One Year Closer to Driving

Phoebe is 15! The week of her birthday I asked if she wanted to invite some friends over to celebrate. She said yes and this fun group came over in advance of her actual birthday for games and pizza.

That meant she got multiple days of birthday awesomeness.

But she still just got the same batch of birthday cupcakes for both.

 Happy birthday, Phoebe!

Glee Club Rehearsal

This season, in addition to our full choir numbers, we added small group songs that included costumes and choreography. I played this song for my codirector when we were in the planning stages and she immediately loved it. But we knew this one would take a lot of extra work. The solution? We put our own kids in it, that way we didn't need to make space for it in our rehearsal schedule, we could just have several playdates/rehearsals to work on it. And that's just what we did.

I was standing in the back of the house next to the sound booth (aka Bryan sitting at a folding table with the sound board) when I realized that Linus' mic was turned off. You can see the moment that Cooper saw me frantically motioning for him to reach over and flip the switch on the mic pack. Charlie Brown was the hero of this number.

Phoebe lost most of her voice the day before the concert. Thankfully, she had enough for her low solo line in another song and for her duties as Snoopy.

See that skirt Sophie is wearing? She and her friend spent at least an hour on Saturday making those fluffy tutus. I think they really completed Sally and Lucy's looks.

Love Note

Topher left me a sweet message with his afterschool snack today.

Picture Day!

Organized Chaos

We had our summer concert for our kids choir tonight. We added some new performance elements like costumes and wireless mics. It's was chaotic, but it turned out well overall. And I took zero pictures of the actual performance because my phone was being used to run all the audio tracks. I do have these pictures of what the space looked like today after we finished setting up. And hopefully the other parents will share the videos and pictures they took.

Also, Topher was so excited that he set out his choir clothes before he went to school.

To Go Inside Someday

Cooper and Sophie both gave talks about the temple on Sunday. Cooper jotted a few notes, but didn't write the whole thing down. He did a great job, I just don't have the talk to post here. Sophie also did a great job and she wrote down what she was going to say. And now you get to enjoy it, too.

“I love to see the temple I’m going there someday. To feel the holy spirit, to listen and to pray.” A few weeks ago I had the privilege to go to the temple. I love going to the temple, every time I go I feel so peaceful and calm. I love that I get to go with Phoebe and Cooper. When I was too young to go to the temple I was always sad when my older siblings got to go in but I didn’t. I remember waiting in the foyer of the Manhattan meeting house-which is in the same building as the Manhattan temple-waiting for them to be done, it felt like forever. I wanted to be inside, I wanted to see what they were doing and I wanted to help as well. The words of I Love to See the Temple described the way I felt, I wanted to go inside someday and be there with my siblings. Now that I am old enough to go inside, serving in the temple goes by so fast, I wish it lasted longer. Whenever I hear that there is an upcoming temple trip I am overjoyed to go. I can’t wait until Topher is old enough to go inside. I bear my testimony that going to the temple is important and it is a very positive experience. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The Voice of the People

On Tuesday afternoon Phoebe told me that she felt really strongly that she needed to throw in her hat for a student government position. The application and video (less than a minute about why her classmates should vote for her) were due at 8:00 that evening. She worked out what she wanted to say, practiced, I recorded her, then she uploaded everything. The time stamp on the message with the video was 7:59. She literally did not have a minute to spare.

And guess what?

Tonight she found out that her peers voted her in. She's one of seven students representing the freshman class at all planning meetings and events.

Congratulations, Phoebe!

Up and Up and Up

Cooper had another race today, this time at Sophie's school, and we went to support him. Cross country runs are 5Ks, so we had some time to wait for him to finish. Thank goodness Sophie's school has a playground.

Also, Cooper shaved 30 seconds off his time and crossed the finish line at 18:42!

The Harvest

We spent Labor Day having a very long dress rehearsal for our next kid choir concert. When the singers went home and just us directors and our kids were left, we had a picnic on the back lawn of the church building. Topher and his friends took it upon themselves to start cleaning out the church garden. They insisted that they were picking wheat and were going to make bread.

It was not wheat. But I don't know what it actually was.

In related news Topher came home very itchy and needed a shower. 

Barely There

Topher asked me last week when he would be old enough to shave. I said maybe when he was Cooper's age.

I should have recognized his question for the warning it was.

During his Saturday evening shower, Topher took a little (cough*almost all*cough) off the top of his right eyebrow.

I wonder how much it'll grow before picture day.