World of Pure Imagination

Molly played Veruca Salt this year in her school play, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!  She worked for weeks and weeks on her audition and was thrilled to get the part.  They had enough kids sign up to do a double cast this year which was a big relief.  Molly went to practices from January to the end of March and worked so hard to learn her song and her lines.  I volunteered a little, mostly helping put up some sets and then helping with costume changes during the run-throughs and the school performances. My other contribution was mostly in doing hours of shopping to find a perfect Veruca dress (HARD), altering that Veruca dress to line the bodice and take off the giant sleeves (not super easy), finding a fuzzy jacket (very easy), and getting a last minute belt for her microphone (easy, just rushed).

The play turned out so well!  Molly and I went to the other cast to support her friends and then I ended up seeing both shows she was in so that all family members could come.  Everyone did a great job!  Here's some pictures of Molly:

Her whole cast!

The leads for her play

Some screenshots of the program

Post-performance!

I was not going to take any video, but her friends' dad is a copyright lawyer, and he said that while you legally cannot video the whole play, you can definitely take videos of your own kid. So here we go!

Our Family's Newbery Winners

 When we heard about the most recent Newbery winners, the members of our family who had read a decent amount of winner/honor books decided to make lists of our own favorites. These lists are ranked, but also not of every single one we've ever read.  Just our favorites!

Molly

The Last Cuentista

The Ear, The Eye, and the Arm

Princess Academy

Ella Enchanted

The Westing Game

The Wednesday Wars

The Last Mapmaker

A Wrinkle in Time

Number the Stars

The War That Saved My Life

Charlotte's Web

Holes

Maniac Magee

Maizy Chen's Last Chance

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

The Tale of Despereaux

Savvy

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Elf Dog and Owl Head

The View from Saturday

El Deafo 

The Hundred Dresses

Miles

All Thirteen

The Wednesday Wars

A Wish in the Dark

Holes

Charlotte's Web

The Graveyard Book

The Westing Game

The Last Cuentista

The Ear, The Eye, and the Arm

Ella Enchanted

Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World's Most Dangerous Weapon

The Inquisitor's Tale

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Crispin: The Cross of Lead

The Giver

Freewater

A Wrinkle in Time

Elisabeth

The Westing Game 

Hope Was Here

Holes

Ella Enchanted

The View from Saturday

The Giver

Charlotte's Web

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Caddie Woodlawn

A Wish in the Dark

The Last Cuentista

Dicey's Song

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

On the Banks of Plum Creek (standing in for all of Little House)

Princess Academy

The Wednesday Wars

The Girl Who Drank the Moon

The Twenty-One Balloons

Freewater

When You Reach Me

Catherine, Called Birdy

The Egypt Game

A Wrinkle in Time

Wolf Hollow

Jacob Have I Loved

The War That Saved My Life

The Ear, The Eye and the Arm

Elliott

Charlotte's Web

Elf Dog and Owl Head

Number the Stars

Ella Enchanted

**Elliott is about to read Holes and then I think it will go on his list**

Gerrit

Holes

The Giver

Ella Enchanted

Maniac Magee

Number the Stars

Charlotte's Web

Knowledge Bowl 2024

This year we did science for Knowledge Bowl!  That means that if you ask Molly something hard about science, she will probably know it, and she'll be sad that she didn't get to use that knowledge in competition.It was also Elliott's very first year actually getting to compete!  Technically, he's been going to practice for six years before that but this was the first time actually participating :)

The last time we did science the entire world shut down for Covid two days before Miles's competition. They did do a digital competition a few months later, but it was still so nice to have the in-person competition this time.

Both kids did amazing! Molly is one of the fastest buzzers around, and Elliott was able to buzz in on a ton of questions.  Molly and Elliott's teams both medaled!

Molly practicing with her team.

The 5th/6th grade boys team practicing.

All the 5th and 6th grade teams together!

The 3rd and 4th grade team, both ready to go and also very silly

Ready to buzz!

Welcome to the Leprechaun Cafe

Molly and Elliott made the cutest cafe as an experience for the leprechaun this St. Patrick's Day!  Molly handmade adorable chairs and tables and a wall decoration, and Elliott drew adorable gummy bears, corgi lollipops, a corgi soda, and a corgi burger.

Miles wanted to get it on the action, so he tried to make a lethal trap. The leprechaun mistook it for a slide.  He was unamused, but he was okay with it when the leprechaun left him golden dulce de leche truffles and rainbow gummy bears.

Imagine that the box was lifted up on an incline on the chair!

The leprechaun also left gummy bears and truffles for Molly and Elliott, too, with some of the gummy bears even sitting at the cafe.

District Orchestra Festival

I was able to chaperone for the distict junior high Advanced Orchestra festival and it was fun!  (Miles will tell you it was unbearably boring.  Honestly, you could make the case either way).  I liked it because it was fun to hear all the schools and also to hear Miles's group.  He didn't like it because he had a lot of homework to make up and had to be very quiet and listen to all the groups play and get feedback. 

SO MANY KIDS

Miles is on the farthest edge possible to avoid the crush of violinists.

At the end of the day, all the schools played a group song and it sounded great!  Technically, this is not the whole district.  Our district has 14 junior high schools and you could never fit all of those kids in one place.  This is just the four junior high schools that are furthest south in the district :)

Into the Eagle's Nest

Molly is all registered for seventh grade now!  She's excited about the classes she signed up for.  We've already heard back from advanced math so she knows that she'll take that, and we're crossing our fingers to hear from the ALL English/social studies soon (from what we heard from the counselor, odds are good).  She's signed up for French, choir, and FCS exploration, with a few classes as a back up.  My experience with Miles is that they will try their best with electives, but we'll see in August!

Ready for seventh grade!

End of Term

We just finished up the third term of the school year, and that apparently calls for a four day weekend.  I'd like to point out that I'm not complaining, because the end of the term is very busy for older kids and yes, they probably do need a long weekend.

I'm sure that some families took the opportunities to go travel.  Instead, we took the opportunity to....do homework and go to our normally scheduled extracurriculars. I know, super fun.  I tried to have us do at least one fun thing per day, though!

On Monday, we went out to lunch at The Bagel Den.  It was one of our favorite spots from our vacation to Heber and Park City and they also have a location in the Riverwoods.  It's delicious!

BLT on Asiago is Molly's favorite.

On Tuesday, the younger two kids went to a really fun tween game activity at the library. They both had a great time!  It's a mix of Catchphrase and Charades called The Anything Game.

In the Wild

 Gerrit sometimes sees unusual things and is very excited to show me the pictures.

Like the time he specifically biked to the local Tesla dealership so he could see Cybertrucks in real life. He'd seen one out on the road and wanted to see one in person.  I  think these cars are very ugly but pretty much every guy I've ever talked to is fascinated with them.

The other pictures he showed me were much more unexpected.  This is the first picture he showed me:

I had no idea what I was looking at, really.  A big Chick-Fil-A chalk art? Some event that was going to get set up?

Imagine my surprise when it inflated!

Gerrit said they were celebrating their 10th anniversary so they just inflated this hot air balloon. It didn't launch or anything, just stayed inflated in the parking lot next to his office window.

Before and After

 The orthodontist sent us a before and after picture of Miles's teeth at his recent retainer checkup.

I have two thoughts:

1) Wow!  His teeth really do look great.  I didn't realize he had such an overbite before.

2) Those pictures are only 18 months apart. 18 MONTHS!!!  First, it's great that braces go so much faster now, but also, I would easily believe that they are 3-4 years apart based on how much older his face looks.  Miles has really grown up SO much in the last year and a half.