21 Gun Salute.

Not only did we finish up basketball season, but we also finished up an intense spring concert season as well. There are lots of videos that I will be posting, but every so often one performance comes along that deserves a post all its own.

The 8th grade choir tried something new this year. There's an all-girl rock band comprised of 8th grade students that the choir director recruited to accompany the choir. They also have one of the choir members playing acoustic guitar. Now it's not perfect--the amp is up too high, and even though it's off camera, you can tell when the bass player misses the key change because all the kids singing start to chuckle--but it. is. awesome. The soloists are amazing, the band and guitarist are great, and it's a Green Day song, for crying out loud! And oh yeah, the choir sounds fantastic as well.

I salute the choir director and the kids for trying something new and for being so talented. It made my night.

Basketball Wrap-Up

Another basketball season is over. Glenn claims this is his last year as head coach, since next year Andrew moves up to the 5th/6th grade teams. We'll see. The season started out promising as they were 3-1, but the second half was tougher with a 1-3 record. But hey, they finished at .500, and in this town we are thrilled if our sports teams can achieve that.

Here is a look at some of the action:

Andrew and two of his buddies also participated in a 3-on-3 tournament. They practiced a lot and came up with several different plays. The boys worked really hard as a team and finished 2-2. We took them to Menchie's (our newest frozen treat obsession) to celebrate their achievements.

And now a little breather until the fun of baseball starts!

Substitute FAIL

One week ago I was in a 6th grade classroom, teaching math, of all things.  I knew that his particular class had a few lively kids sprinkled throughout, and this coupled with the fact that the intervention specialist would be in there to give her kids extra support made me a little nervous.  Plus, it was MATH.

But it turned out to be awesome.  I totally brought it when it came to finding out the volume of a triangular and rectangular prism and a cylinder.  We had to redirect the kids a little, but it ended up being a great lesson.  The intervention specialist even complemented me on my explanations and how I was able to bring the in kids who were a little more challenged.  Plus, it's always nice to be around people who share your Hunger Games obsession.  I went home that day on a substitute high.

So you would think that being in a kindergarten classroom would be cake, right?  I mean what's a bunch of cute little 5 and 6 year-olds compared to rowdy pre-pubescent 6th graders?

Little did I know.

It was a full-day kindergarten class, so there's one strike right there.  I know there are benefits to it, but that is a loooong day for those little kiddos.  They were dropping like flies by 2:00.  "My head hurts."  "My stomach hurts."  "I'm hungry."  (This in response to my direction for a child to stop gnawing on his shirt sleeve.)  "I'm tired."

And this particular class is chock full of personality and all the issues that come with it, both diagnosed and undiagnosed.  There were chatty girls who could not focus on their assignments.  There were kids who tattled on someone every 5 minutes.  There were kids with behavior charts that I forgot to finish filling out and send home because I was so busy moving everyone from green to yellow and back again.  And then back to yellow.  There were kids who had their arms wrapped around another kid (most of the time without protest) every time I turned around.  There was the kid who loved ending every sentence with the word "butt."  And then there was the precious little darling who asked when my baby was going to be born. 

My only consolation is that several regular teachers reassured me that this is typical and not just a result of poor behavior management skills.  The music teacher hard a hard time with the kids today too, and when she saw Brooke later in the day correctly predicted, "Those kids are going to wipe your mom out."

She wasn't kidding.  I've been a zombie since three o'clock.  I brought myself around long enough to take Andrew to a friend's house and pick up Brooke from school, and when Glenn unexpectedly showed up at 4, I told him he could pick the girls up from track practice and I high-tailed it to bed.  Dinner was mac-n-cheese for some, cereal for others.  And the ironic thing is that my four kids were in strong competition with those 25 kindergarteners for the "Biggest Contributors to a Headache" award.

In spite of all this, there was one success today.  I learned for certain that a full-time kindergarten teaching job is not in my future.

Uptown girl goes downtown.

When I was in college a couple of friends and I got tickets to see Billy Joel in Salt Lake.  Of course, all we could afford were nosebleed seats, but we were fine with that.  We fully intended to have a great time.

Way up in the air, we were singing and dancing along to all the great Billy Joel songs.  We were loving it.  Not loving the fact that we were standing up were the old fuddy-duddies seated around us.  The geriatric set was not in the mood for our enthusiasm, telling us to settle down, and even grabbing my friend and pulling her in from the aisle (where she had gone in an attempt to stand without obstructing anyone's view).  Now keep in mind that this was Billy Joel, and really, you can't get THAT out of control.  We really were not wild, just trying to have a good time.

Someone behind us went down the steps and soon came back with an usher.  Oh no, I thought, we are NOT going to get kicked out of here.  We have done NOTHING wrong!  I was prepared to stand my ground, but you know what that usher said when he approached us?

"See those seats down there?" he said, pointing to the floor of the arena.  "How about I take you guys down there?"

How about OK!!

So we were escorted to the elevator and descended what seemed like 10 stories.  Our usher walked us out onto the floor, and there, right straight ahead of us, was Billy, his piano, and hundreds of dancing, screaming fans who actually wanted to have some fun that night.  Sure we were in the very back, but who cares?  The energy and excitement was through the roof, and the difference from top to bottom was astronomical.  Turning to look up to the heavens we waved our thanks to the grumpy sticks in the mud for complaining about a couple of college girls trying just to get their Billy Joel groove on.

A couple of weeks ago I had another opportunity to experience what life was like on the floor.  The mother of one of the boys on Andrew's basketball team works for the Cavs and gave us 4 tickets to the Cavs vs. the Mavs game.  She gave us good seats, right in the middle in the corner, and we were very happy to be there.

