Hip, Hip Hooray! It’s Annual Pie Day!

Today was the yearly Thanksgiving Eve pie making marathon. It was a notable occasion because for the first time ever, we had four generations of female family members in attendance. The only ones missing were my niece Sage and her two darling daughters. I’m so grateful that these traditions are becoming beloved for the younger generations. Family ties are priceless and I’m glad that I can actually say that my sisters are also my friends. I’m equally grateful that Malia counts her cousins among her best friends.

And it was also a productive night. Yum! Pie!

My personal contributions to the pie smorgasbord this year were a cranberry orange custard pie (one that I tried last year and really enjoyed) and a pecan cream pie. I can hardly wait to try it tomorrow!

Proud of Our Veterans

Our elementary school does a Veteran’s Day assembly every year. They have the kids invite any veterans or active military members they know, the kids sing songs, talk about what Veteran’s Day is, share stories about the military members in their families and honor all those who have or are serving in any branch of the military. This year when the kids were asked to volunteer if they wanted to speak about a family member in the armed forces, Malia volunteered. I thought she was kidding until the note came home because it didn’t seem like something she would want to do. I was obviously wrong, and she called her Aunt Connie and Uncle Arrin whose son Zach is currently in the Marines and stationed in Okinawa. Although I know she was very nervous, she did a great job. I’m so proud that she recognizes what an important job her cousin is doing and was willing to share a bit about him with the entire school and all the family members who came to the assembly.

Matthew was part of the scout troop that posted the flags (he was actually the one calling the colors) and went to the assembly with me even though he has been at home sick for the past two days. He felt strongly about fulfilling the commitment he had made and really wanted to be there. He didn’t stay for the remainder of the school day, but hopefully he will be on the up and up tomorrow.

I’m so proud of Matthew and Malia, not just because of their willingness to work hard when they commit to things, but because they honor those people who serve in the armed forces. I’m so grateful for and respect those that have served and are still willing to serve and I’m terribly glad my kids are learning that same gratitude and respect.

No Tricks, Just Treats!

As I’ve said before, I think Halloween is fun. I mean, you get to dress up, have a themed dinner, run around the neighborhood way past your bedtime and then there is the candy…loads of candy. As an adult I don’t really participate in most of those things, but I really enjoy getting the kiddies ready to participate. This year’s dinner consisted of mummy calzones, the traditional brain J-ello and a new favorite, Franken-kiwi. Everybody loved those. 😊

Malia decided that this was the year she was going mermaid. She picked out the pattern and the fabrics and even told me that she needed wavy hair because that’s what kind of hair mermaids have. My sis Rachael gave me a crafting tip and I glued shells onto bobby pins to make Malia’s coiffure as accurate as possible. I think the whole thing worked together very well and even more importantly, Malia loved it.

Last year I had to talk really hard to even get Matthew to dress up. I think he felt like dressing up was a little boy thing and he very much wanted to outgrow the little and move on to the big boy. This year I didn’t need to do any convincing. He wanted to be Dr. Strange. After consulting a number of internet photos, we looked at many different patterns to find just the right style for his cape and vest, he selected just the right fabric, and we shopped women’s boots for his footwear since he isn’t in men’s sizes yet and little boy boots have a tendency to be covered with pictures of superheroes, turtles, etc. A trip to the DI and a perusal of Amazon for an accurate Eye of Agamotto completed his look. We were both pleased with the results.

After marching around the neighborhood for a while, Malia came home and dumped out her bag of booty for the yearly ritual of sorting out the stuff that will kill her. For the first time ever, I had a child end up with more in the “safe” pile. I was pleasantly surprised, and Malia was thrilled, of course. I suspect the reason for the shift is the fact that this year our elementary went nut free. The only place in the school where nuts are allowed is in the lunchroom. All the classrooms are nut free. The school has done some educating and as a food allergy mom, I’ve done quite a bit of educating as well. I think the end result is that more people are aware of how the labeling works, how many seemingly innocuous foods are dangerous for kids with nut allergies, and just how many people are affected by food allergies. But no matter the reason, I had one happy mermaid on my hands.

And then, all hyped up on sugar, my topless mermaid dashed to open the door for those who were still scouring the neighborhood in search of treats. I’m not sure why she decided to alter her costume from its original G-rating, but at least she had a flesh colored leotard underneath!

