Eldest & All-Region Band

He tried out in Nov or Dec and made the 2nd to top band this year (no alternate position for him this year!). So this past weekend was taken up w/ his practices and concert. Too bad it came at a time when he has tons of make up work due to our Christmas vacation in Australia!

School is out..

and has been for three weeks and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it!

In May, my oldest DS had a great number of things going on related to the end of school:

* induction into the National Junior Honor Society
* Duke TIP Recognition Ceremony
* End of Year Band concert
* Auditions for placement in band for next year (made the highest band!)
* Signed up to play football! A new adventure.
* Did extremely well on the state assessment tests (was commended, again ;-) )
* Finished up with speech -- hopefully for good!


My youngest finished the school year strong -- he took the state assesment tests for the first time ever and was commended! Very proud!

Now summer is in full swing. We started it off by having belated birthday parties for both boys. Youngest had a swimming party with friends; oldest, a pizza party and Toy Story 3 viewing.

The oldest is involved in many things this summer:

Band camp (two weeks, now over), football conditioning camp (starts Monday), Youth camp at church, & volunteering at VBS @ church.

The youngest has a much more relaxed schedule (thank goodness) and will attend VBS and Kids' camp w/ church.

The only other news here is that the hubby resigned from his old job and has started with another company, doing basicaly the same thing. No move (physically) was required. Thank goodness for companies that allow telecommuting! With both sets of parents in the area, a move just isn't in the cards for us at this time.

So, other than that, it's just a hot, Texas summer.

Another accomplishment for my oldest

He pulled an envelope out of his backpack tonight. It is an invitation to join the National Elementary Honor Society! The induction ceremony is this Tuesday night. Too bad mom is still in the hospital. I know that she'd love to be there. We'll have to videotape the whole thing.

It's been a great week for my oldest!

My son the musician...

My son is in 6th grade this year. His school has 3 bands for the 7th adn 8th graders. During the past two or three weeks the 6th graders who want to continue with band next year have been trying out for the different bands.

My guy said he was shooting for the middle band. He was required to play all pieces with 80% accuracy. Well, the results were posted this past week and he made it into the TOP band!!!! I am so proud of him. Once he'd started practicing, I think he decided to just do his very best and see what happened.

He's in the top band next year! oh, you might need to take cover, my buttons are popping I'm so proud!

Pictures of the Lonely Mountain Project

My oldest DS has to make a project for his English class. They've been reading The Hobbit. He decided to make the Lonely Mountain.


He made a 100 on the project!

School project

My oldest DS had a project to do for The Hobbit for his gifted and talented class. He chose to create a scene/setting from the book. It took two weekends (no weekdays) to do it. He and his dad created the mountain base out of paper mache last weekend. This weekend they made the top of the mountain, which is removable, and painted everything.

My contribution to the project was to go in search of a small plastic dragon. Hobby Lobby came through. They have a selection fo products called 'Toobs' which is a plastic tube filled with whatever plastic figurines you might need. Our dragon came from the Knights and Dragon collection.

The eldest insisted on the dragon being red, just as Smaug is in the book. I painted him while the guys took care of everything else. I'll try to post a photo later in the week.

January's already gone

Where did it go? We've survived another holiday season and the bills that come with it! ha. My friend's marital situation has not improved, but it hasn't deteriorated any more that I'm aware of. My children are healthy and my husband is still employed. His employer is not laying off so that's good. Unfortuantely, Texas Instruments IS laying off and friends from church are affected. We must pray that they get new jobs quickly.

We had an ice day this week and the boys were off from school. That means one extra day of school at the end of the year, or a lost in-service day for the staff/faculty. I hope it's the latter and not the former.

My oldest attended a youth weekend at our church last weekend. The emphasis was on purity and maintaining abstinence until marriage. My oldest doesn't even like girls yet. He participated in the weekend, but not in the committment ceremony that our youth pastor led. In a year or two, we'll see if he wishes to participate, but I didn't think an 11 yr. old needed to make that kind of promise -- yet.

Not much else to report.

Oh -- I have make valentines for my youngest to take to school and give out. I think they turned out very well. Here's they are: 1) is for his teacher and 2) is a sample of the ones he's distributing. And just for the record, the red card stock has hearts stamped on it. The scan just didn't pick that up.

School has Started!

Hooray! Hooray!

I was so glad that both of the boys went back to school today. My youngest DS, the one I homeschooled last year, is in 2nd grade now. When asked how he liked the first day of school, his response was, "I LOVED it!!"

I am so glad to hear that. He told me 2nd grade wasn't as boring as he thought it was going to be.

My oldest DS started middle school today. He said it was BORING! They walked them through the schedule today; told then about grading, infractions, detention, etc., etc., etc.

I did nothing today -- except have the A/C man over to check out the non functioning downstairs A/C unit. Seems we have a leak in the coil. Ugh.

Now we're trying to decide if it's worth it to put in 1/2 the money of a new system, or if we should just bite the bullet and pay for a new system for the downstairs. The existing one is about 19 yrs. old. I'm ready to ditch it and get a new one. If nothing else, it will cost less to run!

Growing Pains

My oldest DS is scared about starting middle school. He broke down tonight and cried that he's afraid he won't be able to keep up with the assignments. I had no idea that he was so stressed about it. We've prayed and talked and cried. Then he got out of bed and came to tell the same stuff to my DH. I guess I'm learning more about what it means to let the boys learn from the school of hard knocks. I want to protect him from the heartaches, but I also know that no amount of talking from me will teach him what one or two mistakes of his own will. Suddenly teething and middle of the night feedings seem preferable.

Unfortunately, this is almost as painful for me to watch as it is for my DS to go through.