EJ's very first band performance!

Tonight was the first performance of the middle school's 5th grade band! The kids did a great job. It's amazing how much they have learned in just 6-7 weeks. So, here's a little video that shows some of the exercises they performed tonight. Unfortunately, I screwed up the video for the latter half of the concert and missed all of the songs! Have the audio, not the video. So, you are missing some rousing arrangements of Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had a Little Lamb/Merrily We Roll Along. Oh well.

Notice that the band director, Mr. R, directs from a laptop! How cool is that? They use a tool called smartmusic.com, which provides accompaniment for the arrangements. He told us about the program, so I might have to look into a subscription to it!

A very early visit to Santa.

We had a busy at-home day today. Hurricane Ida's remnants are making their way through the area and there was a LOT of rain. I got the laundry done, designed the Christmas cards so I can order them tomorrow, and cleaned up the third floor since we have a houseful of guests coming for Thanksgiving. We decided to go out for a quick dinner and then maybe stop by the mall to see Santa, who arrived this week.

We went to Chili's for dinner. We got there just at the start of the dinner rush. Sophie was perfectly calm when we got there, but as the meal went on, she just got crazier and goofier. Perhaps she knew how exciting a visit to Santa was going to be. It was at the point where I was laughing uncontrollably watching her. She simply couldn't sit still. I think her chocolate milk was spiked with a little eggnog!

We got to the mall and were surprised to see NO LINE for Santa! Sophie walked right in and hopped up on his lap. EJ was checking out Santa's bag of toys next to him...there was a Wii box right on top. He told me that he was trying to find a place for it, and EJ offered to take it home with her tonight! Sophie told him that she was a good girl and that she wanted a toy pony.

We did plan ahead for the photo. The girls wore their Santa shirts - Sophie's says "Santa's Favorite" and EJ's says "I love Santa". EJ's didn't show up well in the photo since the letters are in silver. We will be seeing Santa again at the annual mother's club breakfast with him in a few weeks.

Girls Night Out

EJ and I had a GNO last night. Yes, on a SCHOOL NIGHT!!! Way back, about five months ago, I purchased two tickets to the Miley Cyrus concert. And last night, the long-awaited date had finally arrived. These photos are actually in reverse order, thanks to the non-intuitive order in which Blogger uploads things. Or that you can only upload five photos at a time. Anyway...here's the rundown to the show, from encore to opening act!

Miley did one encore and closed with The Climb:

This was the other song from the encore, I Can't Wait to See You Again:

At one point, she did a cover of Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll and she climbed on a Harley that soared through the sky.

She came pretty close to us!

She and one of her dancers got into a terrible fit of giggles at one point and she couldn't even talk!

EJ had a great time singing along!

Miley's fashion choices are "interesting".

For Fly on the Wall, she and the dancers rode onto the stage on a giant bug:

Yes, I even liked the bridal-style dress with the pink tube socks and boots over this little number:

Miley's brother's band, Metro Station, opened the night. Her brother has the look of a serious hard-core rocker. He jumped. He swung the guitar around his neck about 100 times in the 6-7 songs they performed. He only had to say one of two things ("BOSTON!!!" or "MILEY!!") to get the girls screaming. Too bad he couldn't sing to save his life. Awful, I tell you. He even said that "a lot" of people didn't want them to be the opening act on this tour, but "my sister believes in me". I think she'd better start listening to the music people who know what they're talking about. He was that bad. The lead guitarist for Metro Station is Mitchell Musso's (also on Hannah Montana) older brother, and he was actually a good singer. Miley's brother just needs to play guitar and jump around.

We had pretty good seats--on the right of the stage, about 1/3 of the way back from the stage and 11 rows up. The edge of the catwalk was probably 50 feet away.

EJ at Fanieul Hall for dinner before the show!

Boo!

Wow - you couldn't ask for a more perfect Halloween night in New England. It was 70 degrees here today and the wind is blowing all the swirling leaves around. Lovely!

We live in a development of about 40 houses, so it's a great place to trick-or-treat, but to walk the whole loop is about a mile. So, Sophie gets to ride in style:


EJ's friend V came over to go trick-or-treating with us. I called EJ the Halloweena Ballerina!

My little Curious George:

The older girls being silly:

Fall Photo Shoot

This area is what used to be the woodpile at the end of my driveway. Now that we have a pellet stove, we cleared it out and made a little garden area.


It was the perfect New England fall day today (well, other than the Red Sox knocking themselves out of the playoffs...), and the girls wore their new pumpkin sweaters to church this morning, so we went outside for a photo session. Sophie took the stickers off the pumpkins and stuck them on her face.

This is her grumpy look, which she announces before she displays:

EJ striking a pose:

Okay, got the fall photo shoot out of the way. Would you believe they're have Christmas portraits taken tomorrow? I hate the crowds at the mall in November, so we always do it in October!

Deerfield Fair

Today we went to the Deerfield Fair in Deerfield, NH. We were hoping to go yesterday, but the rain kept us away. Luckily, it stayed dry enough to go today for a few hours.

EJ did some spin art:



The girls with the prize-winning pumpkin, which weighed in at over 1000 pounds!


Sophie enjoyed her first corndog, and we had lots of other yummy food - funnel cake, chowder in a bread bowl, pierogies, maple cotton candy, and ice cream.

Sophie really liked the horses. And she moo'ed at all the cows. Quite loudly.

EJ's not really a fan. She likes looking at all of them, but is very cautious about where she steps after a near accident a few years ago!

These twin calves were born just an hour before we saw them. We were walking through one of the cattle barns and saw a huge crowd around this stall. They were so cute!

Apple picking

We went apple picking this past weekend. It was the second weekend that the farm we go to was open, and they had three kinds of apples availabe - Macintosh, Cortland, and Liberty.

All of that rainy weather back in June and July is supposed to deliver a wonderful apple harvest this fall. Just look at how the trees are loaded!


EJ was there for all of 30 seconds and picked only three apples the whole time we were there. She spent all of her time comparing the taste of the different varieties.

Then Sophie got into the tasting:

But she did have fun pushing around the little wheelbarrow:

The farm is pretty small and is a low-spray farm. It's not crowded at all, and it was a beautiful fall day. Afterward, we went to a Big Sib, Little Sib program at the Phillips Exeter Academy, a local prep school. The program is for local adopted children. They get "matched" with a high school student at the academy from the adopted child's country and do crafts or have play time. We didn't get the info until the day before the first meeting, so they weren't able to match Sophie for this month's meeting. Hopefully they'll have a match by October for her.