Concerts and Recitals

December is a musical month for our family.

We usually start with piano recitals for Julie and Russell.

Then it's band and orchestra concerts. We had 3 this year to attend.



Julie and Russell had been outside playing in the snow just before it was time to leave for their recital.
We had to hussle out the door.
Julie still had wet snow hair.















Janelle had to be fitted for a band uniform prior to her performance.

She also had to borrow shoes from the band closet.
The High School Band performs in their marching band uniforms and Janelle did Colorguard during marching season.








Rachel sat 1st chair 2nd violin for her winter concert.

You can see her on the front row, 3rd person in, just left of the conductor.



We also had friends over for our traditional holiday sing-a-long.

I think the kids were more interested in all the food than the singing though.

Snow!!!

These pictures are to prove that it actually does snow in East Tennessee.

This snowfall came the first weekend in December.

On a Saturday.

The kids love the snow but they'd rather it come during the week. Then there's a greater chance of school getting cancelled.

To date, we've had 2 days of cancelled school, 1 day with a delayed start of 2 hours, and 1 early dismissal day. (Not all a result of this snow fall but a combination of this snowfall and the one we got last week.)

Christian

Russell and Spencer

Hannah & Spencer waiting for a sled ride.

Rachel & Julie with the garden variety snowman.

The kids were up early before their piano recital to play in this stuff. We have a great sledding hill at the bottom of our yard. A lot of the neighborhood kids come to sled there.

The kids made the snowman and used remnants of our summer garden for the accessories.

Tomatoes for the eyes.

Green peppers for the buttons and nose.

Corn stalks for the mouth and arms.

That snowman was as tall as I was.

It was sad when later that day I looked out to see that someone had walked through our yard and knocked it over.

A New Shade of Green

Choosing a color to paint the house was not as easy as I thought it would be.

We had several samples.

We even painted several swatches at the back of the house and asked the neighbors for their vote.

This dark green was the color that was most liked.

It took some getting used to for me.

View of the kitchen addition and covered patio.

The shudders aren't on but they're black.

You might be able to see that the front door is also dark green.

That won't stay that way.

We just ran out of warm days to get it painted and I hadn't decided 100% what color to go with.

That will be another post for another day.

Halloween in February

This post is for my mother-in-law who wanted to see pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes.

We finally got the pictures downloaded.

So, here you go......

The whole crew

Prince Charming & Snow White

Spencer's tunic and belt was the only costume I made for this year. We were originally all going as Snow White and the 7 Dwarves but we already had Hannah's dress and I really couldn't get into dressing up this year, so only the little ones carried that theme.


The older kids "recycled" other costumes.


Christian & Julie dressed as Star Wars characters.
Rachel as a Spanish dancer.
Janelle wore her Wicked witch costume from last year.
Russell was a vampire.


I had to use my thinking cap for his costume. But we used his lion tamer vest (from the circus year), his sunday shirt and pants, and the Darth Vader cape from the toy shelf. It turned out just right.


Who knows what we'll do for this year.....

Our Thanksgiving

To start, I would like to thank our cousins, the Maloney's, for having us to their house for Thanksgiving and taking us site seeing. We even had our own tour guide (Cindy).

This was actually our 2nd day trip to DC.

The sun may be out but this was a COLD day!!

That's the whole crew. 12 kids and 4 adults at the Washington Monument.



Julie on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Our Tennessee crew at the WWII Memorial.

(Hannah's asleep under the purple blanket.)

This was our first daytrip into DC. We got caught in a short, cold and windy rain storm as we walked from the Air & Space Museum to the Capitol. It felt like little shards of ice were hitting us in the face. But we HAD to get a picture in front of the Capitol Building. Todd didn't even turn Spencer around for the picture.

Mount Vernon across the bowling green.

In front of the Potomac River.

We rode the Metro into DC the 2 days we went into the city. Christian had to sit in a seat where he could point to the map and count down the stops (There were about 12 I think- You'd think I'd remember having a 5 year old tell me after EVERY stop how many were left.). The morning we left our cousins's house, Hannah woke up and the first thing she asked was if we were going on the "big train, again?".

This was where I thought we lost Russell.

Russell lost his balance while walking on a raised part of the sidewalk and stepped in a muddy mess on the grass (The grass that has signs on it that say, "Please respect our Veterans and stay off the grass."). Julie found him scraping the mud and junk off his shoe onto the bushes.

I think you would agree with me that we Conquered DC!!

12 kids (ages 6 months-14 years) with 4 adults.

We also saw the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the American Indian Museum(we ran back to this building to get out of that rainstorm), the Vietnam Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial.

Hannah slept both days we were in DC in the stroller. I'm not sure she actually saw a whole lot.

Spencer LOVED running everywhere at Mount Vernon. I had to cut my tour of the house short because he had HAD it and wanted to be outside.

Christian liked being able to ride in the stroller and NOT having to walk the whole time. (I liked that part, too. Not as much complaining.)

Russell had fun playing video games with cousin Robbie and DS downloading with his siblings on the 9 hour drive to Fort Belvoir,VA.

Julie liked playing with Faith and MiKayla but didn't like NOT being a part of the "big girl" group.

Rachel liked staying up late talking to cousin Celeste and having late night snacks.

Janelle liked having someone as obsessed with the Twilight series as she is to talk to about it.

Todd and I decided that just the 2 of us need to go back so that he can have all the time HE wants in the Air and Space Museum and I could go see whatever I want to see while he is there.

(You know I didn't get to see the Hope Diamond.....)

Update on Spencer's "stash"

In my last post, I reported that we haven't found out where Spencer's "stash" is.

We have now.

1 of the missing measuring tapes have been recovered.


We were driving home from church on Sunday.

I happened to glance down into the little "cubby" compartment on the side of the car door by my feet.

It drives Todd crazy that I put things in those cubbies. Like the school coupon book I feel obligated to buy from all my children who are currently at the elementary school level, an extra diaper or two, or the empty coupon carrier. It also houses the windshield scraper (on the driver's side).

As we drove down the street I glanced down and saw something shiny.

When I reached down, I started to laugh.

I had located one of the missing measuring tape.

How Spencer got it there no one knows.

Daddy's Shadow

Spencer is a craftsman in training.

Since we started our addition project, he has followed Todd around wanting to help and do what Daddy is doing.

He loves to be outdoors and if it's with a hammer in hand he's even happier. When Todd took a week off to work on the house, the first thing Spencer said when he woke up every morning was: " I get dressed and hep (help) Daddy.".

In the last 6 months, Spencer has walked off with 2 metal measuring tapes and Daddy's carpenter pencils. Who knows where they are???

We haven't figured out where he keeps his "stash".


Spencer actually got this piece of siding to stay put. He went and found his own plastic hammer and a scrap of siding. He then put a handful of tar paper nails in his pocket and proceeded to pull the nails out one at a time and nail them into the holes in the board. (I found the leftover nails in his pocket that night when I got him ready for bed.) Spencer calls the 2 step ladder "his ladder". He goes and gets it if Daddy has his ladders out.

I think Daddy helped him find the holes in the existing siding to hold it in place. But Spencer put in several nails to make sure it held in place. He even holds the nails between his fingers (like Daddy) so that he can hit the nail and hold it in place.

When Daddy moved around to work on the garage siding, Spencer decided he would just help nail the siding up that Daddy was putting up and I ended up with roofing nails as high as Spencer could reach between my garage doors.


It sure makes Daddy proud.

Even if he has had to replace his measuring tapes and pencils.