He keeps wanting me to teach him songs.  He still lacks much of the fine motor coordination needed to actually learn to play, so we just work on rhythms and simple basics, but it's so fun to share music with him.  He loves to listen to the others practice.  "I want to listen to the beautiful music" he'll say as he lays down on the couch.  I hope he always loves music as much as his siblings do.

Happy Halloween!

Another trip around the sun for me and another awesome evening of getting candy from the neighbors is in the books.  For my birthday, Kelly and I had takeout lunch together and we babysat a friend's 5 month old, so that was fun.  Nothing like getting to snuggle a little baby and then giving it back when it gets fussy and tired!  Peter had just been recently asking why we don't have a baby at home like so many of his friends, so wish granted!

In the afternoon, Bella invited friends over for Halloween and the girls had fun eating and playing video games until we all went trick-or-treating.  I drove them to a nearby neighborhood and the girls went one way and Peter, Christian, and I went another.  (Benjamin went to a friend's house for a movie.)  Peter doesn't remember last year, so it was new to him and he LOVED it.  The whole concept of everyone giving you candy just for saying Trick-or-Treat blew his mind.  "I LOVE Halloween!!" he screamed after the first house.  He went as ironman for actual Halloween and the church's trunk-or-treat and as a Ninja Turtle to his preschool Halloween party because he just couldn't decide.  I liked the turtle better, but he liked the muscles he had in the ironman suit.  We lost the mask way back when it was Benjamin's ironman costume, but Peter didn't care and so I saved money this year on costumes.  Christian was Tigger and Bella was Perry the Platypus.

A pretty typical Halloween for a mom, but now I have new slippers for the cold winter and new airpods which Kelly so lovingly bought me but which I'll probably never use.  I like my old pair still so I think I'll save them and use them as a gift for one of the kids in the future.

Sunday we did our pumpkin carving.  Bella and I carved together and I completely forgot to take a picture.  Then she left and Christian came and wanted to carve.  Finally I remembered to take a picture.  With Peter and Christian involved, it quickly devolved into a pumpkin schlop fight.  They were throwing it back and forth at each other to the point that I had pumpkin guts across my whole house, floor to ceiling, on walls, cupboards and in drawers.   It was a ton of fun, and sure to become a yearly tradition, but next year, we're doing it OUTSIDE!  I was still finding pumpkin innards days later.

Homecoming dances and warmer weather

 Bella went to the high school Homecoming dance with friends this year.  I was happy for her that she got to go.  I wish I'd gotten more pictures but I didn't want to be annoying.  The kids were all band kids and went to dinner and then the dance together.  In between they came to our house and played nintendo in the basement.  Peter loved having them over and some of the boys loved playing with Peter and his hotwheels cars more than playing nintendo with their friends.  It was very cute.  Bella looked beautiful in her dress.  This picture doesn't really do it justice.  

Benjamin and his friends chose not to go to the dance.   They went out to eat and then watched movies and played video games at a friend's house.  I was happy he spent the evening with friends, regardless of whether they went to the dance or not.  Much cheaper this way, anyway.

Marching band season is officially over.  Final concerts were great and I always love watching the kids play.

Bella's last concert was indoors for the parents.  She's smack in the center in this picture.

After Benjamin's concert, they had a little cookies and milk social.  I wasn't in attendance but another mom took this picture.  The cool guys of the drumline.

We also tagged along with Benjamin's school band to see Michigan State University marching band practice.  We'd gone with Bella's band to see the University of Michigan and I have to say, the UofM did a much, much better job making their practice session impressive, but the kids still really liked seeing Michigan State practice and Benjamin specifically loved seeing the drumline.  They were incredibly inspirational.  I really hope he chooses to continue marching in college. (Bella was the only one brave enough to photobomb the school picture.  Christian, Peter, and I stayed out of it)

Peter is not to be outdone.  He got Bella's trumpet and has been "playing" in every day.  It's adorable.

Here's a short video of it.  Hopefully it works.

We're having a blessed Indian summer here where after being in the low 40s for two weeks, we're back up to the 60s and 70s.  It's been wonderful.  We've been outside every day enjoying it.

It's getting cold

It's really become fall in Michigan.  Cold weather, strong winds, and lots of falling pine needles again.  I spent several hours raking on Saturday and Peter spent it jumping in the piles.  He was so cute, though.  Before every jump he would ask, "Can I jump in the pile now?"  I told him he was always welcome to jump in the piles and that he didn't need to ask, but he still did each time.  He had a blast.

The funny thing about fall is that the temperatures aren't bad at all if they were in March.  Coming out of winter, 50s feels hot.  We wear t-shirts and spend all day outside when it's in the 50s in March.  However, when it dips into the 50s in October, I am miserable.  One day it was high 40s and windy and I couldn't bare the thought of playing outside, so I suggested we visit the Outdoor Adventure Center again and just pretend we're outside.

Peter had a great time pretending to camp, hunt, ride snowmobiles and atv's, and climb trees, all inside.  He also finally got up the nerve to enter a pretend bear cave that has a hibernating animatroinic bear which wakes up when he come inside.  It has always absolutely terrified him, but this time he went in. (Yes, clutching my legs and hiding behind me, but he went in!)  

In other news, our whole life is marching band at the moment.  Benjamin and Bella's bands both got the highest score possible in the latest regional marching band competition.  They are doing great and having fun and I'm very happy for them.  I'll be sad when the season ends in a couple weeks.  They have such great friends there and I know it'll be hard to lose that daily comradery.  Bella got a part in the school play, though, so she'll still be as busy as always - The King's 17 Women - it's about Elvis and it looks very funny. 

Benjamin and the band at their celebratory party following the competition.  His director is the man front and center - Mr. Vanham.  Benjamin is in the middle back.

Bella is much harder to spot in the band and I often struggle to pick her out until I learn the path she takes during the songs.  Here she is right in the middle front. (third from either direction)

Christian had the day off today due to parent teacher conferences.  I basically went there to listen to the teacher gush for 15 minutes about how amazing he is.  She showed me the scores of his last nation-wide standardized test.  He got a perfect score and maxed out the test in both reading and math. She says he gets along with everyone, is very motivated and focused, helps others stay on task, and is always kind and respectful. She recommended he test at the end of the school year to skip another grade in math for his 7th grade year.  If he passes, he'll be doing 9th grade math in 7th grade and he'll have to go to the high school for math in 8th grade.  He wants to try, so we'll see what comes of it.  She says he and one other are the brightest math students she has.  Says a lot when it's a school for the gifted. 

It was actually pretty nice weather today so we spent a lot of time playing outside.  Christian set up a soccer-style game and he and Peter had a blast.  I love seeing Peter get into soccer.  I'd love to see him excel at it too.  FYI, yes, Peter is wearing a bunny tail.  We've been tyring to decide on a halloween costume.  He changes his mind every single day!  Today he wanted to be a bunny.