New Hard Drive

I don't know why it took me so long to take my computer in to have someone take a look at it and tell me that yes there was a gum wrapper in there (no, not from one of the boys), so much dust as to make it overheat and that yes the hard drive was spent. So 24 hours later (these people were amazing....mac simple for reference) I walked out of their little shop with a new hard drive and cleaned out computer and finally, finally access to all the photos I've been dumping in order to blog. Before now, every time I went to open up my photo files, the circle of death started rapidly spinning, the computer started buzzing and heating up until I had to shut the whole thing down.


So back to business: Jonah's birthday! This baby boy of mine melts my heart on a daily basis. He is full of love and life...truly everything he wraps himself up in during the days is full of wonder. I was heart sick the night before his birthday when I realized I was teaching seminary the next morning and would miss waking him up and welcoming him into his 9th year, so we cuddled for a while before he went to bed.

He was very excited to get going into his gifts as there seemed to be a big pile of fun and adventure waiting to be opened. 

 He's totally into Avengers right now and needed a few more props to act out his favorite scenes. I love this about Jonah because for some reason all the other boys struggled with imaginary play.....it seemed too foreign to them, but not to Jonah. This boy can create all sorts of elaborate adventures with inanimate objects. He still plays with all his stuffed animals and sleeps surrounded with them every night!

This was one of his birthday wishes: a GIANT panda bear. He's actually sitting inside the box that the bear came in with the bear. Jonah is still a little nugget with not an ounce of fat on his lean body. He is fond of sliding his skin over his bones and muscles (and honest to goodness six-pack) as there is nothing much in between. At nine Jonah weighs 55# and although I can'r remember his height, I know he's the shortest in his class.

But, the bear.....his name is Bonzo and I learned the other night he has comforted Jonah a couple of times when he's woken up in the night with a bad dream. Bonzo sits at the head of Jonah's bed, so when he wakes up feeling scared, he cuddles up right in his lap until he falls asleep again.

Jonah still talks about being a paleontologist, but is moving more towards being a zoo keeper because they are the happiest people (which is true....zoo keepers have a much higher level of happiness than other professions). All I know is that Jonah is one of the happiest people I've ever known and whatever he does he will bring that infectious joy along the way.

For his birthday dessert, he wanted cinnamon rolls. No cake, no pie, no angel food cake with strawberries, he was sure cinnamon rolls were what he wanted, so I obliged and there were plenty to have for breakfast and snack the next day which made him all the happier!

Happy birthday to one of my all time favorite people to be around! Every time we part ways whether I'm dropping him off at school, tennis, soccer, or saying good night at the end of the day, we have this same dialogue:  me: I love you Jonah. Jonah: I love you the most. Me: never. Jonah: always! I can't think of this let alone type it out without getting tears in my eyes....this boy, how he is wrapped around my heart!

Winter Music

It's snowing again. The last storm that hit days ago has keep everyone home from school for an entire week! This one will be sure to add a few more days to that, and I'm pretty sure tomorrows church will be cancelled as well. The Farmer's Almanac predicted a bad winter, but we've seen nothing along those lines until now, mid-February. These are days meant for catch-up!

We have seasons in our family: Fall: soccer, first band and orchestra concerts. Spring: more soccer, final band and orchestra concerts. Summer: swimming and tennis and travel. Winter: music, music, music....and maybe a handful of squash days and some ski days if we're lucky enough to get them (this year we will). But the music is what really picks up during this time with recitals, festivals and performances as well as competitions. It's in the winter that the boys play piano for judges and get scored and for the first time Gavin and Liam will compete in a music competition where a monetary award will be given. That competition was supposed to be today, but the snow pushed it off another week.

Music has become a defining piece of the Jared and Jodi family and even though I do not know how to play a single instrument I have been given the gift of a pretty good ear and a resolve to not giving in to whining over practicing. This makes a difference and I'm glad as it's the only real way I can contribute. Jared on the other hand is a musician and does an amazing job keeping the love of music alive in our home which ultimately matters the most.

Cello recital for Gavin and Caleb:

Piano festival: all the boys except Gavin received double superiors this year. When the boys found out that Gavin was the outlier they thought we were kidding as his performance was flawless. In fact he ended up playing the same piece as one of the oldest in the group and played more movements. We think the judges were just not ready to hear such a piece come out of someone so young.

Then there was jamming in the basement where Caleb and his buddy convinced Liam to take the vocals. He was perfect!

I love how Liam is belting it out here:

A week after that, on Valentine's Day to be exact, Jared and I headed out on a date and within a few minutes we got a phone call from Caleb tattling on Liam for something to which I told him to solve the problem and not to call us back. Apparently right after we hung up, they lost power and had to fend for themselves until we came home to flashlights through the windows at 10pm! What did they do during our date: ate cold cereal and hot chocolate for dinner, brought in all sorts of candles and blankets and then played music for the rest of the night. The next day, when the power was still out, they gave us a little concert:

Finally we had two Jazz festivals where Liam soloed on Blue Bossa: and Caleb played drums for Birdland the classic by Maynard Ferguson: 

Arts Fest in the West...a fund raiser for the arts programs in our schools:

Finally the Winter Orchestra Concert:

Coming next is battle of the bands for Caleb due to debut in mid-March and a duet for Gavin and Jonah at the school talent show! Is it loud in my house...absolutely, do I have to either close myself off in the garage or pantry to have a conversation on the phone...absolutely, do I mind, absolutely not. I love that music will always define in some way all of my children!

