Metal Mouth No More

 

Today was the day that Michael had his braces removed and can now officially eat all of the foods he's been eating anyway during his brief stint as a metal mouth.

The folks at the orthodontist office are lovely, but I will be relieved not to see them every 6 weeks. And now Michael can be a plastic mouth for 3 months as he wears (or "wears") his retainer to finish off the process. 

So who's up next?

Spring Celebration

A day early this year, we held our spring celebration at home on Sunday with plans for today that got cancelled due to rain and illness. 

 

Not that the kids really care about the activities, they just want their stuff. So we gathered them on the couch (please note that we gave Josh the opportunity to do something with his hair before the pics but he declined) and had them close their eyes.

And then open for their big surprises!

This year I also bought shirts that look like the ones we wore to the White House many moons ago. I had hoped to recreate the photo but at the state capitol building, but forces out of my control (see above) have forced us to move that activity into the future.

This year's loot:

Josh: GS cookies, bracelet, gamer socks, Spider-Man shirt

Michael: GS cookies, bracelet, music poster, Flash shirt

Ben: GS cookies, bracelet, cello puzzle, Captain America shirt

Isaac: GS cookies, bracelet, clay, Batman shirt

Then on the actual equinox today I tried to make moon cakes (again) and they turned out pretty well.

Pi(e) Day

I may not have been very prepared for many holidays this year, but this is one holiday that we cannot let this one pass us by. I will admit that Marie Callender did help out with the apple crumble pie (as she so graciously does most years). This does happen to be the only holiday of the year when I don't have enough round dishes for the day, so we did end up with one square pie. But everything turned out to be delicious. AND there was at least one pie for everyone. 

 

Michael turned out not to be a fan of the Oreo cream pie (more on that later), but liked the chocolate cream pie and the apple pie.

Isaac normally doesn't like crusts, so the pumpkin was crustless. He liked it, but the big surprise of the evening was the two slices of Oreo cream pie (more on that later) that he devoured.

Ben managed to eat all of his pie before I could point a camera at him. 

The Oreo cream pie was a new recipe - and it was DAIRY FREE. I try to make things so Josh won't feel left out, but he also tends not to like the textures of many dessert foods so we typically just get him Oreos. I figured I would try an Oreo pie to combine our theme with what he does eat and it had mixed reviews. Michael was not a fan, Isaac loved it, and Josh said it was good enough he'd eat it if I made it again. I guess that's a win? Win-ish? 

In any case, everyone ate some round food to celebrate our favorite shaped-based holiday.

Hot Chocolate 10k

 

Who got up crazy early in the morning to drive to Seattle for the sweetest race around? Jason! But who got up crazy early in the morning to run a 10k? These boys did! Who spent the last few months training for this race and then ended up with a stress fracture? Me!

Michael finished the race in 56:55 with a 9:10min/mile pace. He was aiming for sub 1 hour so he was pretty happy.

Ben finished the race in 1:00:46 with a 9:47min/mile pace after not training at all even though I nagged him for months thereby proving that I don't know what I am talking about. 

They both did great and had a good time. Though Michael was unimpressed with the post-race chocolate. 

February on FB

Note to self: when picking classical music "videos" on YouTube to listen to while studying, skip any which include Brahms lullaby 😴😆

 

Me: Boys, you shouldn't cheat

Also me:

Almost exactly 9 years to the day after I had surgery to remove a bone from my foot that had died after being fractured, I have fractured another bone in my other foot. My podiatrist put me in a post-op shoe and told me to make sure I am getting a lot of calcium. I only assume this is what he meant:

Sometimes with teens it's just best not to know

We are experiencing some difficulties with our cell service. We ask for your patience at this infuriating time. If you called or texted me this last weekend or over the next week or so and don't get a response, feel free to email me as the situation is...not ideal.

Pippin

The school musical this year was Pippin. I must confess that I had not heard this one before. I grew up watching musicals, but apparently not this one. And what do you do if you don't know about something? You look it up on Wikipedia! Off to the internet we went and read the plot synopsis of Pippin. After which we decided that Isaac would (again) not be attending the high school musical regardless of what part Michael ended up having.

Once again, Michael got tapped for the pit. This worked well with his swim schedule since there was a bit of overlap but the pit didn't need to be at all practices at the beginning. 

We got tickets for opening night and sat up close and personal to the pit so we could see/hear Michael work his magic.

These last two are pics from the online play program. Michael played the keyboard and, for one amazing song, the melodica.

As always, Michael's dedication to his music and to creating a wonderful production showed in the performances and in the extra naps he takes to get through this exhausting time. 

Solo and Ensemble - Choir Edition

Pardon the blurry image, but this is a screen shot from the video I took of Michael singing O Del Mio Dolce Ardor at Solo and Ensemble today. He was, in one word, stunning. He sounded fantastic. And the judge apparently agreed because his only comments were on tiny details and then MICHAEL WON. This means he goes to State for the bass slot for this region in April in Ellensburg. We are crazy proud of him. As a bonus, his friend Etan is going also as he won the baritone slot. So we're off to Ellensburg in the spring!