Halloween Parade 2015

One of my favorite Halloween traditions is our local Halloween parade.  Andrew was in it when he was in Scouts before he was in marching band and still marches each year with the band. We were lucky the weather was good that day and wasn't too cold at night.  We like to stop and watch the band warm up before they head to line up for the parade.  Andrew went as bacon again this year. :)

Violet loves to watch the parade and clap!  We all enjoy seeing all the kids in costumes in the band and the others dressed up who march.

 Lily was excited when the cheerleaders were stopped in front of us for awhile and was cheering along with them!

Some of the fun costumes in the parade this year:   Inside Out was my fave!

I love this parade each year and it's fun to dress the girls up in one of their costume/dress up outfits to get good use out of all of those too!

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

As fall rolls in, our house is filled with Friday night lights, Saturday marching festivals, parades and any other marching band activity you can think of amidst school and rehearsals.  

Homecoming 2015 has now come and gone.  The football game Friday night left the crowd only to cheer on the marching band by the time halftime rolled around.  The score was 33-0 in favor of the visiting team.  

Ouch.   

The weather suddenly went from comfortable to downright chilly in one afternoon. We loaded up with coats, blankets, and hoodies and were off to the game in time for the band's pre-game performance. 

   {Andrew is the last saxophone in this picture} 

Violet loveloveloves the marching band and shouts "Yay!" and "Bubba!" the whole time along with clapping and dancing!

Half-time was their march show featuring college fight songs.

Violet is always up for some picture taking these days! I just want to eat her up! So cute!

Lily was hungry and definitely in her end of the week exhaustion, but still tried to hang in there!  She fell asleep on me by the end of the game.

Reagan was able to stay with us that night and brought her best friend along too.  It was a fun night for everyone.  Well, maybe except for the football team who ended up losing 47-7 or something ridiculous like that.

The band sticks around and plays some tunes after the game before heading home. It's nice and they have a decent crowd watching them!

 I love that the band ends their time together singing the alma mater.

Despite the weather ending up in the 40s that night, we had a great time and are looking forward to this Friday! 

A Great Fall Weekend!

Happy Monday!

Seems like every weekend from October until the end of the year is busy these days. This past weekend was no different.

Violet turned ONE on Friday!  Sweet baby girl! I cannot believe how quickly this last year flew by! We reminisced about our trip to the hospital to deliver, worrying we'd never make it! We had a little doughnut date ~ her first~ and a sweet little cake just for her while we sang happy birthday!  She's going to get a separate post all about her. We are celebrating her with a family party next weekend! Lots of purple. :)

I took the girls to Andrew's football game Friday night for the first time. The downside of having a husband working nights is things like this are often just me.  The weather was perfect that day and didn't look like it would be too cold that night.  I was right. It was perfect! I wore Violet in the carrier and Lily was great about staying with me. She loved watching the marching band and kept shouting, "Bubby!" trying to get Andrew's attention.  She also was super excited about the cheerleaders pink pompoms! I let her go down the few steps in the stands from where we were to stand in front of the cheerleaders and she had a ball! Violet was perfect all night! Not at all fussy, danced everytime she heard the marching band play even throughout the game, and smiled and waved at everyone walking past us.  We left the stands after the half-time performances and watched much of the 3rd quarter walking around. Finally, I decided we'd head to the car and wait for Andrew after the game there and maybe the girls would fall asleep while we waited. They did. After the game, the band performed another show and I watched that one from the parking lot.  Our stadium is set lower in a valley so the parking lots overlook the field. It was a fun night! Happy 1st birthday to Violet!

Saturday, we did some things around the house and took Andrew to get his flu shot. The girls already had theirs done a few weeks ago.  I asked if they could weigh Violet really quickly and unofficially since we don't go for her well-visit until next week.  I love our pediatrician's office!  Andrew also had a band festival their school was participating in, so his evening was booked.  The girls and I invited ourselves over to Stef's house while Andrew was gone in an effort to get Tracy to keep her birthday dinner plans with her husband after her sitter couldn't make it.  Stef and I both offered to keep her kids, so we made it in one place and Stef's house is closer to them.  We left to pick Andrew up at school and promptly came home and crashed.