Pinewood Derby 2015

This year was Gavin's final year in cub scouts, so this would also be his final pinewood derby race. He wanted to keep with his black body, silver windows, low-profiled car theme. He ended up being one of only two webelos which ended tragically when the other boy's car was under weight and they added magnets to it. Great idea, until you realized that the magnets were placed on the top of the car as well as the bottom and they are raced on a metal track. Gavin enthusiastically cheered when his car won in the first of 4 races, then realized that the other boys first derailment would happen three more times. So he ended up with a trophy, but it was definitely bittersweet!

His reaction to the second, or third or forth derailment...yeah, ouch!

Jonah was very excited to race his Lotus Esprit. He knew from the beginning what he wanted the shape of his car to be....just like his Matchbox version, and I was proud of myself for drawing it for my friend who cut it with her jigsaw. The rest of the work was up to Jonah. He sanded, helped with the spray paint, used his blue tape to create windows and then painted them and took great interest in everything that might increase his speed. He unfortunately didn't end up in the top tier among the other 10 wolves, but he had a great time watching all the races and never fussed about not placing! I was proud of him for that!

Christmas 2014

A photo recap of Christmas 2014! We started the festivities in DC with our friends for a Who Feast. The kids went to play laser tag with the dads while Em C. and I talked the afternoon away with constant interjections from her youngest. I've never known a child like Grayson who is full of love and full to the brim with questions about everything and repeats you in the form of a question. It made me miss two year old little boys as that was always one of my favorite ages. I'll give them back at three, but two was fantastic! 

Em C. is one of the funnest moms I've ever met and came up with all sorts of creative ideas for our Grinch meal:

Who Viggees was the name Gavin came up with for our contribution to the meal! He was off the charts proud of himself because he came up with the name in about .2 seconds after I asked the boys what name they thought we should use for our veggie tray. He was cheering himself loudly (he's never quiet) in the van in a way that says to the others, "in your face!" We definitely have a competition problem in our house, always have, and I wonder if we always will. There were plenty of naysayers in the van too, but I loved it and I got the final say, so Who Viggees it was!

Thank you girls and Liam for knowing what to do in a photo! Boys.......boys.......boys.......

The evening ended with watching the Grinch and a long drive home where no one actually fell asleep. We met again a few days later in Staunton Virginia to see the play: A Christmas Carol which was the perfect way to prepare us for our Christmas Eve day service project. This year we served the homeless in Charlottesville. Those who need shelter and food move from church to church every two weeks, and we served them while they were staying at First Presbyterian. This happens to be the same church where we have our piano festival and recitals each year, so it was fun to see this familiar place in a new light. I think what was most startling for all of us to was look past the partition set up in the dining hall to see about 30 cots lines up with one chair next to each, where random belongings sat while the people were out for the day. There was a tiny tree in one corner that held a scraggly strand of garland and a few random ornaments and when I reminded them that tomorrow morning, Christmas day, this is where these people would wake and would most likely not find the tree looking any different than it did in that moment. After serving for a few hours, we went about the city to hand out sack lunches with food, drink, Lindor chocolate balls and a gift card to those in need. We passed them out at street lights, singing carols out the window, or along the open mall where we found the homeless sitting on benches or milling around the bus station. What I won't forget about this were the genuine smiles of gratitude from the people who received our gift bags. I often give money to those at the street lights holding signs about their particular circumstance, but they never light up like they did when we handed them our bags. And really, it wasn't much, but to them it was just that little extra something that seemed to make their day.

That evening we shared our traditional clam chowder in bread bowls meal with the Evans before heading home to get ready for Christmas morning. There are no photos of Christmas eve and I'm including every last photo of Christmas day because there are a sum total of 15! I'm not sure what happened to my photographer this year, but I'm thinking he was too caught up in the moment to get behind the camera.

Here are the last two years for comparison sake.....it seems hard to believe how much they are changing!

2012:

2013:

2014:

Christmas morning cinnamon rolls and smoothie:

Legos are still one of Santa's favorite gifts to give:

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas for Jonah without another stuftie:

 From my phone...not as good of a photo, but I love his smile.

Over the rest of the break we did nothing but play squash, watch movies, play board and video games, stay up late and sleep in, took one outing to DC to see the temple lights and in the end we decided it was the best Christmas we've had in years. We feel rested and ready to take on the schedule of seminary (Jared is my new team teacher.....that needs it's own post), school, music, sports and church activities. 2015 here we come!