Surprise!  Cyndy had a surprise party to celebrate Faith's new smile.  Faith was a little overwhelmed at first, but how can you stay shy when there's a room full of balloons and ice cream?   It's too bad we couldn't stay long since I wasn't feeling well - I wish we could all stop playing "pass the germs" in this family!

Juli's Birthday Party

Cyndy asked Juli what she wanted to do for her birthday.  Did she want a party at Chuck E. Cheese?  Bounce U?  The movies?  Nope.  She wanted a party at Aunt Jenn's house.  Someone knows what side her bread is buttered on! So of course, I had to make her garden-theme party great!  Since she cuddled up to me and said, "This was the BEST time," before she left, I think we succeeded. We had cupcakes, planted flowers, decorated flower fairies, and played ladybug games.  A perfect early dose of spring.

St. Patrick's Day

If you're lucky enough to be Irish, you're lucky enough!  We love celebrating our Irish heritage.  We love Gaelic Storm, U2, Guinness (for the grown-ups), Celtic jewelry, Irish foods, and assorted shamrockery.  We celebrated St. Pats's at Aunt Cyndy's house this year. Don't they look cute wearin' o' the green?

Putt U

We have successfully passed on the geek gene. Only a family of geeks would choose mini-golf ball colors based on Hogwarts houses, and then compete for the house cup in "wizard golf".  I was Gryffindor, with a red ball. Kai went for the evil green of Slytherin.  Nick quickly nabbed Ravenclaw's blue, knowing that Daddy would then be stuck in Hufflepuff with a yellow golf ball.  The kids kept insulting him by calling him a "spare".

What can I say?  "Gryffindor Wins!"

Faith's Smile

Isn't she lovely?
Faith has waited for years to finally have something most of us take for granted - teeth!
So today at lunch, when I got the text from Cyndy showing me Faith's beautiful new smile, I had to run around the building showing everyone.

Neon Lights

Nick had a fun project to do this weekend. I probably helped him more than I should have, but we all got into it. He was building a model of neon, and then creating a presentation about it. We ended up using a black light to make the protons and neutrons glow. Then we put LED lights in the electrons and set them in an electron cloud. The end result looks pretty awesome.

Also, I love my cricut. How did we do school projects without it??

The Theater Goes Dark

Our last play at Philip F. Lauer Middle School was a HUGE success. The kids made me cry with this adorable photo board and PILES of flowers. It was possibly our best play ever in terms of smooth, problem free productions. The costumes and sets came out great, too. I didn't think I would miss anything about the old building. But I think I will miss the lecture room. It was such a pain in the butt, but it was "ours".

Valentine Technology

When I was a kid, I could never have made Valentine iPods. Wonder if Nick's kids will wonder what the heck this is?

We had a great time with Cyndy, Ben, and the girls making Valentines for Nick and Faith and baking raspberry hearts for Faith's girl scout troop. I heard "Aunt Jenn's" cookies were really popular at the party!

SUPER BOWL, BABY!!!!

Wow. Wow.. Words fail me. I honestly thought I might hyperventilate myself into a heart attack a few times during the playoffs. But here we are. Green Bay Packers. SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS! Unbelievable!

Not to mention, my across the hall teacher neighbor now has to buy my homeroom donuts - she's a Steelers fan! HAHA!

S(NO)w More! Please!

We were hammered with snow days in January this year. We had several days for minor amounts of snow. One day, I was so sick of school being cancelled that we took a trip to the zoo. I posted those pics on facebook, but here's one for reference:

Every time we turned around, it was snowing. Or sleeting. Or freezing rain. Or more snow. We had days off in a row. It was crazy.

Districts started not calling off for the little amounts. So it started snowing feet at a time. Now we were stuck in the house AND off from school. And Kai's finals kept getting pushed back farther and farther.

By the time all was said and done, the kids were actually begging to go back to school.

No luck. Next we had a major ice storm.

The worst was yet to come, for me at least. In the end, we had so many snow days that the district took away the Monday before and after Easter from our spring break! Now I'll have a weekend, a SINGLE day of school, and Tuesday - Sunday off that week. How crazy is that??

Playoffs?? Playoffs???

Yup.

Packers v. Eagles.

Wild Card Weekend.

It got sad for awhile there. Hate to see Scott lose. Really.

BUT I FREAKING LOVE TO SEE THE PACKERS WIN!!!! GO PACK GO! 12 more quarters to go!