Right after the first quarter she came up to say hi, and to tell us that she was going to upgrade us to floor seats.  Like fourth row from the edge of the court.  

It's a whole other world down there.  You can order food from your seat and have it brought to you.  You can hear, for better or worse, what the players are saying to each other and the refs.  You can see Varejao's curls bobbing up and down as he flops in an attempt to draw a foul.  You can see the sweat dripping off the players.  You can shout something to Alonso Gee (Andrew's current favorite) and he will probably hear you.  You can see the expression on Kyrie Irving's face as he runs up the sideline (right in front of us!) after nailing an awesome shot.

You can crane your neck upwards to see the Jumbotron declaring that the Cavs have beaten the world champs.  And you can cheer like nuts (even if you're Brooke and you HATE basketball) because everyone around you is too.

Maybe for most people sitting at floor level is a common occurrence.  But for me, it has been a rarity.  And whether I have gotten to experience those floor seats because people have been cantankerous or generous, I'll always like them just the way they are.

What gets Glenn up in the morning.

Saturday mornings, that is.  Andrew joined the "Dribbling Demons" this year.  It is a little Globetrotter type group that started up this year.  And they practice at 8:30 on - yep, you guessed it! - Saturday morning.  Good ol' Glenn.  He willingly (?) gets up bright and early on my only day to sleep in and takes the boy to the high school.

So far the group has performed twice during halftime at the varsity basketball game.  The first night Andrew's rec team played a mini game during halftime of the JV game, so we got to spend the whole night in the gym.  Andrew had a great showing scoring most (if not all) of the team's points.  It sure was hard running up and down a full-sized court, though!

The boys all sat together on the other side of the gym and had fun cheering on the team.

They started out with one ball...

...and by the next performance had added in another ball!

I was pretty impressed. Andrew didn't see the point at first, but he has now acknowledged that participating in this group has really helped with his ball-handling skills. His Saturday games have been really exciting to watch.

The Dribbling Demons have one more performance this week, and we are glad that Grandma Brooks happens to be in town so that she can check out all the action!

A family obsessed.

Here are the things certain people can't get enough of around here:

Harry Potter.  Still.  According to the girls, Andrew can't finish the series fast enough so that they can watch Deathly Hallows Part 2 again. 

Just Dance 2.  Best Christmas present ever.  Totally worth getting "Crocodile Rock" stuck in your head for days on end.

Matched.  A new book series by LDS author Ally Condie.  Go find it and read it.

The Muppets.  The movie.  The songs.  Especially the songs.  Songs that also get stuck in your head for days on end.  But totally worth it to have my kids get excited about something I loved as a child.

Titanic.  The HIGHLY edited version of the movie.  Mostly the soundtrack.  Kate Winslet.  (NOT Leo.)

and of course...

The Hunger Games.  The books.  The trailer.  The movie.  The Katniss braid.

Ok so maybe this list is slightly skewed towards the females in the household.  Oh well.  Majority rules.

iHope you had a merry Christmas.

The holidays began with a new Christmas Eve tradition: International Night. We began with Asia. Jake made three wonderful kinds of meat, Nate made California rolls, I made minute rice and heated up some egg rolls. What can I say. Everyone was adventurous and we pretty much devoured everything.

Who knows where next year will take us.  Mexico?  France?  Ethiopia?

After dinner we opened presents from another new tradition: cousin gift exchange.  All the kids drew names and got to shop for each other.  It was so much fun to see the kids thinking about what their cousins would really like.  Everyone was very happy with the choices!  It was a really nice evening at Jill's.

Me and my favorite kindergartener.

Me and my favorite.

The boys sporting their new head lights from Grandma and Grandpa.  Melissa and I might have to borrow these when we resume our early morning running.

Christmas morning was calm and quiet.  And once again, over in 15 minutes.  And I was worried that we'd have to get up super early so that we could open presents and get ready for church.  We could have slept in another half hour!

The biggest hit of the day across the entire family was the iPod.  Emma and Leah got theirs last year, but this year, with Brooke, Sydney, and Becca all receiving them it was iPod central all Christmas long.  From Christmas morning...

...to Christmas day at Grandma and Grandpa Franklin's...

...to New Year's Eve...

...everyone was iPod crazy.  The Franklin and Ryan cousins even made up some sort of hide-n-seek game using Facetime.  Kids these days!

New Year's Eve was of course the lovely spread of hors d'oeuvres.  Mmmm-mmm!  I think the cranberry salsa Jill made takes the top prize.  If there were one.  Everything was delish.

Most of the evening was spent playing Just Dance.  Very fun game!  I did a "15 minute non-stop shuffle," and I might have even started to sweat.  In my defense I don't usually exercise in a sweater, but still--it was a good workout after all that food. 

We were all prepared to do the chocolate fountain, but I kind of wasn't into cleaning up the mess it makes.  So Jill and I quickly melted some chocolate and did some dipping so as not to disappoint the littles.

And at midnight as the ball was dropping, the kids all whipped the iPods back out (were they ever really put away?) and recorded the countdown and the cheering and the "Happy New Year!"  Andrew recorded his on the flip cam he got for his birthday and I think has watched the video every day since.

The rest of Christmas break was low-key, with lots of time spent with Grandma and Grandpa Brooks. There was shopping, the new Muppet movie, the traditional trip to Wendy's for a frosty, games, and puzzles, and more Just Dance. And it mustn't have been that crazy, because Grandma ended up extending her stay! It was nice to have everyone together for so long. We ended one year and started another in the best possible way...with lots and lots of family!