Thanksgiving weekend was a busy weekend for our family.
We started it off with the second annual Teodoro Turkey Trot.
No race is complete without custom t-shirts.
And while this picture is taken at a weird angle (ignore my double chin), Aidan is indeed taller than me...but I don't think it's by that much!
Sophie didn't understand that when you take a picture you face towards the camera. Must be her best side.
Sweet Trevi made it out to the Turkey Trot for the second year in a row!
She was just two weeks old at the last run. Check out her vintage onesie next to her.
She's grown a bit!
We gathered together at Titlow Park in Tacoma again to prepare for the race.
Kadence (on the left) was the youngest Teodoro participant this year.
We tried several attempts to get our group together for a photo before the run.
Take 1
Take 2
{Brett is fired up}
Take 3
The girls are ready to run!
Some last minute instructions for the race.
I spray painted the course the day before and am no longer allowed to use spray paint.
I may or may not have spray painted the dogs head pink in my attempt to paint lines on the ground.
The Edvald's family were honorable Teodoro's for the day!
Mike was thankful to have Luke (far right) as a running buddy.
Mike's goal was to run a 5k as fast as his wife (24:46).
He finished in 24:01.
Sweet Bella ran with Grandpa again and finished in 28 minutes.
Several of the walkers got stopped more than once for a train crossing.
After the race
So many yummy after race snacks, from pumpkin bars, banana bread and coffee!
After the race, we were ready to get our gobble on and celebrated with a Thanksgiving dinner for 46 at Grandma's! No {Teodoro} dinner party is complete without an auto cad drawing of the table placement!
We all fit!
The next day we hosted a regressive youth group dinner at our house.
We provided the appetizers, the youth group provided the games.
It was also part of a murder mystery game that they played throughout the night.
It was super fun to be a part of that.
And finally, our partying didn't stop there!
My friend Lanita and I hosted a 40th birthday "coffee with friends" celebration for our friend Tiffany.
Thanks to Esther we got some sweet adult party favors.
I also broke about 100 copyright violations by taking the Starbucks logo and manipulating it, which is why I am sharing the party with you here, and not on my "regular" blog.
I was in charge of decorations, Lanita was in charge of the food.
We made a great team!
Up close of the logo
Pretty sure Mike at his weight in these panini's!
Happy birthday Tiffany!
Can't wait to spend a few days in Maui with these ladies next week.
I got to chaperone Owen's field trip to the play Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. Who knew they could turn a 28 page book into a 90 minute play!
Owen got to choose his own group of friends, and I must say, that boy makes some great choices in friends!
This is his friend Eric who also does unicycle club with Owen every Friday morning.
Owen chose one girl, Jasmine, to be in our group.
She is a cute blonde with a spunky personality.
I'm told he picked her because she's a good climber and really good at the monkey bars!
He also ditched me on the way home to sit with her.
Whatevs...probably won't be the last time he chooses a girl over his mama!
This was my group of kids...all five of them!
None of them were super keen on picture taking. Well, except for Jasmine, so this is as good as it gets!
The play (turned musical) was pretty true to the story.
This is when "Dr. Fields finds a cavity just in me".
Aidan has joined FBLA this year, which means he needed to get himself a suit.
Thankfully, I found one on super sale (yep, still have my magic!) and now he is ready to roll.
That is, after he learns how to tie a tie!
He got a little lesson from his father.
So this picture is a little blurry, but the pose was priceless!
Aidan is totally working his new suit!
And while it looks to be royal blue, it really is navy.
Not to worry, he also has dress shoes to go with it!
One of my good friends from High School married a guy she met in college. His name is Ben Showalter. He is a professional drummer and they live in Nashville. He currently drums with the Christian band Brenton Brown(click the link, you may think you don't know who he is, but I would bet you money you have heard at least one of his songs, and sung at least one of them at church).
Here's a little more info about Ben that I copied and pasted:
Showalter majored in Music Business at Anderson University, where he studied with Dane Clark of the John Mellencamp band. In 1998, he started his professional career with a band called Chasing Furies. Since, he has played live and in the studio with a long list of artists over the last 12 years, including Luna Halo, LaRue, Monroe Jones, Chris Rice, Shaun Groves, Christine Dente, Ginny Owens, Sonic Flood, Phil Baquie, Kim Hill, Dana Jorgenson, Harsh Krieger, Phillip LaRue, Sienna, Sarah MacIntosh, Day One, Daniel Lee Martin, Tim Hughes, Charla Corn, Carl Cartee, Matt Maher, Michael Gungor Band, Kelly Minter, Al Gordon, Vicky Beeching, Ben Cantelon, Jonathan Lee, and Paul Baloche.
Showalter joined Brenton Brown’s band in February of 2008. Over the last couple of years, he has traveled extensive throughout the States and throughout the world. Most recently, he played on Vicky Beeching’s new record Eternity Invades, and Brown's new album Joyful, both early 2011 releases. Showalter is also playing with Dreamseed.
That being said, Ben is a pretty cool guy and we were fortunate enough to be able to spend the evening with him before he played and taught at the Christian Music Summit.
Ben gave Aidan some pretty invaluable drum lessons!
Earlier this month, Esther told me about a program called More Music at the Moore.