Scott's A Terrible Bowler

That's what I learned today. Scott can't bowl. Sorry, babe. The truth hurts.

Fortunately, his competition was aged 3-14. So he didn't look quite so bad.

Okay. Yeah. He did. ;) Look at Nick though! He's only bowled once before and he kept up with Hannah. Not too shabby!

Cyndy's Wedding

Cyndy had a beautiful wedding. We worked day and night for three solid days, and only a few guests showed up. This was disappointing at first, but the key point was how much Ben clearly adores her. I hope and pray her partnership with Ben sustains her in good times and bad until the end of their lives. I must have taken a million pictures, but only a few came out really well. Still, it's the vows that count!

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love." -1 Corinthians 13:13

*sigh* Will I EVER get used to it?

Why do kids get older every year? Kai is fourteen now.

She was so unhappy the day before her birthday. We were supposed to go to Rainforest Cafe in New Jersey and then see HP7 at the IMAX theater in Philly. But a huge snowstorm pummelled the NJ/Philly area (and gave us a solid 6 inches) so we had to cancel those plans. Instead, she ended up going to the movies at the Rave and dinner and games at Rascals. Not as cool, but her friends were happy. And in the end, with all sorts of cheesy prizes in hand (giant sunglasses, light up teeth) she seemed pretty darn happy too.

Not to mention she LOVED her present - French Horn custom Keds!

Happy birthday darling. Why do you have to keep growing up so fast?

Christmas Surprises! (and not...)

Grandma and Grandpa came for Christmas, since Cyndy's wedding was shortly after Christmas. Kairi had found this beautiful, but way too grown up dress on our trip to Sight and Sound. I can't believe how big these two are getting.

One of our big questions with Nick this year was "Does he or doesn't he?" Know about. You know. That guy. We're still not sure - he certainly loved his stocking stuff.
I found the perfect gift for mom - a Jim Shore Pelican. Two great things that go great together, as far as she is concerned.

Scott and I did a terrible job surprising each other this year, and a great job surprising the kids.

I knew my big gift was a Cricut since Thanksgiving. Every gift Scott got was on his wishlist. But the kids had no idea what was in store for them.

They got their own laptops! They were excited beyond belief.

Of course, this is all we saw of them for the rest of vacation:
Jon and Laurie were really surprised by the gorgeous quilt Kairi made for them last summer at Grandma's house.Not to mention our surprise when Ben showed up dressed as Scott's evil twin!The girls were surprised by their giant collection of Disney Barbies, too - but no one else was - we had been telling everyone what we got them since Thanksgiving to avoid duplicates.
It was a crazy day, but in the end, everyone got just what they wanted - even if they didn't know what they wanted!

Facebook Nearly Killed The Blog

Everyone finally talked me onto Facebook. In some ways, it's great. I get to connect with people (like my cousins) who I would normally never see. But the more time I spent on Facebook, the less I spent on the blog. It's so much faster, and so many more people actually see what I have to say.

Then I started scrapping again. I hadn't scrapped in months, mostly because I never have the time. But I got a beautiful new Cricut for Christmas, and I've done 40+ pages since then. Unfortunately, I'm nearly 3.5 years behind. So I keep turning to the blog to remind me of what we did and when 3.5 years ago. And I realized, I don't just keep this blog to keep Grandma in the loop, or to show off my pictures online. The blog keeps track of the journalling I don't have time to do when I take pictures. And I'm so behind, I'll never get caught up. So by the time I scrap these memories, they may not be memories unless I blog about them here. So I'm changing this blog's purpose. It's going to be a bit more journally, and more for me. Probably no one will wander over from Facebook, and that's okay. I will have it for when I need it. And that's good enough.

So here I go, post-dating this entry, and then tons of others for December - February. Because some July 4 years from now, I may want to know what I thought and did and *gasp* felt in 2010-11.

Cookie Chaos

Never. Again.

Never again will I make 42 dozen cookies on December 17th, and another 1,000+ right after Christmas.

Then again, what are the chances of my sister getting married and wanting 1,000 cookies again? So I guess that's a promise that will be easy to keep.

At any rate, as of the date on this (postdated) post, I had only made 42 dozen, and the task wasn't seeming that daunting. After all, I finished them all in one day, with only Nick for help most of the morning (Kai and Scott had bells rehearsal). Then Cyndy and Ben came over and I ended up making flower girl headdresses.

