Christmas Concert

 Jim's switched to percussion - he did brass all last year, so this is new since school started. He's doing great! Even though he keeps comically frowning at me!  

I got a clip of him playing the cymbals, too.

Magic Tree

We went to the magic tree on Christmas Eve eve. The regular magic tree is still on break (and it looked like some big branches were cut off) so it was the smaller back-up tree again. 

 Yes, I'm wearing an artic explorer coat while Jim is in shorts & a t-shirt. Also, yes, of course, my eyes are closed. 

Jim was, in fact, having a good time. He is just onery about the pictures. 

He hung off of all of the trees - that was a new one. 

I think the water feature is  more of a draw than the tree at this point. The light is too low to really get a picture, though!. 

We might go back again tonight!

Last Year for VU Holiday Lights

They announced that this was the last year for the Veterans United Holiday lights. (They started in 2020 during Covid.) Amelie & I got a sneak peek because she went out practice driving over there last weekend when some workers were putting up part of the display. 

We put on our Santa/elf hats and loaded up the van courtesy of Aunt Holly's employee pass. Nana Jana & Uncle Joe had a series of (small) misfortunes and so we went just us & didn't squeeze in. Leah did get in the front seat with Jim to see better once we were in the parking lot, but she spilled her (very hot) cocoa on him! So maybe he regretted that decision. 

The lights were super nice as always! And I got one of the workers to take our picture!

Link to last year! https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2024/12/vu-bright-lights.html

Leah’s Artwork

Leah brought home a big batch of artwork yesterday, and told me and Sam all about it. Her art teacher is really wonderful!

This one reminds me of the dot picture I did that's in our downstairs bathroom (that Aunt Holly thought one of the kids painted!) 

I said the next picture reminded me of The Dot picture book, and Leah let me know they read it in class!

Doing line work: 

And making a map: 

Including: Sheepville, Stinkerbell, the GIANT worm, Island of nothing and whales!, the boot, ghost town, and forest of monsters, and some very questionable spelling "the Hart of the Ilind" - I did ask, that was supposed to be "island" but, since old-timey maps also had some questionable spelling, it was fitting. 

Theater Tech

 Amelie's in Theater Tech this year for her practical art & they're building the sets for the plays that Hickman puts on. We went to see the first production - Mama Mia - and to admire Amelie's wall/door/floor that she worked on. Look how professional!

Pickled Green Tomatoes

Posting this to save it for posterity (and myself). I love the pickled green tomatoes they serve at some fried fish places in the bootheel & it's a great way to use up all the green tomatoes left at the end of the season. It's kind of relishy and goes well with fish & white beans & anything really. (I like it with a lot of my side's thanksgiving food.) 

It cooks down a fair amount & the tomatoes release a lot of liquid if you're worried about it not being enough. We didn't put any hot peppers in - maybe next year!

We did a 1/4 recipe and it made about 2 quarts, so here's that translation: 

8 cups green tomatoes

1 cup onions

1/2 cup white vinegar

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons salt

Mix everything but tomatoes together til hot, add green tomatoes and bring to a pool til tomatoes turn light green, turn off heat, place in hot sterilized jars. 

Tonsillectomy

 Jim got his tonsils & adenoids out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It's been a week and a half and I think he's pretty well recuperated - no PE for a couple more days, they said, though. 

In the waiting room:

His surgery wasn't until 3:45pm, which makes for a long day of no food! And nothing to drink, either, after noon. 

He ended up having to spend the night in the hospital and was Not A Fan. We watched the Jack Black Jumanji and had some popsicles and microwave mac & cheese. All in all a little crappier experience than maybe he was expecting! There was the holiday plus a snow day at school, so he only ended up missing 2 days. 

We brought exploding kittens, but only made it through one game.

Halloween 2025

Sam was excited about putting up lights for Halloween. 

The 5 of us also carved pumpkins & then roasted & ate the seeds. 

From left to right: Jim, Sam, Leah (only got a little help on 3 letters for "treat"), Amelie (she carved the same design last year),  Crystal (Jinu from K-pop Demon Hunters)

Nana Jana & Leah worked on a haunted doll house: 

We went to a Halloween party the Friday before Halloween & mine & Leah's costumes were different, but did we take any photos? Nope! Oops! 

Nana Jana loaned Amelie a cloak so that she would be warm. Jim walked around in shorts. 

Leah worked very hard over several days on her witch costume. She even made a little papier-mache bird/familiar. 

Amelie was also a witch!

And Jim was a scary dude in a mask! He did abandon his mask toward the end - so then he was just a teenager without a costume - and one house gave him some pushback on it. 

I wore my light-up ghost earrings to work & then for passing out candy. 

Amelie and Jim came home with the most ridiculously excessive candy haul ever. Jim did get 1 potato, and one house was having hotdogs so he joined in with that, too. 

We ended up with 57 trick-or-treaters total! 

Aunt Jenn & Uncle Joe got to come over & pass out candy & walk around the neighborhood for trick-or-treat this year! Since they're here in MO! Did we take a picture? No! Next time!

Here's the link to last year!

School Pictures 25-26 School Year

 For the second year in a row, we've got 3 kids in 3 different schools - and they all do their school pictures differently, with different companies at different times of the year. Amelie took hers on the 1st day of school. She's a sophomore at Hickman (& we paid an exorbitant amount of money for these phones and they are a little blurry!): 

Jim's a seventh grader at Jeff Middle. He brought his photos home all crumpled up in his backpack, but I wasn't going to pay any more money for a replacement. 

And Leah's a 3rd grader at Ridgeway (unit B!)

 

Dentist

The kids had their back-to-school dentist appointments & everyone had x-rays & no one had cavities, so that's a plus: 

No pics of Amelie, who took the longest, though!

Jim's got a juvenile delinquent tooth & they recommended orthodontics. You can see the adult tooth is coming in sideways and not growing down to push the baby tooth out (the baby tooth is the one that's just hanging out there all by itself). The dentist thought they'd want to pull the baby tooth & then do braces to pull the adult tooth down as it is "stuck." There were also many dire warnings that his current brushing & flossing routine was not going to cut it with braces on. 

 You can see the wisdom teeth really clearly on this one, too: 

K Pop

Leah has been listening to K Pop on repeat - due to the K Pop Demon Hunters movie on Netflix that all of the 3rd graders are obsessed with. 

It's about a super popular (fictional!) girl band in Korea called Huntr/x, whose members are secretly demon hunters. Then a rival boy band called the Saja Boys (who are actually secretly demons!) comes on the scene. 

There was a singalong showing at the movie theater and Leah & I went (& she & the other kids in the audience sang along to every word). It’s catchy!

We wore matching dresses (from Easter):

Sam keeps making fun of me because I’ve been singing the soda pop song.

She made a Rumi costume & wore it to Tyrps camp one day: 

I think it gets the spirit: