Carly’s Grade 8 Basketball Season

Carly’s basketball season through the middle school ran October 23 – December 13. She played on the varsity team.  It was a challenging season for Chief Kanim.  They only had two other schools to play against.  Tolt was a very strong team that dominated each and every game. Twin Falls had a couple strong players that weren’t there on a consistent basis.  If Twin Falls was missing one of their best players we were able to pull out a win, if they had all their players it was much tougher for us. 

Carly has always played aggressively – she has no qualms about getting up in someone’s face.  Sometimes she takes a hit herself.

I sure hope I see this girl playing basketball next year in high school!

Holiday Performances

Tis the season for concerts and enjoying the musical talents of our kiddos. 

First up was Carly’s performance at the Fall City Holiday Market on Saturday, December 2.  She signed up to play a few pieces with two of her friends.  They wore festive attire and did a great job.  Carly played both the clarinet and the piano (though not at the same time).

Abigail and Megan came to support their little sisters (or just to hang out with each other)

The following Monday, December 4, Jason’s school choir performed at Winterfest at the Seattle Center.  My friend Addy also has a son in choir so we decided we’d get sitters for our littles and that instead of chaperoning (like I did last year) we’d skip riding the bus with a bunch of excited fourth and fifth graders and instead drive into Seattle on our own.  We got there before the kids and enjoyed a warm drink at Starbucks.

The choir sang several songs.  Midway through Jason disappeared from the top of risers, then after a few minutes he’d reemerge.  Last year he had an experience during a performance at the school where he got really dizzy and needed to sit down on the risers.  I knew he must have been having the same unfortunate experience today.  It was a little humorous to have him there one minute and not the next.  He must have sat down at least 4 times during the performances.

I was a bit concerned because he was supposed to play the drums during one of the songs.  Thankfully, he was good to go when that time came.

Here’s a clip of some of the songs they performed.  You can even catch Jason going down during one of them.

The kids got to eat lunch and hang out in the armory afterward.  Jason enjoyed a game of checkers with a buddy.

Addy and I ate lunch after the kids left on the buses and then did a little shopping downtown before heading home.

Abigail played a Sacrament Musical Number on December 17.  Our deal with her stopping piano lessons was that she’d need to play in sacrament meeting at least twice a year.  She did a beautiful job.  I recorded it on the sly, just because I know she’ll never play it for me at home to record. 

Jason had an early morning Band Concert on December 19 – I didn’t sit in the best spot for having a good view of Jason playing his clarinet – he’s front row, far left.  Here are a few little clips of some of the songs they played.  I particularly liked the first song, which they played backwards – ha!

Great job Jason!

November Closer

Nov 3:  Justin went to the Garth Brooks concert with his Dad tonight.  I believe it is the same tour Justin and I went down to Portland to see back in 2015.  No question they both had a great time.

Nov 6:  Apparently Drew and Abigail have been talking about going on a “lunch date” for quite a while now.  When Abigail got home from school today Drew informed her that today was the day and no amount of persuasion or bribery could convince him to move the picnic inside.  I don’t think anyone else could get Abigail to go along with such a crazy idea.  Their picnic included Cars UNO and candy.

Nov 10:  We’ve been looking at cars for many, many months.  We’d recently decided that we’d likely get an Acura in the spring; however, after the snowstorm this past weekend Justin checked current inventory and found one in Portland that was better priced than the only one they had locally and it was the color we wanted.  So, this morning we called the dealership in Oregon and told them to get it ready for us and we’d be there in three hours to sign the paperwork.

Traffic was a bit of a bear so by the time to got into the Portland area we were all starving.  We stopped first at Pine State Biscuits for a yummy lunch.

It was good thing we got something to eat because the process at the dealership was long.  They did their best to move things along, but we wanted a few accessories included and installed tax-free (crossbars/roof rack for our cargo carrier) and the paperwork is extensive.  It was by far the easiest car buying experience ever though, just takes a long time regardless.

They shared a photo of us with our new wheels on their Facebook page.

We couldn’t pass up an opportunity for some tax-free shopping so we dropped the three girls off at the mall and the rest of us went to Costco to do some shopping.  It was a late night driving home for us, but I didn’t mind getting acquainted with my new car.  Quite the upgrade from the minivan I’ve been driving for 11 years.

Nov 12:  Today was our ward primary program.  I didn’t get any pictures of our primary participants, but I did find this little video clip from the week before while we were watching the snowstorm.  The first part of the video has absolutely nothing to do with our primary program, but I think it’s funny that Drew is asking (mind you snow is falling outside) if we are going to get out the waterslide.  Poor kid is still bummed we never got out the slip-n-slide this past summer and will bring it up every few weeks.

In case you can’t understand the kids here are their parts:

Drew:  I use my agency when I choose to be happy

Jason:  I enjoy going to church every Sunday to learn about the gospel.

Katie:  My favorite prophet is Nephi because he listened and obeyed and went and got the plates from King Laban.

They all did a great job reciting their parts by memory and singing all the songs. 

Nov 25:  Jason is participating in both choir and band this year.  Which means he needs to get to school early four days a week.  He enjoys both though and never complains about going.  Tonight the choir (consisting of both fourth and fifth graders) performed at the Tree Lighting Ceremony in downtown Snoqualmie.  It was a cold, rainy night, but I thought we should all go support him.

It was a zoo.  We were running late so I ran ahead with Jason to get him where he needed to be.  I didn’t see the rest of the family until it was all over.  I stood on the edge of the outside of the gazebo and held onto a pole while the kids sang – it gave me an ok view and kept me mostly dry.  Can you find Jason?  He’s wearing a back hood and standing in the back.

Goodness, the things we do in support of our children!

After Jason was done singing we grabbed some lukewarm hot cocoa and subpar cookies and beelined it to the car to head home. I took this fun picture of the kids playing Spot It later that night.  Abigail bought this for Katie last year for Christmas and I’d guess it’s been our most playing game of 2017.  Fun for all ages!

Nov 30:  Totally random picture, but something about it makes me happy.  We’d just had our baseboards repainted from having them removed to install hardwood in this room (over 2 months ago) so the furniture was out of place and the curtains pulled off the floor. There are library books everywhere – totally the norm.  Justin is helping Jason go over his math homework and both Drew and Katie are content reading.  It’s life – and thankfully a brief moment where nobody was getting on each other’s nerves.

Thanksgiving 2017

During the week of Thanksgiving we decorated our traditional Thanksgiving Turkey – taking turns writing down things we are particularly grateful for this year.

Drew had a couple fun fall projects in preschool.

The turkey project below is one that Katie also did when she was in Mrs. Hammer’s preschool and we were lucky enough to have Grandma Kesler in town to help Katie put together a turkey worthy of “The Prettiest Turkey Award.”  I’m not a fan of the crafty stuff so I commissioned Carly into helping Drew decorate his turkey.  How fitting that he brought home “The Most Handsome Turkey Award”

Drew also had a fun Thanksgiving Celebration at preschool where he was given a headdress and an Indian name for the day – “Strong Wolf”

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Baumgartner’s house.  The only picture we got of the cousins was while they were eating pie.

I asked Tami to take a quick picture of my family after dinner that we could use for our Christmas card this year.  We didn’t have any decent pictures with all of us from this year – so here’s one :) These people are my greatest blessings!

After feasting with the Fletcher family we returned home and snuck in a photo with our Thanksgiving pumpkin…

… and then quickly moved onto Christmas.  Abigail was itching to draw names for the kids secret sibling gifts and we completed our first tis the season puzzle while listening to Christmas music and staying up way past bedtime.