Fortunately, Kairi was then able to help decorate the sugar cookies. She's much better at that than I am.

Decorating the Tree

Self explanatory post, really. Here we are, decorating this year's tree. I was a bit cranky, as I was the only one who had actually worked that day. But by the end, we were all giggling on the couch like crazed elves.

Winter Concert - Wow. Really?

The first sign your daughter is now a freshman, not an eighth grader, is when all you can see of her during the winter concert is the edge of her skirt and her feet. The band and chorus put on a heck of a show. But there were a few odd moments.

Wow. Really? is one of Kai's favorite expressions. So, for example, your dad accidentally tells the bells director he can play the night of your first high school concert. Wow. Really?

Then, your dad is called up front to be honored as a volunteer, but he's not there. Wow. Really?

The chorus sings 13 songs to the band's 6. Wow. Really?

The concert lasts two hours. Wow. Really?

And my personal favorite - dancing high school chorus girls sit on Santa's lap during a choreographed version of "Santa Baby". Wow. Really?

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a quiet, relaxed, snowy day at our house this year. Only Scott's parents were joining us for dinner. We enjoyed watching it snow while we prepared the food, though of course that meant Scott had to run out to pick up his parents while I finished off the preparations.Everything was tasty, as usual, if I do say so myself. But who let these grown-up looking kids come to the party? What is with this getting bigger every year schtick?
Happy Thanksgiving, all! We are thankful for much in our lives. God has truly blessed our family.

Drama on a Shoestring

My drama kids have been working on the sets for Night at the Wax Museum, our next production. Considering we have no budget and a bunch of sixth graders working on the sets (all the upperclassmen got parts in the play this time) they're coming together slowly, but surely. Because the museum is full of various historical characters, we get to build backdrops from many eras.

We have these rustic saloon doors (scrap wood and foam core):

A 6' panel from an ancient Egyptian tomb (paper and paint):


Another 6' backdrop of Independence Hall (more paper and paint - still needs a lot of work):


And this rotating stone wall, very much in progress (Old equipment cart, cardboard, newspaper, and lots and lots of masking tape):


Sometimes I wonder what we could do with more than one adult, an actual budget, and a stage. But then I say, "Eh. Who needs 'em?"

(Except the stage. Can't WAIT until I get my stage. Less than 200 days until the new building!)

Go. Go U. Go U Mass. Go UMass!

Must have heard that chant six hundred times this weekend if I heard it once. The marching band went to UMass for their annual band day. Over 3000 marching band kids. One stadium. Can you say LOUD?



You can play "Where's Waldo?" with the above picture to find Nick if you like. He got to play his actual trombone because they did not use honor guards in the display. Just look for the youngest one in the group - he is only ten, after all! He kept not knowing he was supposed to sit when they would say "High Schoolers, sit down!" They meant high schoolers as opposed to the UMass college kids. But he's not even out of elementary school, so how was he supposed to react to that?



And somewhere in this shot is Kai.

It was a pretty crazy trip. We got up at 2AM, showered, and headed over to the school. We then boarded buses headed for Amherst. We stopped at a Burger King for breakfast and then arrived at UMass around 10. The kids hustled over to the stadium where they spent three hours practicing. They did practice the songs a few times, but mostly they practiced the logistics of getting 3000 kids on and off the field in a 15 minute half-time.

After lunch at the university cafeteria, we headed back for the actual game. I had been playing with the panorama feature on my camera during practice, but as you can see from the shot at the top of this post, I was having trouble lining up the shots. Finally got it - but they put the band parents BEHIND the band for the show. *sigh*



Of course, I have to admit, it was probably easier to seat this many marching band members on the visitor side:



The whole day was in honor of George Parks, the UMass band director who unexpectedly passed away during the season. I have to admit, even though I had never met him, I teared up every time the UMass Minutemen played "I'll Be There" and marching into the formation of his initials. Their band was awesome, and the football team won. After we watched their set at the end of the game, we headed for the hotel. It was really cold, so we were glad to get inside. So what did all the kids do? Jumped in a pool (and one across the street from the main hotel so they had to run through the cold in their bathing suits.

We finally got back around 4:30 on Sunday. It was a loooooong weekend, but a great experience. Both the kids loved band day. Both agreed they could have done without the boring second day of the trip. (We basically drove home, and stopped at a mall for lunch.) I think they were just bumming because marching band season is now officially over. They hardly know what to do with themselves!