yet more musical news

Michael and Adrienne are both in marching band now.  They had their first and only official parade last Saturday during our city's yearly celebration.  Now they'll learn the music for the fall season, and later this summer they'll bust their behinds learning the field routine.

It was a bit humid, so M & A were glad to get out of those toasty uniforms.  The theme for this season's show honors our longtime head music director, Mr. Gottwig, who is set to retire after the 2015-16 year.  They designed t-shirts with his image...

Right after the parade we buzzed up to the northern 'burbs so the kids could play with uncle Andrew's band at his backyard summer solstice party.  Low Rider was a big hit.

And last but not least, Saturday morning Nicky received the letter we'd been waiting for.  He'd auditioned for Minnesota Youth Symphonies on June 12th, and the letter offered him a spot in their String Orchestra.  Though it's the lowest of their 4 orchestras, it's an intermediate level and we weren't sure he was ready for it with his 3 years of violin lessons.  But, we're gonna be spending our Saturday mornings at rehearsals in St. Paul this coming school year!

Heron poop?

Stop right now if you have a weak stomach. I've warned readers of this blog not to eat before reading Crayziee Life, and today is no exception. Since I'm not too easily grossed out, and somewhere in my psyche lives an 8 year old boy (ask Nate about the Whoopee Cushion), I'm starting off with giant bird poop.

The suspected culprits are Great Blue Heron(s) or Great Egret(s)

Guess I'll be scrubbing this off later today. Oh, the unexpected joys of living by a pond. Actually, it's not the first time it's happened, though I think last time there were only huge puddles of bird dung on the deck. This is more in-your-face. I wonder what we did to deserve this? I haven't fried any of their chicken cousins on the grill yet this year, only cows and pigs.

But enough about bird feces.  It's the end of the school year around here. Nicky and Zach finished yesterday, Adrienne's at Valleyfair today, and after a half day tomorrow, she and Michael are finished. May was full of year end events. Camp Pepin for Nicky, field trips, numerous concerts and recitals...

Trumpet solo? Nicky killed it at his 5th grade spring band concert, and again at the Music Academy recital.

Michael worked hard at his audition for next year's band placement, and scored a spot in the top band, Wind Ensemble. Yee haw! Though it'll mean even more required concerts and contests. The number of incoming freshman band kids this fall is quite large, so Adrienne's 8th grade class was given the option to audition for placement outside of 9th grade band next year. She did, and was placed in Concert Band. We are so proud of our musicians!

Seems like I just posted those 'first day of school' pics from last fall, and here the younger two are on their last day. Yesterday was the last time Zach and Nicky went off to the same school together. Except for the year Nicky's a freshman when Adrienne's a senior, both of them will be going it alone from here.

Happy summer! It'll fly by like it always does.

Semi-formal!

Adrienne went to the 8th grade semi-formal last Friday. She'd been looking forward to it forever. $60 on a dress she'll probably never wear again, but oh well. Memories! We had fun mom/daughter girly time doing hair, make-up, jewelry and junk. Bummer that the poor kid has fine hair like mine that falls flat and loses curl easily.

She and I had dinner with a couple of her friends and their moms, then took pics at a park before the girls headed off to the dance. Us moms had to stop all of them from going down the slide on the playground, so they aren't too old.

But, they are young enough not to know what this pose references. The girl on the left said, "I'm Bond, James Bond." and then Adrienne said "I'm Jones, Indiana Jones." Ha!

Come Holy Ghost

Congratulations to Michael, who was confirmed at the magnificent Cathedral of St. Paul last night.  It was jam packed with an energetic group of 242 confirmands and their families, from several metro parishes.  

Michael with our priests Fr. Wilson and Fr. Milless

Happy Easter...still

Since the season is 50 days long, this isn't late:

"Poor death, where is your sting?

Poor hell, where is your triumph?

Christ steps out of the tomb and you are

reduced to nothing!

Christ rises and the angels are wild with delight.

Christ rises and life is set free.

Christ rises and graves are emptied of dead.

Oh yes, for He broke from the tomb like a flower,

a beautiful fruit: the first fruit of those already gone.

All glory be His, all success and power . . .

forever and ever."

St John Chrysostom

Excerpt from Easter homily

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Spring 2015

The kids had spring break last week. No Cancun or Disney trips for us. We stayed home to pick up trash that blew around during those freaky windy days.  But it wasn't all earth saving fun. Michael turned 16 (!!), and of course, Easter Sunday celebrating yesterday...

I thought Skippy would run around nutso while the kids looked for eggs, but this worked better. He shouldn't be hunting down chocolate treats anyway.

The kids are getting big, but are still up for any traditions that involve candy or presents.

