A Photo Catch-Up Post, In Reverse Chronological Order

So I still have 30 papers left to grade and I'm hoping to be finished by Friday night. Still, I can't just grade, grade, grade. Gotta take a break and blog. Plus I have some great photos to share, some of them extending all the way back to Thanksgiving, and before we know it Christmas will be upon us and I'll have a whole NEW slew of photos to share. So here we go -- starting with the most recent. Today! Wyatt's Kindergarten Christmas party. The whole entire Kindergarten celebrates together, and it was so much fun to watch these kids skipping and dancing down the halls. They even had a karaoke station. It was awesome.

Here's Wyatt with his quintessentially young/cute/blonde/sweet Kindergarten teacher:

Isn't that the best face painting job ever? (They had me on the coloring pages station. I think you had to audition to do the face painting.)

Elise also had the East Ridge choir/band/orchestra concert, and she's been having a great time singing with her women's carolers group too. So far they've hit a retirement home and Sam's Club (twice!), and they have a few more gigs still to come. She looks beautimous in her long black dress. That I haven't hemmed yet.

Wyatt's also spent a lot of time playing with the Red Solo Cups grandma turned from receptacles for drinking to toys for stacking when they were here for Thanksgiving. Here's one of his best creations, completed while I was upstairs on my elliptical machine before school started.

We've also had a little Christmas cheer. Like sugar cookies! I love sugar cookies, which is one reason it's problematic for me to make them. You know how the Pringles people say you can't eat just one? (Or is that the Lays people?) For me it's the sugar cookies; especially homemade ones. Here's Wyatt and Jonas showing off their frosting skillz:

It's a good thing that I took 30 of these bad boys to seminary tonight for our class Christmas party. They were devoured. One kid had five cookies on his plate and I said (semi-coercively), "Wow! That's a lot of cookies you have there!" And he said, "Yup," and proceeded to sit down and eat all of them.

By the way, I love my home study seminary class. Although I loved my early morning class too, it was a "you challenge me, and I love you because of it" kind of experience. They were all good kids, but the early hour, plus a few personalities, plus the every dayness of it contributed to help make a vibrant classroom experience pretty tough to pull off. My home study kids, though, actually listen and discuss and have restored my faith that it is in fact possible to have gospel discussions with teenagers. Anyway -- back to pictures!

I also have some WONDERFUL pictures of the musical that were taken by a professional photographer. (I bought the CD.) The only bad thing--sad sad SAD thing-- is that Elise missed ONE rehearsal, and it happened to be the one where they took these pictures. I can't believe it. So I have professional pictures of Ethan, but not Elise. At least I got a couple of shots of her afterward. Anyway, here are some great pictures of Ethan as Ralph Sheldrake, army buddy to Bob and Phil turned producer at the Ed Sullivan show.

Ethan delivered the first line of the show. (He also figured out how to hide his mic pack after this dress rehearsal.)

I love this picture. Who would have thought I'd ever see Ethan singing on stage??

Soldier-turned-producer, working the phones.

The whole cast in the finale

Ethan, taking his bow

Ethan, looking tall

Another shot of the cast. See that hole next to the two girls in the back? Elise should be standing there. Sigh.

Ethan ended up getting an award from the Spotlight Awards, a state-sponsored award given by a professional theater group in Minneapolis for all high school musicals. He got an honorable mention for "featured performance," which is awesome. Also, East Ridge was one of five high schools in the Twin Cities who scored high enough to perform during the Spotlight showcase  this spring. The whole cast was stoked.

Oh! And Ethan also got a 31 on his practice ACT. AND he scored in the 99th percentile on his PSAT, which will probably qualify him for National Merit Semifinalists status. It's been a good couple of weeks for Ethan.

Finally, here are a few pics all the way back from Thanksgiving that deserve a blog spot:

Wyatt, looking blue eyed and handsome with his homemade turkey

Grandma, showing off her ginormous Pepsi as we waited for The LIfe of Pi to start. (Grandma isn't one to drink ginormous Pepsis very often. Hence the picture.)

The Mall of America, Black Friday. Grandma loved the lights so much she made me take a picture.

Everybody but me at the James J. Hill House, a cool old mansion owned by a curmudgeonly industrialist at the turn of the 20th century. And I say "everybody but me" because I managed to get Forrest and Grandpa in the mirror.

Outside the James J. Hill House. It's so big you can really only get a shot of the entrance.

And now I'm caught up! Wyatt is beside me, snoring like an old man, and everybody else is waiting for me downstairs so we can pray and hit the sack. Next up: Christmas!