November Moments

 Hi,

TJ, you were proud of all of your Halloween candy and had it all spread out in piles here on the floor on Nov 1st:

We left for a few minutes, not thinking much about the candy on the floor. This naughty doggy boy celebrated his birthday by eating 12 dum dums, a bunch of starbursts, a tootsie roll, a recess peanut butter cup, and I don’t remember what else. TJ wasn’t happy about that, but the good news is Pluto was fine! Happy 11th birthday to this old man stinker doggy:

Lots of pretty sunsets:

One Sunday morning Dad had already left for a meeting at church so when it was time for me to leave, I opened the door to call Pluto inside and could hear him crying. I thought he could see a bird but couldn't reach it and was whining. He would  not come, so I went out to see what he was doing, and he was stuck in a tree. He couldn't get back down, and I was in a dress ready for church. I guess Pluto chased a bird and climbed up this tree to get it, getting stuck in the process.  I tried to pick him up but he was about as high as my head and so heavy and leaning into the tree so he wouldn't fall. He cried and cried like I was ripping his leg off, so I had to call Dad to ask him to come home and save the dog. He took a picture of him and then saved him and made it back to church in time for sacrament: 

Lulu and Hammer both got 4.0's last semester, so here they are celebrating with a meal of their choosing. Hammer got enchiladas from Fransisco's and Lulu chose a Cafe Rio salad:

Pluto looked so funny this day. Look at his back legs:

Hammer joined National Junior Honor Society. Here he is shaking hands with those in charge after getting his certificate:

Hammer also went on a hike with the Young Men on a cold Saturday morning. They had a good time even though it was slippery:

There's a little waterfall there:

I printed out a whole bunch of bulldogs that I painted for a PTO thing: 

Hammer likes to take my phone and take the weirdest pictures. His favorite is to put it on panoramic but have people move or he moves the camera. Here is part of Lulu, and he thought it was Hagrid-esque:

Sleepy cold Pluto giving me the side eye cuz I'm bugging him with pictures. I liked his little toe beans poking out of the blanket: 

Everyone got sick with body aches and a cough, but everyone got it at different times. That was weird. Here's TJ home from school again, listening to some Roald Dahl on cd that I checked out of the library:

TJ was still sounding pretty yucky on Thanksgiving, but he came along with a mask and had his own table for eating. Grammie needs help decorating for Christmas so that's what we do after we eat and play games:

We made and shared our favorite, the berry dessert. Grammie made Dad's favorite, a pumpkin roll:

Adz decided it was finally time to cut his hair. Here are the before and afters:

That was a big change! We hardly recognized him with short hair.

Well, that was a cold, sick, but still fun month.

Love you!

Mom

November Field Trips

Adz was so excited to pick up these cute kits at The Home Depot this weekend. He also got a new apron!:

Here is what he made, a Thanksgiving salt and pepper/napkin holder. He got one for Hammer and TJ to make too:

Lulu and I went to a fun boutique one Friday:

This weekend was a turkey hunt for the field trip. The turkeys were on little posters and hidden around the city. We found a frozen waterfall on the way:

Here are two of the turkeys that you guys spotted:

The reward for finding the turkeys as a gift bag from the city office. It was a fun outing!

The End!

Marching Band '22

 Dear Lulu,

You have been playing the flute since 7th grade. You don't have the nicest flute, in fact most teachers tell you that you need to get a better one. You don't have a private flute teacher. But you are rocking it at the flute! It took a lot of hard work at the beginning to learn the flute, and then it took a lot of hard work to learn the marching band show song when you joined last summer. Not only were the notes hard, but it's an 8 minute show that needed to memorized. AND you had to learn where your spot was on the field and where to go next. In order for all of this to come together with the whole marching band, you had marching practice after school almost every day of the week.

Mondays and Thursdays you stayed after until 6. On Wednesdays I picked you up at 6:30, and Tuesdays was sectional so you were done at 4. When there was a home football game on Fridays the band played, and most Saturdays you had a competition. Joining marching band is a commitment of time and energy for sure. The weather was freaking hot, like in the 100's and 90's all summer, all August and September. I think you had about 2 weeks of perfect weather before it got freezing for your last October practices. Crazy! Saturday competitions took at least half of the day and you often got home at midnight.

Needless to say, I am really proud with your dedication to marching band. I was so proud when you performed at the parent preview night that I almost cried. The show looked and sounded so good! It was hard to spot you from the bleachers when everyone has their matching hats on. I knew that you lead a whole line, a fact you were proud of since this was your first year, and when I saw the flutes marching out in a line toward me, I picked you out.  You were the leader and doing a bang up job at it. After that I could see you leading your line, shaking your hips, and keeping time like a pro at every show that we saw, in person or on the videos. We didn't go to many competitions actually, just the parent preview, homecoming, and the Davis Cup, but that didn't mean Dad and I weren't proud. Man, was I a proud Mama.  Which is kind of funny because that is the marching band's motto: Make Your Mama Proud. Here are some performance pictures, some I took, some from the band photographer, and some from the professional Bands of America photographers:  

You loved getting to know all of the other flute players in the band.  There is a special connection within each section of band, with inside jokes and silliness and the pride after all the hard work. The flutes did secret sister gifts sometimes and you even ordered a sweatshirt with all of your names on the back. Here are some pictures of you and your fellow flautists:

You liked your uniform. You thought the shiny outfits were pretty sharp, and the hats, called shakos, are super fancy. See the plume on top? You had to earn that by passing off your music and then at each performance someone wearing gloves had to put the plume on the shako and take it off:

Your high school consistently did well at competitions and you got second place at Davis Cup, State, and region! You loved cheering with your band when you got your scores at the end of the competitions. What a high that must have felt like after all the hard work. Here's the whole band:

Now that it's over, you are a little sad. You miss the camaraderie and the laughs, but you still have the pictures people uploaded to a google space and you love to look at them. You already know that you want to do this next year and you're signed up to march in a parade in Washington DC in May! There are lots of good times still to come.

Thanks for trying something new and maybe intimidating since you didn't know any flutes in the band. Thanks for working hard. I'm so happy you found a place to fit in and a good group of kids to bond with. That's what makes high school fun!

Love, Mom