May Days

We've loved coming outside for dinner since scoring this awesome patio set for $50 at a yard sale!

 

Sera's Girl Scout troop toured the Panera bakery.

 

Yum!

 

Asher's Select Choir concert

 

Sera and I had a lovely time together at the Kindergarten Mother's Day Tea.

 

Awesome visit from Serenity and her finacee, Scott!

We visited the DeBrand Chocolate Factory together.

 

Aaron and Emerson toasting (burning) marshmallows at the Andrews' family barbeque--Serenity and I later gave a marshmallow toasting clinic for the benefit of all attending. You're welcome.

Sera and Gillian prefer theirs raw.

These girls love hot dogs!

Asher loves him some flipping--he has led the charge for having the kids save up money for a trampoline for our family.

Oh, the frog-catching . . .

It never ends.

These four spend hours playing around the pond--what great friends!

 

Indy 500 Pole Day

Spring Fever

If only I were as excited for school to end as my kids are!  They are actively making (sometimes ludicrous) plans for the summer, I am scrambling to come up with some things we can actually manage.  My darling sister Serenity just got home from a mission to Barcelona, Spain, and has already gotten herself engaged!  She and Scott Embley dated for quite a while before she left, but apparently distance makes the heart grow fonder, because it wasn't until she was half-way around the world that he finally convinced her to seal the deal.  I'm trying to figure out how to work their July wedding into the rather elaborate National Parks trip out west that I'm just shy of convincing Aaron that our family needs. 

Fortunately, we all got a chance to get a bit better acquainted with this Scott fellow who will soon be entering our lives as uncle/brother-in-law when both he and Serenity (only about a week off her mission) came out for an engagement tour of sorts. It was wonderful having them to visit, though they probably wouldn't have minded a little more time to themselves!  We took them to the zoo and on a tour of the locally delicious DeBrand chocolate factory, and Scott won himself some serious fans in our kids by playing hide-and-seek with them (and eluding them very successfully at the top of our tree where he made some very convincing bird-calls). Meanwhile, Serenity continued her campaign to be everyone's favorite by scouring the kids' bathroom on the sly and doing way more than her fair share of dishes. We also dragged them with us to a bonfire and cookout with our dear friends the Andrews, who recently moved across town and invited us to hang out on their sprawling new property, where our kids had a blast hanging from trees, jumping themselves to exhaustion on the trampoline, and feeding chickens. We are certainly missing having the Andrews as close neighbors, now!

The following week, we were lucky enough to get a visit from my dad as well, who descended on our kids with all kinds of grandfatherly affection. Given the end-of term concerts and grading that were upon Aaron, we didn't get to do as many "activities" as we might have liked, but that was more than made up for in the one-on-one time that Papa is a genius at.  I don't know that I have ever known anyone quite as good as my dad at looking into someone's eyes and making them feel like they are the most important person in the universe. I'm so glad my kids get to have him for a grandpa!

In other exciting events, Aaron took the boys down to Pole Day for the Indy 500 for the second year in a row, where the fast cars and fun times (minus the crowds) were almost enough to make up for the fact that we were too slow to snag some free tickets to race day through a deal at Kroger.  The best quote of the day was when Theo asked Aaron "Dad, the sound the engine makes when it's coming down . . . is that an A?" (it was!)  Sera had a bit of a brush with the famous when a few days before the big race, her teacher came to school sporting a Brazilian "wish bracelet" she had acquired at a wedding for one of her college friends.  The friend had married a racer named Tony Kanaan from Brazil, and the ribbon bracelet, tied with three knots, was supposed to grant three wishes to the wearer when the knots loosened and fell off.  When Mrs. Becker mentioned the entire kindergarten class' fascination with the bracelet to her friend, she and Kanaan sent a box of bracelets for the class with the suggestion that they make one of their wishes for Kanaan's victory in the race.  Apparently the wishes of kindergarteners are pretty powerful, because Tony Kanaan won the Indy 500!!

May is always a month of concerts and recitals, and we put in our fair share!  The KinderKeys recitals all went very well--I can't believe that two fully programmed recitals were required to fit in all the students! I have had such a great group of kids this year, and it has been a privilege to teach them.  It's awesome to think that just two years ago the KinderKeys recital consisted of five classmembers (including Sera), my other three kids who I was teaching privately, and two additional private students.  I ended this year with two preschool KinderKeys classes, four after-school KinderKeys classes, and the Piano Adventures class that I started with Theo and Addy this year!  Everyone played beautifully, but it was especially fun for me to hear the progress my own kids have made--I don't know if it's me or them, but learning in groups has been the best thing for their musical skills.

In other performances of note, Theo has had an awesome year in band at school, and we enjoyed seeing the fruits of his labors at the band concert .  He has made exceptional progress, and I totally credit his band teacher for all his improvement at sight-reading this year.  Theo was inspired to audition for jazz band for next year (successfully!), and I look forward to more of his awesome trumpeting.  Aaron's university performances was especially moving this year, as his concert was in tribute to the memory of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut in December.  Additionally, he prepared the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chorus for a performance of Schubert's final mass in Eb major, which was just beautiful. 

