And so school begins...

Alia on the first day of school.  No seminary yet.

 Elena on the first day.  She's our earliest (non-seminary) bus rider.

 Tanner on the first day.  He's up early enough to sometimes get his clarinet practiced before school!

Hair Today...

My Alia decided that her hair was getting too heavy and that it was time for a hair cut.

So, after three years (or so) of letting her hair grow, she got it cut.

Isn't she beautiful!? 

 That "thing" on the counter in front of her is the 17" long pony tail of hair that she donated for wig making.  Way to rock a new haircut!

March Band Concerts

Alia has switched from trumpet to french horn and has a new seat in the band....on the right!  Once the band sits down, though, she is hard to see!  She had a couple of solos and did fine!

Tanner performs with the middle school beginning band and does a good job with his clarinet!

Band Camp

Day One

Mom rolled out of bed just in time to snap a photo of these two "twins".  Camp runs from 7am until 9pm all week long.

New School Year

It has begun...

Three children, three schools this year again. The new thing is that we have three bus riders.  Elena was a little nervous the first day, but things have gone just fine.

Here's to a good year!

Concert and Other stuff

 Alia had a band concert recently.  Here are a few of us with her after the concert.

 She is the bit of blond hair under the red arrow to the left of center.

 Alia asked me to braid her hair "dutch" style--like a french braid.  After I did Alia's hair, Elena asked me to do hers as well.  I was amazed at how well the two braids stayed in!

Christmastime--candy houses

 This year was a challenge.  Mom and Dad are trying very hard to meet their goals for loosing weight.  But, we liked our new tradition of making graham cracker houses and decorating them with candy.  What to do, what to do?

We decided to buy frosting dyes (not just our regular food coloring ones that we use for our cookie icing) and just a few candies and make most of our decorations from frosting.

House construction went well.  The buttercream frosting we used set up quickly as construction cement.  Coloring the frosting was a blast--the new colors are wonderfully vibrant!  And then the decorating began!

Chimneys and pathways were created.

Trees and team logos (not necessarily connected) came into being!

Much icing was used!






Here are some of the final creations:

This is a nativity scene by Alia.

This beautifully edged path way and home was made by Elena.






Tanner also has a nativity display with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus just to the right of his tootsie roll pathway.
The kids (and grownups) enjoyed making and eating their creations.  We made them on Christmas Eve.  We ate them until after lunch on Christmas day.  Now all that is left is a pile of foil wrapped cardboard! 

It's been hot. We've been playing in our little pool. Tanner loves wearing his goggles around the water. They are great splash protection!



















I had a hankering for pot stickers the other night...so I looked up a recipe and made some. Yummmm! Pot stickers are a lot of work, but each bite makes the work worthwhile! :)













And, here's the birthday girl! Older, wiser, and more beautiful!





















And here's what was left of the cake on day two. We like the fish-look! (The cake is a milk chocolate box cake. The filling is a thin layer of vanilla icing topped with marshmallows. The icing on top was per request of the birthday girl--sort of drizzled all over. :)

New Year celebrations at our house are low key. We stayed up late working on a puzzle (the kids were in bed around 9:30pm; the 'dults were in bed around 11pm). Then we got up and made rolls, worked on the puzzle, ate yummy buffet food, and relaxed.















Before the end of the day, the puzzle was done, the food was eaten, and the football game lost. Ahh. New Year's day!

May this New Year be one of Joy for you and yours!

:)

It's Christmas time! The kids all helped decorate the tree. We parents did the traditional, "You have too many balls in that one spot...spread them out!" comments, but only once or twice. The kids enjoy rediscovering the ornaments they have made over the years and putting them on the tree.








Another Christmas tradition: frosted cookies--YUMM! This year none of the kids needed direct parental supervision. Granted, Elena's cookies had more sugary sprinkles than anyone else's, but she enjoyed the art/process!


Merry Christmas!

December is a time for activities at school! Alia performed as an Oompa-Loompa in her 5th grade class' version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory! She practiced so much at home that her little 4 year old sister knows the beginning of her lines too! :)





The 5th grade band performed last night. Alia trumpeted great! By the last song (of about twenty short pieces!), she looked relaxed and was enjoying herself!

Way to go, Alia!!! :)

It used to be that we lived in a condo where all the leaves were vacuumed up by the lawn care company. Back then, we would pack the kids and rakes in the car and drive to a local park to rake leaves into a pile so it felt like fall.

Now, the leaves fall and we rake them at home. One tree's leaves fall much earlier than the others and the kids have already spent a handful of hours raking the leaves into play spaces. Now the big maples are starting to loose their leaves. Dad went out and helped make this big pile. Later on, the kids and Dad all put their hoods up and crawled into the pile. :)

Look who won the pumpkin jar!!!

There was a "guess the number of pumpkin candies in the jar" game at the Halloween party we went to on Friday. We got a call on Saturday to let us know that Elena was the winner (she guessed 200 pumpkins)! Congratulations, Elena! She loves these candy pumpkins!


Alia's class is swimming this week. Elena & Mom got to watch her on Monday. She is growing more fish-like every year! Hooray for swimmer Alia! (She's on the far left in the photo.)

Halloween came early at our house. Pumpkins were carved on Monday. Costumes were donned on Friday. Alia was a medival princess, Tanner was Harry Potter, and Elena was Ginny Weasley. We had a party where Alia got to tell one of the "spooky stories". Saturday was our local trick or treating night and I went out with the kids while Martin manned the door at home.

Alia has been growing. All of the fleece jackets and sweaters that she had been wearing are too small!

So, it was time to sew! She requested the color and I did the work. The good news is that it makes her smile! It's soft and fuzzy and warm. It got worn to school today!

:)

Random events from a weekend with Aunt Marilyn:

Martin put on his gambeson, maile coif and hauberk (in progress), and gloves and took up his sword. :)



I got some new-to-me clothes thanks to the generosity of my great aunts (they had fun choosing things to send my way! :)












Elena play with a piece of sample fabric from the loom and with some ceramic and wax cats.










And, now that we're back to a "normal" week, here's Alia practicing the trumpet.

First Day of the 2010-2011 School Year.

Here's the traditional pose in front of the door. We took some other, more silly shots, of them walking out the door and in the garden, but this is the best one to see their faces!


The whole family joined the kids at the bus stop today. Martin will be the one regularly on bus stop duty for our family (we ran into some minor trouble last year and discovered that the presence of an adult helped significantly). This year we were pleased to note there were three new kids at the bus stop! It was fun to see all five kids start talking with each other and making friends.

Tanner went to a birthday party with a Star Wars theme. In fact all the kids were invited to bring their own light sabers.

Tanner went a step further. He requested that we make "battle lightsabers" that you can use to duel as his gift for his friend.

We priced the materials and discovered, "why make two for two dollars when you can make four for two-forty".

So, now we own a pair of dueling light sabers. The photo with the boys is staged. The photo with Alia is live.

Happy Home Haircuts

One needed his cut.
One wanted hers cut for school.
One wanted hers cut like her big sister's (not to mention her friend just got a trim too!).

Any guesses as to who is who?