Matthew was less interested in the candy (which is pretty normal for him) and just wandered around the neighborhood with his friends. But I’m glad he took advantage of his last year of trick or treating to enjoy himself rather than trying to grow up so fast. He has no idea just how quickly time passes and in future years, I think he’ll be glad he embraced this one last bit of childhood. Plus, he was really pleased with how his costume turned out and he was the only Dr. Strange in the whole school!

Making Time for Jack

Our schedule has been a bit hectic of late. We managed to fit in a trip to the pumpkin patch last week but tonight was the first evening when we had time to carve them. Daniel has been so busy that he didn’t even choose a pumpkin this year so our Jack O’Lantern total this year is three. The kiddos went with mostly tradition designs this year. Nathan chose a scary pumpkin face and Malia selected a cat. Only Matthew strayed from the typical and carved a sports car. He got frustrated partway through due to the high level of detail and a few wrong cuts, but some toothpicks helped repair the slips and although he was not terribly pleased with the result, I think it turned out just fine.

Commander-in-Chief

Tonight is pumpkin carving night. Matthew googled “scary pumpkin carving template” and it pulled up this.

Cue laughter.

Poor Jolly!

This year Malia decided to decorate her playhouse for Halloween. She rigged up some fantastic spiderwebs all along the roof line. I went in to check on her after she went to bed last night and discovered this:

Hopefully Jolly doesn’t start having spider related nightmares like I get.😂

What a Wonderful World

Since we drove south to see Daniel’s competition yesterday, we decided to take advantage of our location and traveled home via Zion’s National Park. We only had about half a day to spend in the park, but we rode the shuttle nearly to the top of the park and hiked up to weeping rock. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Zion’s and it was the best time of the year to go. It is far too hot for me in the summer, a migraine inducer to beat no other, so visiting in October was perfect. It was warm enough to go without a jacket as the base of the park and just a tad chilly in the upper reaches. It meant that I was able to do our small hike with no negative after effects. This is truly beautiful country.

After a long day yesterday, sleeping in an unfamiliar bed and an exciting morning, we had some pretty tired kiddos by lunch time. We had considered driving home via Bryce Canyon, but taking consideration the state of our children, we chose to take the more direct, shorter route home.

By the time we got to Beaver, we were all a little slap happy. Malia had to burn off some energy after being in the car for so long and got friendly with the mascot of a local gas station.

Dinner seemed like a no brainer as well although in the end, we opted for pork tacos instead of the beaver. 😜

It was a long couple of days, but we enjoyed out little road trip.

Marching to the Beat of Their Own Drumline

Marching band has been Daniel’s life for the past three months. Pretty much all he has had time for is school and marching band. But he absolutely loves band, so in his opinion having it consume all his time is a good thing. As the season has neared its end, however, he has begun to realize that this is the last time he’ll be doing everything he is doing. It is the bitter mixed with the sweet. He was the woodwind platoon leader this year so having that additional responsibility for and interaction with the other kids in his section have made the impending end of the season even a bit harder.

Today was the last competition of the season, the marching band state championship. The size of our high school’s marching band increased so much this year that they ended up in the 5A division, the one with the largest bands. In our state, the top three bands have been in the top three pretty much forever. And the 1st place winner has been the same school for 20ish years. As such, our little band didn’t hold out much hope as far as winning goes, but they were determined to give it their all. And our band teacher wanted nothing more for them than to see them do their best and improve with each competition. Although they ended up scoring last in their division, they all felt like they gave their best performance of the season and were really pleased with that.

The state championship competition is held in St. George each year and since this is Daniel’s last year, we decided to drive down so we could see the competition. One of the things that our marching band has become known for state wide is the fact that they cheer for everyone. No matter which band is playing and no matter how good they are, our kids cheer for them. This competition was no different and it was really great to see that some of the other bands that generally cheer for no one else have begun to reciprocate to our kids. In spite of the fact that they were the little fish in the big division pond this year, they have earned the respect of the other bands in the state for their sportsmanship and enthusiasm. I honestly could not think of anything better for which to be known.

It’s an ending for Daniel, only the first of many to come in the next year. But it has also been an amazingly good experience for him and I’m so proud of how well he has done.