And finally, we finished out the month by attending a bluegrass festival together.  It was fun to hear the rollicking music from some very talented performers, though when asked about his less than enthusiastic expression, Theo said "Dad, if I look like I'm having fun, do you know what my friends will think?" Ah, the joys of adolescence.  We have only just begun.

Spring Excursions

A visit on President's Day down to Connor Prairie, where we learned all sorts of cool stuff about Theodore Roosevelt, who enjoyed a good game of Fisticuffs, and Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanore who started the first school lunch program.

 

It was even warm enough to enjoy the activities outside (though this wasn't the real hot-air balloon that the kids wished)

I came awfully close to winning the hula hooping contest at our ward luau

 

Easter morning!

Easter family picture

Annual Easter Egg Hunt (it was cold this year!)

 

 

 

 

Aaron's choir sang the national anthem at the Fort Wayne Tin Caps Opening Day!  April showers, etc.

Spring break trip to Louisville, Kentucky to visit Bethany Griffin and her family

 

Mammoth Cave!

 

Glasses were the hit at the gift store

Slumber party!

Marching into April

March was cold.  Colder than the rest of the winter, really.  Though we made it through February without a single snow day, March saw several of them.  A few extra days off of school were hardly unwelcome for the kids, who pulled out the sleds and had a wonderful time on the hill near our house, not to mention building snow forts and snow men.  I, on the other hand, was ready to see some flowers popping out. 

To keep warm and connected with my four kids who now spend much of their days away from me, I've continued our tradition of planning monthly lunch dates with each of them.  Much of the time, the dates are subsidized by the schools' "Book It" reading program that rewards kids for reading with free pizza.  Though Asher has graduated out of the program (his current favorite lunch date is Firehouse Subs), I love taking the younger three in for Pizza Hut's lunch buffet, which has changed very little since I was earing my own "Book It" awards in elementary school.  It cracks me up when the kids get "salad" from the salad bar that consists mainly of jello and cottage cheese.  Still, it's a cozy place to get away to in the middle of a cold day, and I'm glad to have such cuties to share it with. 

In the cold evenings, Aaron and I are letting our minds wander across the possibilities of the future.  We're beginning to think about where we'd like our family to be in five years and in ten, and how to make some of our ideas come to life.  My current favorite idea is for him to audition for the television program The Voice (how can he blame me?  He makes us watch it obsessively) as an avenue to meeting people in the popular music world for whom he could write songs--he writes fantastic songs.  He laughs at my plan, but I don't think he's written it completely off yet, so we'll see (notice how I'm much better at making plans for him than for myself?  Sadly, the ones I make for him tend to be much more successful than the ones I make for me, otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd have some books in bookstores by now).  My favorite song he's written recently was born after he decided to take on a few of the lunch-dates with the kids.  On the day he was going to pick up Sera, he was running a few minutes behind, and when he got to the school she had already gotten her lunch tray.  She was crying as she had to dump it to go with him, and as he was cheering her up, the sweetest song came into his head.  It's called "Butterfly," and is about a little girl whose dad calls her "butterfly."  Through the verses, she's waiting for him at various stages of life, and he promises he'll always be there for her--the chorus ends with "I love you, my butterfly."  Obviously it's much better if you actually get to hear him sing it, but I'd sure love to see him go somewhere with it.

Even though it finally started warming up as April approached, I was very ready for real springtime.  When spring break hit and Aaron announced that he would be working straight through it (he always does, really, because his spring break never matches up with the kids' spring break), I conspired with a friend down in Louisville, Kentucky to come down for a visit and a trip down to Mammoth Cave.  I packed the kids into the van, let them turn on some movies (it is fun to have a DVD player in the car now--we feel so spoiled), and we headed down.  Bethany Griffin, a writing friend with whom I've corresponded frequently over the last five years, but whom I'd never met in real life, has two kids, Asher's and Addy's ages, and they opened their house to us and let us stay for a couple of nights.  In between, we visited Mammoth Cave and chatted about anything and everything.  Our kids hit it right off, and had fun playing music and watching movies together.  Most importantly, we all warmed up a little while we waited for the sunshine to unthaw us up north.

Easter holiday was lovely, if not elaborate.  We had one family of friends over for our annual Easter egg hunt, and the kids braved the bitter breezes as they filled their baskets.  In preparing Easter dinner, I inadvertently added a new tradition for our family--"challah."  Challah, of course, is the manna-like bread that Jewish families share to remember Passover, but my family enjoyed the sweet, braided bread so much that we've continued to have it every Sunday since.  It's a nice way to celebrate the Sabbath day.  At this time of renewal, we hope we will look inward for ways to renew ourselves; to become better, kinder, and more peaceful.  We wish the same for you!