This kid is a little monkey. His legs are so skinny. They are just like David's. Speaking of, David went to Florida for a long weekend to help his parents pack some stuff for the move. He brought home this picture of himself when he was 4. It was done by an artist on the beach in Acapulco. I never really thought Noah looked much like him, but this is totally Noah when he's mad. It's kind of crazy. Even Noah saw it and said, "When did someone draw that of me?" Um, not you son. Well, at least we know he'll be super handsome when he gets older. As if we had any doubt, but you know...
Anyway, he's a monkey.
I went to go for a walk and go out front and I hear Noah calling me.
He's standing on the fence.
And look this picture of him building a stage coach in school. They posted it on their Facebook page. He worked hard on this and took off the caps of 4 containers of peanut butter for wheels. He spray painted them too, and may have got some on his Dad's shoes. He did a great job.
Last night he had his spring music concert. He looked so sweet. You can't see in this picture, but he has on his new black pants that he wanted me to get him. Size 10 slim and they are skinny jeans. I wouldn't be able to fit my toe in them and he had me cinch up the inside buttons as much as I could to make them smaller. And you know what? He eats more junk food than anyone I've ever known. I don't get it.
They did all Beatles songs. You'll have to excuse the poor video quality. David and I were passing the camera around as his teacher would sometimes cover him up, so I'd give the camera to David. The lighting in the auditorium is awful and I probably need a new phone, but you get the idea. The second song, Here Comes the Sun, is my song for Noah. When we were in the hospital and he'd lay on my chest, they said to talk to him so he can hear your voice. Well, about 5 minutes in, it gets a little boring talking to a 5 day old baby, so I'd sing him that song. But, I changed the lyrics to Here Comes my Son. It's our special song.
It's strange going to one concert and that's it. We did 3 at one point.
And even better, Noah got all A's this semester! The whole year, he always had one B and got Honor Roll, but he applied himself a little more and got all A's. Actually, school comes very easy to him and he barely has to try. Imagine if he really applied himself. He can accomplish anything!
Prescott Valley hosted their annual Prescott Valley Days Parade. We knew Emily would be in it with the band, but Ben also got to be in it. His National Junior Honor Society made a float about where they will be 20 years in the future.
We had to get them their early. Em was the first one to go.
Ben float was 25th. They were supposed to dress up as their future career, so Ben picked a detective. If this is a fast track to that which doesn't involve becoming a cop, then he can go for that line of work. He's not a cop type of person. But, his high school offers a great cyber security program, so that's kind of like an online detective. I like that better.
He was debating on going, but I'm glad he did. They have about 30 kids in the program and just a handful showed up for the parade.
It was Ben's first parade, but he got the wave thing down quickly!
Here he is after looking like a cool cat. That's his teacher right behind him. The one that looks like a teenager. She's a great teacher though and won for teacher of the year in our county.
We realized on the way there that his pants had a small hole in the butt, so he untucked his shirt.
So, that was our parade morning. It was fun, and we have lots of more parades in our future.
It's that time of year where it seems we are so busy with concerts and recitals and parties and all that craziness. I have so much to catch up on.
Emily had her winter guard recital last week. They had to perform the routine they did for all their competitions. But, they also spentthe last few weeks breaking up into small groups and making up their own routine. This was for a grade for the class since they all have guard every 7th period. You'd think putting in 30+ hours a week for 4 months would be enough to earn them an A, but what do I know?
This is her best friend on the team, Delilah. She came over after school twice a week since January. They'd eat and rest, and then I'd take them to practice at 4. I don't know how working parents do it. Well, that's the reason she came over because her parents worked and couldn't get her to practice at 4. They were in different small group routines, so they had on different costumes.
Here she is before her small group performance.
She got to learn to twirl a rifle. They do rifles and swords too.
Then, they performed their main routine.
It's always so sad at the end of these things. I remember when the Seniors would leave our cheer team, and it was awful. Then, we were the Seniors, and it was even more awful to leave.
This group of winter guard kids were a mix of 2 rival high schools. They came together, practiced, bonded, became friends, and now they go their own ways until next year. This redhead is from Prescott high.
And here's everyone hugging after. They only had one senior on the team, so she's in the middle of the pile.
Emily's friends came out to watch her performance. Ava on the right made the color guard team for next year, so they will get to do that together.
That night, they had their end of the year banquet. Emily said it was mostly for the upper classmen to get recognized. None of the freshmen parents were going, so we let her go alone. She looked so pretty and grown up. She's wearing her first pair of little heels.
We are so proud of her and all that she accomplished this year. This year was a shock for all of us. The time commitment was off the charts, but she stuck with it and pushed herself and did more than she thought she could do.
She gets 2 months to sit around and do whatever she wants. I think she earned it.
Ben got to go to Disneyland with his Student Council from school. Emily did this last year and had a blast. She wasn't in Student Council, but they let 8th grade NJHS kids go too. Ben will get to go next year too!
