Elf, Jr.

My kids performed in their Stage Kids production of Elf, Jr. this past weekend.  Staley was less enthused about this play since she had just performed it last winter with her middle school drama club, but still enjoyed being a part of another production.

Eureka and Peoria combined casts to bring the show to stage.

Staley, Adelie, and Briggs were all members of the ensemble with Staley and Adelie both having a few small featured parts and lines.

Staley got to open the New York scene by calling for a taxi, was the sales lady at Macy's, and had a few other lines in songs and scenes.  Adelie and Briggs were both elves and kids in New York.  Adelie had one line as an elf and got to be the bratty kid who sat on Santa's lap to ask for a toy during the Macy's scene.  They all did a great job creating their characters, delivering their lines, and singing and dancing on stage.  Adelie's confidence on stage and stage presence has really blossomed over the last year of shows that she has done.

I always love seeing my kids grow in their comfort and abilities on stage.

The kids were supported by lots of people.  Uma and Papa...

Grammie and Grandpa...

Zach's Aunt Sandi and Aunt Jan...

and Miss Vickie were all in the audience.

Staley's friend, Maggie, came to see the show with her mom.

Adelie's friend, Stella, was also there with her mom.

NTA and the people in it have really become like a family to my kids.

I love how my kids continue to develop friendships, meeting new friends each show while deepening friendships with others.

Many of the kids are regulars like our kids so they enjoy being together show after show while we enjoy getting to know their families.

Just like everything in life, there are good things and bad things about NTA.  But as a whole, it has been such a blessing for our kids and our family.

Elf, Jr. was another successful show.  The kids are already looking forward to the next one.

Truth

Keeping up on jobs around the house is a never-ending task, and it's one that I'm not very good at.  On Tuesday before Thanksgiving I finally removed the last of our rotting Halloween pumpkins from the porch.

At least I had them gone a full 3 days before we started decorating for Christmas.  Although nothing quite screams Christmas cheer like icicle lights, greenery, and rotten pumpkins.

Lucky

For the plays that my kids are in, I have to put stage make-up on them and do their hair before the show.  Briggs just has to wear powder, eye liner, and blush, but he always complains about "looking like a girl" when we have to do his make-up.

The kids had their Elf, Jr. play this past week-end.  As I was French braiding Staley's hair, Briggs walked by and Staley said, "You're lucky you're a boy and have short hair so you don't have to get your hair braided."  In reply, Briggs answered right back, "You're lucky make-up doesn't make you look like a boy."

I guess that means all my kids are lucky.

My lucky kids

Question of the Day

We always seem to be running late for everything.  Church.  Activities.  Performances.  School.  Getting out of the house is one of my least favorite mothering activities as my kids (especially the younger two) don't seem to understand the concept of time or have any sense of urgency about getting anywhere when we are supposed to.  Sliding in a minute or two late with a flustered and frustrated mother seems to be our norm.

The girls had a cousin sleepover with Lila at Uma and Papa's house the night before Thanksgiving, so they just met us at Thanksgiving.  That meant I only had to worry about getting one kid out of the house on time.  We were still late.  So the question:

Does that mean maybe I'm the problem?

Amazing

When we were new home owners starting to decorate our house, I accumulated a number of decorative clocks that I liked.  Many of them were difficult to tell time on, but I liked their fun, modern look.  We still have them hanging in our house as decor, but because we don't typically use them functionally to tell time, we are not good about replacing batteries or keeping them running.  It has probably been several years since they were actually working.

The other day, Zach replaced all the batteries in our various clocks and made sure they were all working.  Now we have a handful clocks that were previously static that now the second hand is moving or the pendulum is swinging.  The morning after Zach had fixed the clocks, Briggs came running up to me and said, "Mom!  Mom!  The clocks are doing amazing things!"

Yep.  They are working.  Guess the bar for "amazing" is pretty low at our house.

I Love to Twirl

When Staley was little, she had a very favorite outfit.  It was her 'I Love to Twirl' dress.  She wanted to wear it every single day.  If it was in her closet, I could generally not talk her into wearing anything else.  I had to start keeping it in the laundry room for a few days after I had washed it just so that she would wear other clothes.

Now Staley is almost 12.  She has a favorite Hamilton sweatshirt.  Although she doesn't wear it every single day, she wears it at least once a week.  If it's clean in her closet, she's generally wearing it.  We have started to refer to this sweatshirt as her 'I Love to Twirl' dress.

My kids all have closets and dressers full of clothes, yet they all seem to rotate through about 5 favorite shirts/outfits, ignoring many of the cute things they own.  I find myself laundering the same cycle of clothing week in and week out.  This week I gave them a challenge of wearing something in their closet every day that they haven't worn yet this fall.  Sometimes it's frustrating to me to see all those unworn clothes hanging in their closets while they wear the same things again and again.  But then I look down at myself wearing one of my favorite sweatshirts yet again...

and realize it may just be genetic.

Happiness Is...

We all experience happiness in different ways and on different terms.  But for me in this moment, happiness is...

...spending an uninterrupted day and a half cleaning out and organizing the playroom.

...having a pile of toys and books and art stuff to donate or give away.

...having bags of old art supplies, dried paints, broken toys, mountains of drawings, and mostly used coloring books to recycle or throw away.

...having drawers that shut, shelves that aren't stuffed, and bins that are not overflowing.

...having clear tabletop and desk top surfaces.

...having everything in a place and knowing where that place is.

It may seem silly, but this.

This makes me happy.