I didn't know much about it, but thought it sounded like a cool opportunity for Aidan.
This is the promo video:
I signed him up for an audition and the only requirement was that it had to be an original piece of music around 3 minutes long.
Ben encouraged him to write some things down and to keep a consistent beat throughout the whole song.
I can't read drum music but this is what he came up with.
It was pretty cool getting to go into the Moore theater when hardly anyone was there.
Once we got to the audition, we were ushered downstairs to the green room area.
We were told they were closed auditions but I was able to sneak over to the bottom of the stairs and listen in to his audition. Because the stage lights were on, Aidan said he really couldn't see out into the audience, but from my earlier peek in there were around 6-8 people auditioning him.
There were some really talented kids auditioning.
And by kids, the age range for this program is 14-21.
An amazing fiddle group and some beautiful vocalists auditioned before him, though during the time we were there we didn't see another single drummer (maybe a good sign?).
Aidan has been told several times by various drummers that when you show up to play you never know what type of kit will be set up in front of you. He was quickly thrown off guard by the fact that there wasn't another tom and no double kickers. He said he quickly threw out most of his audition material he practiced and just "winged it".
I thought it sounded great, and the dad standing next to me told me he had shivers and couldn't believe that Aidan had only been playing for a year. Which is exactly what the people auditioning him said as he finished his solo. I immediately heard "Wow! You have only been playing for 14 months???!" Followed by several others chiming in to tell him that he had a good sense of rhythm and could really feel the beat.
We should know on Wednesday if he gets called back for the second audition, but really, just the experience of playing on the Moore stage in Seattle is pretty cool in and of itself!
I was able to video Aidan's audition that he practiced (though like I said, it wasn't the same).
You can watch it here:
We know it's Christmas time because catalog have been streaming in.
The kids really like to get the catalogs and then circle the things they like.
Owen usually puts and "O" next to it and Isabella a "B".
I went to pick up Bella at gymnastics and before I left I told Owen that we got the new World Vision gift catalog in the mail. Owen quickly took the catalog and sat down at the table, pen in hand.
When I got home Mike told me about a conversation that they had about the catalog.
Mike: What are you doing Owen?
Owen: Just circling the chicks I like.
At least it wasn't Aidan's yearbook!
As a side note, last week a level 9 gymnast at Bella's gym had an accident as she was practicing a dismount. She is currently paralyzed. You can read more about Jacoby here. Please be praying for her and her family.
During our conference week, the kids and I took the time to visit the art museum.
I love the free passes you can get from the library.
If you are local and don't know about the art access passes, look into them at your local library.
You can get free admission for up to 6 people to the art museum, history museum and glass museum.
Dale Chihuly had an exhibit at the museum of his work that is always impressive.
These were a few of the kids favorites.
The white one is probably my favorite.
You know, in case you were wondering.
There was also a really cool photographer with work displayed from all over the country.
It was really cool to examine the black and white portraits a little more closely.
The Tacoma art museum is quite small and with young kids usually takes a max of a half an hour to tour.
We tend to spend the most time in the studio room making our own art.
Most of the projects are inspired by the work that is on display and craft kits are set up so that you can make similar inspired art.
Owen and I made some wire art
He spent a lot of time wrapping and rolling wire making nothing in particular but everything awesome
Isabella worked with fabric to make a collage
I used this picture to make a screen print.
Next week the kids have another half day.
We will be heading to the glass museum on Tuesday if anyone wants to join us.
Pumpkin carving is still everyone's favorite Halloween event.
Well, minus trick or treating.
Sophie was not impressed.
Isabella wanted a mustache pumpkin.
No matter how much I try to brainwash Aidan and drill the Purdue fight song into his head, he went with this for his pumpkin.
Owen wanted a crazy pumpkin face for his pumpkin this year.
It sort of looks like Owen don't you think?
Only kidding!
All lit up!
Owen and Isabella's school held their first ever trunk or treat.
It poured all night, but we pulled it together for the sake of candy and participated.
Yes those are coffee filter teeth on my mini van.
We couldn't compete with the pirate ship
Trunk or Treat was a hit. We started the night with four bags of candy and ran out within five minutes.
Thankfully, we had some more donations to "steal" from and managed to make them last for 45 minutes.
Mike is the Halloween scrooge but he managed to suck it up and pass out treats with the girl.
The boys sat in the car eating candy.
On Halloween night Owen wanted to wear his skeleton costume again even though he had a really cool fighter pilot costume. Maybe next year.
Isabella wore her new candy corn princess dress ($2 from a garage sale).
Aidan spent the evening with some school friends with the intention of scaring small children with chainsaws and masks. However, not enough trick or treaters came their way, and they ditched their scare plan and went trick or treating.
Because our new neighborhood is lame, we headed back to NE Tacoma to trick or treat with some friends.
Isabella went trick or treating with Grace and her brothers, and Owen went with his friend Shea.
We even dropped by our old hood and got to spend some time with Geoff and Casey before picking up Aidan.
The next day Owen had a fire station tour with Boy Scouts
They practiced stopping, dropping and rolling (yep, they still do that), but now they tell you to cover your face. Tuck that away as something to remember. Don't remember the firefighters caring about my face when I was learning all of this.
They even got a chance to drag the firefighter out of their pretend burning building.