I think this is such a great opportunity. If you are going to learn about business and teamwork from any company, Disney is a great one to learn from. They left on a Wednesday at 10:30 at night. Our friend took them all. The 2 girls on the right are Emily's friends. I'm sure Ben loves getting lumped in with them on carpooling, but whatever. We are all in the same neighborhood, and it takes a village to raise these kids.
Here's a picture they posted on social media. Ben wasn't sleeping on the ground so that's good. It's basically 2 nights of very little sleep. The bus isn't the most comfortable.
And here's a picture of the whole group. Ben's on the right side, 3rd one in, to the left of the kid in the navy shirt.
The got home Friday at like 6AM. They are excused from school that day, so they can go home and sleep. Ben had said he might go to school. He just wanted to see how he felt. I told him he'd be tired and he'd need sleep. As it turned out, he came home and slept until 2:00! I guess he was pretty tired.
He had a great time though and learned a lot. He got to ride on pretty much every ride and had a blast! I'm so glad he was able to go.
Another Easter has come and gone. I keep thinking this will be the last holiday Noah will believe, but he just keeps on believing. Although, he is coming up with more questions. Emily found out in sixth grade, Ben was fifth, so I thought Noah would be fourth since the youngest always grows up quicker.
In any case, Easter is the one holiday that we host at our house. Emily helped out by filling the deviled eggs.
The kids dyed eggs and we watched Charlie Brown Easter Beagle the night before. I'm glad they aren't too old and cool to do stuff like this with their family.
The baskets wouldn't fit in the baskets this year.
Noah got a slime kit after about 20 failed attempts at making slime at home.
Suzy made the jelly bean cake and Nikki made the cheesecake. Talk about impressive! I heated up a ham! HA!
Mike is giving my Dad a phone lesson. He got a new phone and can't figure it out.
Me and my pops.
Me and my sweet Mama. I always think I look more like my Dad's side, but I think I look just like my Mom here. I'm a chameleon.
Suzy brought a few of their neighbors. A lot are snowbirds and don't have family here. This is Ruth. She is a sassy doll.
This is her husband Don. They are working on 66 years of marriage!
This is the other neighbor Jan. She is just the sweetest person. I'm glad my Dad and Suzy have such awesome neighbors.
My Mom and little Tammy dog. That dog is spoiled!
Here's Suzy and Nikki with their amazing cakes.
Nikki looking like a cute bunny!
And that was the whole gang. It was so nice to all get together. Ruth and Jan remarked about what a loving family we have, and we do. Not many families can have ex wives and step children and the whole hodge podge that we are and all get along. We are very fortunate.
Emily's guard team had a little show last week at Prescott high school. They are going to have a Spring Recital in a few weeks, so we will all go to that, but I got to go see her perform their show. I'll have to get video of it at some point.
But, here are a few pictures of their warm up and performance. I love the beams on the ceiling at this high school.
I know Emily has gotten so close with all these kids.
They had their final championships last weekend and they placed second in their division. They had a big team dinner after and they've had a great season.
But, they aren't quite done. They still have practices twice a week. Honestly, I think Em was exhausted last week. School is 35 hours a week, and she had guard practice and performances for 35 hours a week, with one of the days being 19 hours! It's like she had a 70 hour week! I'm glad they've tapered off to practice twice a week, and she can recoup a bit and do a final push on her school work.
It's been a great year for her, and I'm so proud of her and all she accomplished in guard.
Noah had a big assembly at school a few weeks ago. All of the 4th, 5th and 6th grade students got to learn how to make bread. Then, they all took home flour, yeast and a recipe. The assignment was to make 2 loaves of bread. One you keep. The other you return and they bring to the salvation army to feed the homeless. Sounds like a great idea!
He couldn't wait to make the bread.
We decided for our half of the dough that we would make a small loaf of bread and some cinnamon rolls.
I don't have a picture of the finished product. Probably because it went in the garbage too quickly. It was nasty. It was too dense and just blah. It wasn't anything we did in the baking process. It all worked out fine. We just didn't like the recipe. We sent the one loaf to school and that was that.
But, Noah became obsessed. He watched you tube videos and he found a bread recipe that he thought would be much better. So, the following weekend, we got to work and made a loaf of bread. He said it's on this You Tube channel called "Everyday". And then it hit me, you mean Martha Stewart Everyday? And he's like yep, some old lady. Oh my gosh, he's in love with the Martha Stewart channel.
And let me just say, Martha's recipe was on point! The bread came out fluffy and delicious. Noah was brushing butter on at the end.
We literally ate 2/3 of the loaf when it came out of the oven. It was so tasty.
So, Noah went back on the Everyday channel and found chocolate chip cookies and rolls and cinnamon roll recipes. Oh vay. I'm going to gain 100 pounds. But, as Martha would say, "It's a good thing", so I'm just going to go with it.