St. Louis

One of the Christmas presents we bought the kids last year (but never got to give them) was tickets to go see the musical 'Frozen' in Chicago.  Briggs got covid and we ended up in covid quarantine so we weren't able to go.  We were able to get our tickets refunded, but it remained on my list of things that I thought the kids would enjoy.  So when 'Frozen' came to the Fox Theater in St. Louis, we decided to make it happen.

So excited!!

We left right after school on a Friday, listened to 'Because of Winn Dixie' as our audiobook of the trip, ate some dinner in the car, lucked out on finding a (free) parking spot a few blocks from the theater, and took our seats literally seconds before the lights dimmed and the show started.

The show was great!  The acting, the singing, the dancing, the sets, the effects, the costumes ...it was all very well done and a lot of fun.  Sven and Olaf were favorites.  So was Oaken.

This was Briggs' first time in a big, fancy theater like this, and he really enjoyed it.

It was really fun to get dressed up as a family and enjoy a night out at the theater.

After a good night of sleep in our hotel and a big hotel breakfast, we headed to the St. Louis Zoo for the day.  It's my favorite.

We saw our favorite animals, walked around our favorite exhibits, and Briggs and I rode a few loops around the zoo on the train.

We enjoyed our day at the zoo, played a bit at Turtle Park, and hit Culver's on the way home.  It was a fun little family outing doing some of our favorite things in one of our favorite places.

Truth

My kids go through crazy amounts of tape.  I'm fine with that.

They put all the empty tape containers back into the desk drawer and never tell me when they've run out, so when I go to find some tape, all I find is a drawer full of empty rolls.  I'm less fine and more annoyed by that.

Good-bye, October!

It started with our Columbus Day get-away and ended with Halloween, but there were some other highlights throughout the month of October as well.

We went to the cross country state meet for junior high to cheer on Elliott and the Eureka girls.

Staley joined the International Thespian Society and attended a one-day leadership workshop with some of her NTA theater friends.

I chaperoned Adelie's 4th grade field trip to Springfield to visit Lincoln's tomb, Lincoln's house, the old State Capitol building, and New Salem.

I've realized that the older I get, the less comfortable school buses are.

On the plus side, the sites were interesting and my group of kids was easy.

We got together to celebrate October birthdays with my family.

Adelie got chosen for Safety Patrol at school this quarter, so she has been ensuring safety and rule following in the hallways before and after school.  She also got selected to be part of the Hornet Buzz, the school news team.  It was a big month for Adelie!

Adelie shared her testimony and pictures from her baptism at church one Sunday.

We took advantage of the nice fall weather to enjoy Briggs' activity of choice...a trip to bicycle safety town and dinner at Culver's.

There have been school projects and activities, like this diorama Adelie made of the book 'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry."

The rest of our October has been full with our plethora of weekly activities and trying to fit in all the fall fun before the weather turns, including attending a few more football games and cross country meets, playing outside with neighbors, and trying to keep up with the raking.

It was a busy month, but full of many of our fall favorites.

Covid Question of the Day

After over 2.5 years of Covid in our world, should I be feeling sad and disappointed that I finally caught it?

Or should I be grateful that I never felt that bad, but instead had a full week of isolation where I got to sleep in every day, skip work and other obligations, rely on Zach to handle all the kids' activities, and get loads of stuff done around the house?

Is it even a question?

Halloween

Halloween follows a typical trajectory in our house.  It starts with a month of costume discussion and decision making, includes some pumpkin carving and school parties, and culminates in a night of candy gathering.  It is still one that my kids look forward to and enjoy planning for throughout the year.

Briggs decided early on that he wanted to be Harry Potter for Halloween and never really wavered.  The Gryffindor robe that Staley wore as Hermione and Adelie wore as Ginny was too big for Briggs, so we borrowed his costume from another friend.  A little hair gel and a lightning scar completed the look.

Adelie had a few different ideas that she tossed around, but I encouraged her to make use of the bumblebee costume we already had and she agreed.  It was always one of my favorites.  What a cute little bumblebee!!

Staley was the trickiest as she wasn't sure if she wanted to dress up or what she would want to be.  When Google helped me come up with this idea for apple pi, Staley thought it was a good idea.  It was easy to make this happen.

Staley also dressed up like an M & M to match her partner Maggie for the Penguin Project Halloween rehearsal.  Maggie's parents made the shirts and tutus.

I had tried to talk Staley into being a ceiling fan as I thought it was a very clever idea, but she was not interested.  Not wanting a good idea to go to waste, I made the costume for myself instead.

Zach dressed up like his friend, Chris, for Halloween.  And there were at least a handful of people that immediately knew what his costume was...including Chris.

We made our last minute trip to Ackerman Farm to pick out our pumpkins the week before Halloween, and then carved them the week-end before the big day.

Briggs made his pumpkin into Harry Potter.

Adelie's was a cat.

And Staley's was a cannibal.

Zach always enjoys doing a more intricate pumpkin, and this year he went with Captain America.

I attended the school parties for both Briggs's and Adelie's classes.

Games, crafts, and treats always make school parties fun.

Next year, I will be down to one kid at the grade school that gets to celebrate with school parties.  I'm not sure whether to be excited or sad about that.

Either way, I love that my kids always want me to be there for any activity they have at school.

At the middle school, I do miss the opportunities to be in the classrooms, getting to know the teachers and the other kids.

Adelie and Briggs wanted to follow up their day of classroom parties with the opportunity to attend the Boo Bash at their school in the evening.  It was crowded and loud, but they enjoyed seeing friends, doing crafts, and playing games.

And the culmination?  A fun night of trick or treating with friends.  Stella and Olivia and their parents joined us for a trip around our neighborhood, and then Zach and the kids went to their neighborhood to make the rounds there as well.  The weather was beautiful and the candy was plentiful.

It was a happy Halloween!!