A crown of suds

Jessica loves to do dishes, and never stops entertaining us.

Dog SITting

Get it? She has all five dogs SITing, four of the dogs are not ours so we are dogsitting?  Its not funny if you have to explain it. But if you look closely you can see all five dogs sitting and waiting for Anika to PLEASE give them the treat.  The lab puppies are right in front of her, Charlie is to her left, a sheltie, Midge, our dog is the gray one, and dear Maize is the grandma dog who we all protect from the others!

Somehow, Maggie thinks she is a lap dog.  Anika is not convinced.

Time with the E family

Matt's youngest sister Jen, husband Ben, and three kiddos have recently been stationed in Guam with the Air Force. Before heading out over the deep blue sea, we met them at Matt's parents for a few hours of fun for several generations. The little E cousins played, and then the big E cousins got together for food!

We walked to the neighbor to feed the horse some grass.

Time to color

Big brothers and cousins

Matt's cousins Michelle and Chris. They are all the same age and were in high school together.  This is how you spell trouble!

Crazy hair day

It was Spirit Week again... and this represents crazy hair day. There also was PJ day, look like the principal day, dress up and look good day, and school spirit day.

Here is a picture of Maria looking like the principal with some of her classmates. This pic was from the school's facebook page.

Four pianos

I found out about this concert at work. Turns out there is something called the Collins Fund that sponsors a free musical concert every year.  I want to know why it took me three years to find out about this, but anyway! 

This year we got tickets.  Actually, I sent Matt, Anika, and Brandon to go stand in line and wait for tickets while Jessica, Maria and I went to a soccer game.  Each person in line received four free tickets, so we made out quite well!  And while in line, Anika and Brandon got to play on a grand piano for all the others in line.  Good times from what I hear.

The concert was amazing. My Aunt and her friend and our neighbors came with us, my aunt actually knew one of the pianists.  The kids were enthralled. Most of the concert was four people on four different pianos, but as you can see in the picture above, for one piece, they put four people on each piano.  Good times.

What more can you want than culture for free!

All I want for Christmas

September 21, 2014...... they are growing in, but the tooth fairy has been busy!

Choir and Band concerts

Anika's school switched a bunch of things up this year so choir and band are now electives which made for much smaller groups. Also, it means two separate nights of concerts as all the bands (7th - 12th) are one night and all the choirs ( 7th - 12th grade) are another night.

The choir concert was held at a local church and the band concert was held at a local school.  Anika's school does not have its own auditorium, so its always a bit of a toss up where we will end up.  So she is part of the 7 - 8th grade choir and the 7-8th grade band. This means she doesn't have any of the other electives, but this was her choice and she seems to be enjoying them both. 

Whenever her band teacher is gone and has a sub that doesn't know music, Anika is put in charge of conducting, which I find quite entertaining. I guess she makes the band go through each song, so that's something.