Tight Harmony

A couple of months ago, the middle school choir teacher sent Nathan an email with info about a free all-day barbershop workshop for middle school and high school age kids. For those who may not know, we’re talking barbershop, the acappella vocal music style, not barbershop the place where you get your hair cut. Nathan and Matthew both thought that sounded like a fantastic way to spend a Saturday so they both signed up.

Today was the workshop and after spending their day learning some things and rehearsing, there was a short concert featuring the kids in the workshop as well as a few numbers from several local barbershop quartets. It was short and sweet and so much fun! Both boys had a great time and if they can, I think it is something they would like to do again next year.

Gobble, Gobble

I just need to brag for a minute. Many moms have missionaries who live on pizza and pop tarts for two years. I have one that successfully roasted a full-size turkey all by himself!

He and his companion will be eating well this week!

Family Ties

By way of a birthday party, all Matthew wanted to do was go to the temple with his cousins. That is what he wanted to do last year as well, but I didn’t every actually make it happen so this year I made sure to get it scheduled. Not everyone was able to come, but Drew (Rachael’s son), Aliese and Corynn (Cory’s girls) were able to join Matthew and Nathan. Since we had a reservation for a family group, they were able to jump the line at the temple. They all really enjoyed that since there was a 2 ½ hour wait. We invited everyone to our house for dinner afterward and those of us who were there had a jolly time. In my opinion, it was an amazing way to celebrate a birthday!

Another Teen

As of today, I only have one child who is not a teenager. Matthew has crossed the threshold into the teen world by turning 13. His birthday happened to fall on a Sunday that we have our extended family dinner, so he got to have his cake on his actual birthday. He requested the recently conquered coconut cake with a pineapple filling instead of coconut. Honestly, I think I liked it even better with the pineapple. It was a huge cake and we had three desserts to feed everyone so I assumed there would be a goodly amount of leftover cake. But I was completely wrong about that. It was a hit and we came home with only a couple of slices. Since Matthew is technically no longer a child, he asked if he could light his own candles. So he played with fire, blew out the candles, and then ate three huge slices of cake.

Matthew’s gift requests were modest and he was perfectly pleased with the trumpet stand and sheet music that he got. He has turned into a band kid, finding great joy in the music, and band has quickly become one of his happy places. His skill has improved so quickly that both the middle school band teacher and the high school band teacher (who teaches the before school jazz band) have commented on how quickly he has learned and how good he is. In fact, he is skipping the intermediate band and moving on to the advanced band as an 8th grader. Every time I hear his practice (which is often), I’m impressed by how much progress he is making. He has been playing for only a year and he’s pretty darn good.

Matthew most definitely adds some spice to our lives. As a baby, he taught Kevin and I about the power of music and a new way to eat. As a toddler, he taught us how to laugh again as the challenges of adult life had weighed us down. As a child he taught us patience as his stubbornness pushed us to develop new parenting skills. As a preteen he has taught us what courage is as he’s worked to bring new foods into his diet, foods that he’s been told all his life will kill him. As a teen, I expect he will have more to teach us. As parents, it is expected that we will teach our children, but I find that the learning goes both ways. I’m very grateful for Matthew and all that he contributes to our family. Being his mother has been very challenging at times, but I’m definitely a better person because he is in my life.

The Shoes Make the Outfit

While Nathan was at the Sweetheart’s dance two weeks ago, an invitation to Sweethearts at his old high school was dropped off. It was, for an invitation to a dance, a last-minute invite from a friend of his who had asked four other people and still did not have a date. Nathan, being the kind human being that he is, graciously accepted the invitation and yesterday was the dance. The theme was the 1920’s and that worked great because Nathan’s preferred dress shoes are very retro. His date was wearing a matching pair, which was super fun.

Unlike many of his dance (and day to day) experiences at his own school, it was a low stress event. He had a good time.

A Heart-y Day

While we’re not a family who goes whole hog for Valentine’s Day, this year we did have a delightful themed breakfast.

Yesterday at her primary activity, Malia made me a Valentine craft. Her leader told me that she liked it so much that she was debating about giving it to me or keeping it for herself, but she opted to gift it and now I have a lovely piece of art to display.

And for the first time ever, I had a high school aged child make a Valentine in class. Can you guess which class?

Nathan does love ASL and apparently, he loves me too.😂

Young Statesman

Malia has been learning about government at school. Her class has written a class constitution and the whole bit. As part of that unit, they wrote a proposal to present to our city council about making a city compost pile. Her teacher presented their proposal at our city council meeting this evening and invited as many kids as were interested and available to show up and participate. Malia really wanted to go so Kevin took her to the meeting and she and the one other student who showed up were able to help present the proposal. And once their part was done, she wanted to stay and was engaged and asking questions throughout the meeting. I’m proud of her for taking an interest in government. It’s one of the things that makes our country what it is, the whole government by the people, for the people bit. I’ll admit that I’ve never been particularly active in our local government, but it is good that she is interested at such a young age. After all, the children are the future of our country.

Blind Dates and Deaf Conversations

Last night was the Sweetheart’s Dance at the High School. After all the creative asking and answering of last week, I suspected it would be a fun group. Since Nathan is the only one who lives in close proximity to the high school, the plan was to gather up all the kids and spend the day date and dinner portion of the event at our house. The two kids that live in West Jordan drove down to our place and then Nathan drove all of them to Cedar Hills to pick up the other three. He said the drive back to our house a bit awkward which doesn’t surprise me. Blind dates are like that. The afternoon was spent playing board games and at some point, it was discovered that the two Cedar Hills kids that my nephew Jacob recruited for this adventure are both taking ASL (American Sign Language). Nathan is also taking ASL and absolutely loves it. With a common interest discovered, things relaxed a bunch.

Dinner was homemade pizza and that was an activity in and of itself. There were pizza faces, braided breadsticks, and lots of laugher. The official photos were fast and few because it was cold outside, and then there were more games played until it was time to go to the actual dance. As expected, the dance was loud and chaotic, but the reward for successfully navigating the main event was chocolate fondue.

I think Nathan had a good time. It was a low key, relaxing event that was lacking much of the drama that has been prevalent in his social circle of late. He told me that he ran into a couple of other madrigal men at the dance and they liked the whole planned blind group date thing that they are considering following suit for a later dance.

Going Bug-Eyed

For the next school dance, Nathan has opted to avoid a myriad of social drama. Originally, he planned just to skip the dance, but a change in plans came along in the form of a cousins’-organized blind date. He and Ella, who both go the same school, and Jacob, who goes to a different school, are planning on going to Sweethearts at Nathan and Ella’s school. Jacob arranged with two friends to come as dates for Nathan and Ella and those two provided a date for Jacob. Even though the plans were already in place and agreed upon by all parties, all the kids wanted to do the official asking to the dance in the traditional, fun way. Nathan went with an eyeball themed ask, using as many puns using the words “I” and “eye” as he could come up with. So of course there needed to be a plethora of googly eyes. Not only were there tons (my sister Rachael was still finding eyeballs on her driveway days later) but he found some crazy big googly eyes at Hobby Lobby and just couldn’t resist. I can’t say that I blame him. The things are freaking hilarious. AND they glow in the dark. Best googly eyes ever!

His date joined the fun and answered as she was asked…using a bunch of eyeballs. It sounds like these kids are going to have a good time!