Sunday, we headed to the pumpkin farm for our annual pumpkin picking trip. This is one of my favorite activities each year and has been ever since Andrew was born!  After we got home from that, my crew was hungry and cranky, so everyone had snacks and I headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things to make supper. I found a new, easy recipe for chicken parm that turned out great and our family dinner was really nice.  We're always so on-the-go that when we get to sit down for more than a rushed suppertime, I definitely appreciate it.  We talked with Andrew and Lily about what they're loving about school currently and it always makes me happy to listen to them talk. Sometimes teenage conversation is like pulling teeth.  Since Violet missed her entire afternoon nap, she was ready for bed right after supper. Lily decided she wanted to watch Frosty, so she cozied up in our bed.

George and I had also had somewhat of a date night planned.  I say somewhat because we were going to meet a friend in town from Minnesota.  The funny thing about this friend is G and I both knew him separately and since we both were friends with him on Myspace, THAT is how George and I met! So for the first time in 8 years, we all got to see each other. We had a great time with him and enjoyed our kid-free time as well! Hopefully, it will be sooner than 8 years before we get together again and his wife will able to make it too.

It was a great weekend and now we look forward to my mom's arrival this week!

This One Time...

Friday night was the night for the marching band preview performance at band camp!

I talked to Andrew only one time the entire week he was away. He called me one night before their dance that night to check in.  That was it.  He received mail from a couple great family friends, his Papa, and Aunt Pam the Great throughout the week! It meant a lot to him and it means a lot to me.

Friday night, the girls and I were heading up to see his show! We stopped to pick up our friend Tracy's oldest to come with us too. It was a surprise for Andrew and something new for Dominic to be able experience. George had to work this year, so he wasn't able to go.  We were all disappointed at that. Andrew knew ahead of time, but was still disappointed.

When we arrived, the band was warming up off somewhere in the woods.  We could hear them, but not see them.   I got the kids situated on the hill to watch the performance. Violet hung out in the stroller for a little bit and Lily had a little picnic of snacks in the grass.

Our view of the performance field.

From the distance, we hear a long whistle which immediately quiets the crowd and the familiar, "We Are North Hills!" in unison from 197 members of the marching band and we know it's time for them to begin marching out to the drum cadence.    There are really no words to describe watching and hearing that all happen, but the goosebumps that cover my body and tears that fill my eyes remind me what a special journey my son is a part of and how fortunate I was to be part of a wonderful marching band community in both high school and college.  Those moments emerging from the woods are pretty incredible!

Being that this is only our second year involved, I'm guessing they play a "pop" show, a march show annually along with their pre-game performance and another show that, this year, is The Lion King. They played a medley of the Armed Forces songs and invited members of each branch to stand as their song was being played.  It was a tribute that again brought me to tears.  My heart swells with patriotic pride when our military is acknowledged and I'm so glad these kids are also able to witness and honor these servicemen and women during their performance.

Andrew is 3rd in from the right in this picture. 

He's in the 2nd row, 3rd band kid from right. {behind the clarinet kid}

The girls enjoyed themselves as well.

This is the longest performance of the year marching wise since they're playing all of their shows. They take water breaks between each show, but after a week of 9 hour marching/rehearsal days to say the kids are tired by the end is a huge understatement!  When the performance was finished, we waited for Andrew to come take a few pictures with us before we headed off to his cabin to get his luggage and then head home. The band kids had a dance and some more fun to have before leaving band camp behind in the morning. 

We're looking forward to an exciting season of football game performances, band festivals, parades, and a trip to New York City!  

I'm so glad that Andrew is loving marching band and hopefully next year he'll remember to call his mom more than once during the week while he's gone. :)

The band director with Andrew and some of the other freshman boys~Class of 2018.