Semester's End

The kids are so relieved to be on Christmas break!  In the past, it's been giggly, squirrely excitement about Christmas, but this year it seems like they're most looking forward to some rest and time at home--a sure sign we've been running ourselves fairly ragged with activities recently.  We are at-home, hang-out, quality time people.

This afternoon, I was at home alone wrapping presents.  I greeted both the Fed-Ex lady and the UPS man at the door when they delivered packages I ordered 2 days ago.  (I LOVE Amazon Prime!!!)  The Fed-Ex lady was really sweet and smiled when I answered the door to take the packages from her.  She said, "Merry Christmas!" to me first, which I thought was awesome.  I'm fairly certain I may have freaked out the UPS guy, as he seemed surprised that I saw him coming and opened the door as he sat the packages down on the porch.  He may not have appreciated my telling him Merry Christmas so much.

Sylvia and Caeden enjoyed class parties at school today, since they are still in elementary.  They watched Christmas movies with their classmates, made crafts, and had snacks.  I know some parents are annoyed that not much classwork is done on these days, but I think it is great that the kids and teachers get to enjoy some "just fun" time together.

While I was wrapping, I was emailing back and forth with the school librarian.  He knows my little readers so well, and has always gone way over and above to make sure they have extra books to read at their own levels.  All 3 of our kids read constantly--probably a couple hours a day outside school and homework, and they are always looking for something good to read.  I am also incredibly conservative about what I like them to take in, so Mr. McCoy often checks with me to see if a book is ok for them to read.  Today he said he rarely runs into the situation each of our kids have hit at various points--everything is too easy, and the content is boring, but they aren't ready for more mature stuff.  Then he joked, wondering why our kids have to be such good readers, and said we should just sit them in front of a TV all day instead of getting them to like books. Haha.  :)  He also offered to order any new books I wanted to suggest for the library so the kids could have them to read!  What a blessing to have such a wonderful advocate for our readers!

Caeden came home with big green dots all over his face.  He said his class all got stampers for Christmas. He is such an antsy boy, which is what I was trying to capture in this video--until he got suspicious of me...

This evening, we were determined to stay in and have intentional relaxing time together.  I baked some Christmas cookies this afternoon. Jeremy brought Little Caesar's pizza, wings, and breadsticks home for supper.  This has become a semi-regular Friday night tradition, since LC's is fast food, really cheap at $5/pizza, and right next to where Jeremy works.  Jeremy has been participating in a body-fat percentage loss competition at the gym over the past several weeks, and it came to an end this morning, so he was also starving for pizza.  He did win the competition though!  He lost 23.3% of his body fat!  I don't even think he had that much to lose, but I do think I found what he lost!

After supper, we all snuggled up in the living room and watched one of our very favorite Christmas movies--White Christmas.  Ahhh, I love it!!

Soooooo looking forward to these next couple weeks.

Spreading Christmas Cheer

During their regular lesson time today, Annah and Sylvia, and their teacher Ruthie, played Christmas carols outside The Music Shoppe.  (It's in a strip-mall hallway, where other businesses are as well, so people are coming and going.)  

Ruthie put out a bowl of candy canes for people to enjoy too.  

 The store employees all came out to listen and enjoy the music too.

They played simple arrangements, and after they'd played through their whole book we went into the store to look for books that had more challenging Christmas carols for next year. 

Little Grinches

This evening the girls made cute little fruit Grinch snacks, and we watched The Grinch!

Aren't they cute?

They put a green grape on a toothpick, then stacked a banana slice, a strawberry, and a marshmallow on top.  They were yummy too!  

Childbloom Recital

Thanks to Jeremy coming home from work to rescue me when I got the Prius stuck in the driveway, we made it to Caeden's guitar recital this afternoon!  (I may have been a bit of a blubbering idiot, but Jeremy was more than patient with me--even though it meant he would make 3 trips to town and back today.) 

The recital was put on by some of Michael Hull's Childbloom students, in the very room where they have classes.  It was so nice to hear them all play.

Someone was very serious while warming up.  Maybe music is the thing that helps him focus!

Mr. Hull is a very talented musician and a fantastic teacher.  We were even privileged to hear him play 2 pieces today, and we are incredibly fortunate to have him teaching Caeden!

The class Caeden goes to on Thursday afternoons has only one other boy right now, so Caeden and Jacob played a duet--accompanied by Mr. Hull--The 3 Friends.

And Caeden played a solo as well, one of my favorites...

Good job, Buddy!

A morning of snow fun!

We awoke to about 5 inches of snow this morning!  The kids were out in it by about 8:45, and it was still coming down.

They played outside for about 2 1/2 hours, and created walkways to "rooms" in a snow "village."

It was about 32 degrees, and about 2 more inches of snow fell while they played.  But it wasn't windy, and didn't feel too cold for them.

They definitely love the snow!

String Project Winter Concert

Caeden is ready for the concert to start!

And so is this guy, with his wife's ruffly camera strap, haha!  I told Jeremy he needs to thank me for not getting any of the "foofy" camera strap that I've wanted, because he doesn't have to look like this guy!  We got some giggles out of it though.  ;)

Sylvia is in Vivace this semester, an auditioned group, which was the 3rd group to perform.
She is on the far left, outside on the back row.

Here are a few clips of some of the songs they performed.

Vivace and the group's instructors

The performance hall at the CPA is a very, very nice facility.  