Happy Easter to all!

toothy news and Nicky's older

We've made lots of trips to the ortho and oral surgeon lately, with no end in sight.  Adrienne had upper and lower space maintainers installed at the ortho, then ten teeth pulled about a month ago (6 baby, 4 adult), and has been in braces for a couple weeks now.  That was a lot to endure in the space of a month, and the poor kid has to pretty much gum her food to death right now.  There was just too much crowding for the adult teeth to properly kick out her baby teeth.  Most of her other baby teeth had been pulled as well.  After the braces went on she immediately took a selfie and sent it to her friends, but letting me take a picture was another matter. 

Michael has had a little break from all that since he's been out of braces for about a year now, but next week he's set to have all his (still impacted) wisdom teeth removed.  He's understandably a bit freaked out at the prospect.

Yesterday was Nicky's 11th birthday...

That's the dog though.  So, Nicky wanted an ice cream cake.  I'd made one before, and the Oreo fudgy layer was too firm.  This time it was too soupy.

There are lots of photos out there of sparkly magical princess cakes, or creative superhero cakes or whatever.  But my cake pooped itself.  Always the nonconformist.

At least it looks better from the top.  Maybe the third time will be the charm for figuring out the right proportion of fudgy goo to Oreo.  But an excess of chocolate goo is never really a bad thing.

Happy birthday to our goofy smart musical funny Nicky, who's growing up too fast.

Lent day 1

Father Barron sends daily Lent reflections y'all.  An excerpt:

We've heard it often; it's probably emblazoned in our minds-but we need to hear it again: "The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being." On Ash Wednesday, we hear echoes of this in the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."

Today we are reminded that our lives come from God. Our very existence comes from God. We are owed nothing. We have nothing coming to us. Every breath we take is a reminder of our dependency upon God; every beat of our heart is a reminder that God is the Lord.

As we begin our Lenten journey, let us take a few minutes to reflect on the reality that without God we are nothing and to give thanks that God loved us into being.

TBT Nicky style

Last weekend Michael wanted to watch some old home videos.  They've been sitting in the closet for years, so I said heck, why not.  Looks like 2005 is when we started putting them onto DVD instead of VHS tapes, but since we don't own a VCR anymore, we can't watch the videos from '99 to '04.  Not until we get around to transferring the original Hi8's (or whatever they were) to DVD or Blu-ray.  Pain in the rear!  But anyway, we watched a couple from '05 and '06.  I forgot just how different it was then.  Nowadays our home videos are something like 60% concerts, then birthdays and holidays.  When the kids were little, we just filmed them being kids.  And man oh man, I forgot how noisy it is to live in a house with little kids.  After watching several whiny kid outbursts, Nate and I looked at each other and wondered how we survived those years.  Probably because the kids were adorable even when they were little monsters.  I had to put a few scenes together from 2006 that showcase Nicky when he was 2 and cuter than a bug's ear.

holiday recap 2014

Michael got another letter, this time for Marching Band.  I don't remember what all the requirements were, but one of 'em was to make at least 90% of practices, and I don't think he missed any.  He stood out among his peers and earned a tough solo part despite being a sophomore.  But he didn't like it and doesn't want to do it this year, sigh.  We have lots of experience with the kids trying other (usually sporty) things and it not working out so slick, so it was easier to let it go.  But it's tough to know what to do when you think your kid is good at something but doesn't wanna do it.  We already 'made' him do it last year to at least try it out. 

Nicky was asked to be in an 'honor choir' that performed during the holiday concert just before Christmas.  There were fifteen 5th graders from each of the 5 district grade schools.  The various high school choirs and swanky wind ensemble band played too.

Our little forest of fake trees, all scored from garage sales.  They're kinda short though, so that's why we bought the bigger one that had all that ugly LED light on it.  But only after it went on sale.  And we had 40 bucks in rebates.  And we bought some non-LED lights at 70% off for next year.  Dunno if we paid retail price for anything in our house, now that I think about it.

It's Christmas Eve, yee-haw!  The kids could barely sit still to take a pre-present-opening pic.  Earlier, Michael had played trombone in a little brass ensemble at the mega-packed 4:00 mass, and then we headed home for dinner - turkey, my fav.  Mmm.  Anyway, they were raring to go by this time.

The following morning, after opening Santa's loot.  Ahhhhhh.  So much glee shoved into so little time.  Nate and I were breathing a sigh of relief too, having made it that far with nobody getting ill with a barf bug or the flu.  They'd had to go to school through Tuesday the 23rd, and so many kids were out sick for much of December.  I gave them speeches every day before school about germs and hand washing and not touching your face blah blah blah...

For Christmas on Nate's side, several of the grandkids play their various instruments before we open presents.  For the past few years, our older 3 played music arranged by Nate.  Sort of a weird trio of trombone, violin, and clarinet, but it works okay.  Nicky played trumpet for one of the songs.  Notice Adrienne's lack of glasses.  She just got contacts.  Not enough to wear every day, cuz they're the dailies, but she's pretty psyched.  It's nice to see her eyes again. 

The house is quiet with the kids back in school, and a mild December has given way to a frigid January so far.  But we had a lovely time with our loved ones over the holidays.  Hope you had a Merry Christmas, too.  Happy New Year 2015!