Leah had her first orchestra concert in January. The 3rd grade orchestra at her school did a great job, especially Leah on her cello. And it was a joint concert with Molly's middle school, so we got to see both of them in the same night (I’ll post about Molly tomorrow).
In addition to the video, I got a couple of pictures. Leah was not nervous at all before her first orchestra concert.
Not sure where this expression came from as they prepared to play.
The 3rd grade at Leah’s school only has 3 classes, but almost all of the kids chose to join the orchestra. So it’s a big group.
After a late night, the girls didn’t wake us up too early in the morning. Once they got up, the first thing they found by their stockings was a smaller Squishmallow to join their largerone.
Unicorns and fleece onesies are all the rage, so these pajamas were a big hit.
Since Grams was in the hospital, we changed things up a bit. We all met up at our house to celebrate together. Our house was also conveniently the closest to Johns Hopkins hospital, making it easy for us to go see her for Christmas Day hospital visits. Sorry, no pictures from the hospital, though I do have pictures from our house.
Molly brought down her R2-D2 droid to entertain Max, and it certainly did capture his attention.
Even more surprising than moving the celebration to our house, our tradition-keeping family decided to go non-traditional. Tacos for Christmas were delicious (though there was still pumpkin pie for dessert).
After lunch, we opened presents. Charlie got a Squishmallow too.
Molly’s been saving her money to buy a Nintendo Switch for some time. She was much of the way before Christmas, and hoping Christmas would put her over the top to buy one. I knew she would get enough, so I secretly bought one on a Black Friday sale and hid it away. So, after getting enough money, she started asking when we could go somewhere to buy one. I promptly became the store of Chad and let her buy it right then. She was very excited.
Glen Mar decided last year's superhero-themed Christmas Eve service was so awesome, they had to do a sequel this year. Our family was heavily involved. I played guitar and led singing. Leah was one of the worship leaders and also sang in the choir. And Molly reprised her role as Wonder Woman. This video isn't the whole service - just the stuff the girls were involved in, which is admittedly almost the whole service.
We celebrated Leah's 9th birthday with a Double Dare party. Jen and Leah were in agreement that a non-messy version was the way to go! Jen did the planning of all the fun "Minute to Win It" type games, and I created a display for the game show. It’s a QLab workspace for showing the scoreboard, displaying the graphics just like the TV show, countdown timers, and sound effects.
After watching an episode of Double Dare so everyone knew how to play, Round 1 Opening Challenge was a Hula Hoop Relay between all three teams.
The teams then rotated answering trivia questions. Because there were three teams, we threw in an extra "triple dare." The kids loved playing all of the physical challenges. Below are a few that we played.
Into the Hanger: Players attempted to fly 2 paper airplanes into the hanger. (Jen made use of the strawberry we made for a bean bag toss for one of Leah's previous parties.)
Elephant Head: Players stretched panty hose with a tennis ball placed in the toe end over their heads. They then tried to swing the balls around on their heads until they knocked down a dozen coke cans in 45 seconds.
Snowball Shake Down: With a dab of Vaseline on their nose, and without using their hands, players must transfer 10 cotton balls from one end of the table to the other.
Cool Shot: Players used the squirt guns to try to knock all of the balls off of the tees.
Final team challenge: Hanky Panky. The first team to empty their box got an extra 200 points!
The game was tight, but the Caticorns managed to barely defeat The Savage Kittens in the end, and headed to the final Obstacle Course!
The final Obstacle Course consisted of stations in which a small orange flag needed to be found and passed along to their teammate. First up, Duck Hunt.
While the two remaining teams caused a pillow fight, a flag had to be carried down the stairs to a teammate.
Someone then had to pop the balloons to find a flag.
Opening all the Easter eggs to find the small flag was little challenging because Jen put so many eggs in the basket. Oops!
After the winning team ran the course, we reset the stations to allow the remaining teams a chance to run it. They were all so excited to run through the house!
Finally, it was time for cake and ice cream. Jen and Leah designed an ice cream slime cake. This was the only slime allowed at the party, and it was delicious!
We sang to the birthday girl.
When the house was again calm and quiet, Leah opened her gifts. Leah has wanted a giant cat (a Beanie Boo) since Molly got hers. So, Molly got her one for her birthday.
Leah's best friend introduced her to Lost Kitties.
Panda + Unicorn = Pandacorn slippers!
The toy that has made the largest impact has to be Winston, a Squishmallow. He seems to constantly be with Leah. So soft, so squishy…
The girls decided to be Athena and Artemis for Halloween. Thanks to Rick Riordan/Percy Jackson for inspiring them to learn about Greek mythology.
Jen made the toga dresses, belts, bracers, bracelets, and quiver. She originally thought she might get away with a simple T-shirt toga, but then found this awesome post (thanks Make It & Love It). So, the costumes ended up much more extravagant than originally thought.
I was excited to make a bow for the first time for Molly. At first, I tried to make one using scrap pine from studs, ignoring the advice of the Internet that pine was not strong enough. And after a lot of work, it snapped. So this is actually the second bow I made, and it is made of oak. Some stain, a few coats of lacquer, and it looks quite nice.
The arrows are made from dowels spray painted gold with feathers glued on for fins. The tips are actually foam earplugs (thanks Jen for the idea).
I made Leah a spear (modeled after this statue of Athena) from a thick dowel and some scrap wood. This was much easier than Molly’s bow. It just took some work on the band saw, some sanding, some lacquer, and gold spray paint for the spear head.
It’s the day after Labor Day, which means it’s the first day of school! It’s a big day for our house, as Molly is now in middle school!!! We can no longer pretend that this isn’t happening. I guess we really had to stop pretending last week at 6th grade orientation.
Middle school means our mornings are now earlier, as middle school starts an hour earlier than elementary, and also requires a bus ride instead of walking around the block. So, there is no picture of her with her sister, as Leah is still asleep.
There were of course pictures with kids on the block.
And then waiting at the bus stop. We have so many kids around us that her bus stop is ridiculous. I counted 35 kids at the stop. It’s the first stop, and fills more than half the bus.
Then it was time to wake up Leah. She’s very excited about this start of 3rd grade.
One of the main reasons she is excited is that Madison is finally in her class.
We got a picture with some of the elementary kids on the block.
And of course with the wildcat.
And then she was off to class. Not only is Madison in her class, but lots of her other friends are too. And not only that, her teacher is Mr. Chen who Molly had and Leah has wanted ever since.
When Leah got home, she said it was the “best first day ever”!