Annah is in Sinfonia this semester, which is the top auditioned group.  While looking at the program before the concert, Jeremy noticed that Annah is a section leader.  She hadn't told us!

Here are some clips of the pieces they performed.
Annah is near the center, to the left of the conductor.

These girls amaze us with these instruments!  We are so glad for them to have this experience!

By the time the concert ended, there was a "marshmallow world" outside on campus...very lovely, and the kids said it looked like Narnia with the lampposts in the snow.  

Jeremy took Sylvia and Caeden and stopped by Meijer for a few groceries.  The drive home was a little nerve-wracking, but we made it safely home about 10pm.  Thankful and blessed.

Beautiful Waiting

The girls had to be dropped off to rehearsal with sack suppers by 4:45 this afternoon, so we met Jeremy at work so he could drive us over to ISU.  Just about the time we all got into one car the snow started falling.  We dropped the girls off and put the car in a parking garage.  Then Jeremy, Caeden and I enjoyed Uptown Normal for a couple hours while the girls were at String Project rehearsal.

We ate supper at Windy City Weiners, where Caeden was pretty pumped about the "double dog" he ordered!  Jeremy had chili dogs, and I was the odd one who ordered gyros.  

The view out the window where Caeden sat was really pretty and Christmas-y with the lights and falling snow!  

Uptown Normal is just a really neat place to be.  I had to snap a couple pics of daddy and son in the snow.  And I love that another daddy and son were walking along as I was taking this one!

Love my guys!!!

We planned to hit up Emack and Bolio's Gourmet Ice Cream, but it was closed.  So we stopped in at The Coffeehouse for hot chocolate and chai instead--more appropriate anyway, in the cold weather.

What a seriously beautiful evening!

The Circle is beautiful at all times of year.  

In the summer, the fountain is just lovely, but tonight in winter it was lovely in a different way!  

Caeden took a couple pictures of Jeremy and me with my phone--which I don't think he'd ever used for pictures before.  

So very grateful for these moments.  

As we were walking to the Center for Performing Arts, Caeden started moonwalking in the snow and then spinning around in it.  (Jeremy may have joined in too.)  

Really really really, even though we are a little "concerted out" after this week, I can't help enjoying moments like these!  They are like glimpses of heaven to me.

Elementary Winter Concert

We are in concert mode around here these days, and tonight was a super sweet one--"Jingle Jazz," the K-3 holiday concert.

The kindergarten sweeties were absolutely adorable, and I think everyone in the audience was wearing a giant grin watching them.  One of my favorite parts of the concert was when the 2nd graders started the song Like Diamonds In the Night, and the 1st and 3rd graders joined in so that all 3 grades were singing and filling the whole gym with music and joy!  It was great!!

Here's a link to the video I took on my phone--complete with a lot of heads in front of me and really bad motion.  :)

Here is 3rd grade, with our boy in blue on the top left corner of the risers.

3rd grade's first song was "Gloria," sung in Latin.

Their second song was, "The Holly and the Ivy," and Caeden was chosen for the honor of singing a duet with his sweet friend Avry at the beginning of the song.  

Here is a video of just the duet Avry's mom took on her phone and texted me.

Here is the whole song.  I'm not sure I've ever seen Caeden so incredibly serious.  From the time he got off the bus after school, he barely smiled and was focused on his solo.  We had quite a talk about just having fun making music and not getting nervous or being worried about "what-ifs."  I tried to reassure him that even if he did mess up, no one was going to laugh or throw things at him or anything bad.  He really wanted to do a good job.  And he did.  I just love his reaction once the duet part is over and he gets back to his spot on the risers.


Whew!

What a good looking crew of kiddos!

For their third selection, the 3rd graders played Jingle Bells on boomwhackers, actual jingle bells, and Orff instruments.  I didn't even realize that Caeden would be playing during this, because I'd been hearing so much about how Sylvia and her friend Isabella had been chosen to play the melody along with the 3rd graders.

So festive!



These kiddos sure did bring joy and Christmas fun to our community tonight!  LOVE IT!!!

JH Winter Concert

What fun we had at the Jr. High Winter Concert tonight!

Sylvia was over the moon excited about playing her horn for the first time in a concert!  

Isabella and Sylvia with their beautiful horns

I think it is so neat to see these 5th graders choose and begin to learn their instruments and make music together when they've growing together for the last several years.  It's just a super neat milestone to me to see them share that excitement.

We were having some video troubles, but I did catch some of Merrily We Roll Along.

It turns out, our video camera hadn't been charging as I thought it had, and it died when Jeremy tried to use it.  Then, when he went to record using my phone, and halfway through this song, it said that it was too full to fit any more videos.  Fortunately, our friend Shannon recorded the song too, so I was able to piece the whole thing together.
Annah was featured on her violin with the JH choir...

Both the 6th grade choir and the JH choir did a good job.  I enjoyed playing some difficult music with them.  It's always good for me to be challenged too.  :)

The JH band ended the concert on a great note.

 They really are doing well, and really enjoyed working on Pachelbel's Canon this semester.

And, everyone in the audience really enjoyed their performance of Funky Town.

I'm so thankful for the blessing of music in our school!

And, I guess I'll end with this, because if I put it in the middle of the post, it truncates it.  Here is the 5th grade band playing Jingle Bells.

Post by Ridgeview Elementary School.