This is Halloween!

 No-school days are so welcome.  But it's a conundrum!  Do we relax?  Do we get a lot done?  I had intentions of doing both, so when Araceli and I got home from cello at 8:30 this morning, I took a nap!  Oh heavenly day!  Then we got everyone's practicing done and visited Nana.  She looks rather chipper in this picture, doesn't she?  We took Little Caesar's pizza to her and made a little dent in her Halloween candy supply.

 Trajan and Mic were the first to arrive to the big Halloween party.  Their costumes stole the show!  They had Freestone cuffed and booked in no time.

 Tziporah started out as a mouse, then picked out a crown at the dollar store, then added tap shoes and a tutu.  What was she?  Draw your own conclusions.

 Kimber and her five kids.  And she looks this relaxed??

 Angie's family.  You know, Clint's sister?  Tziporah's dance teacher's daughter?  There are so many connections in Davis County!

 The Barber kids.  Adorable!

 He officially changed his name to Ptolemy Spiderman Dopp.  But you can call him Chip.

 Savanna, one of my sweet little Chinese this year.  Her grandparents live up the street.  Dr. Ferguson has been the anesthesiologist for Ari's surgeries.  Her Aunt Kenzie teaches ballet with me, and has had my kids in her classes.  Kenzie is such a dedicated and fabulous teacher.

 Ruby, Clint's sister Jenny's baby.

 The independent Halloween Firm of Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald.  They came prepared to choose costume winners, and they did a great job!  I'm so glad I don't have to decide!

 Fitz family adorableness

 I love this picture.  I'm so glad you brought your mom, Sarah!  This woman drove me to as many or more ballet classes as my own mom and probably sat through just as many of my recitals, too!

 Another picture that just makes me smile.

 Some 7th grade awkwardness going on right here.  ;)

 Tanner is such a great kid!  He's witty enough to hang with the adults and fun enough to hang with the kids.  I think grandma and Grandpa count as both adults and kids!  They are always up for fun.

 The Byingtons, our neighbors and friends.

 The McBrides, neighbors since the 1970's, friends since their son Jacob started taking violin lessons from me.  He is such a fun student.  I love him and his family.

 The Moodys!  Marianne has been a teacher/mentor to my girls at Clytie's for years.  And now their kids get to play with my kids every week!  It's great!  Cleo took a rocking horse from my shop last week.  She couldn't stand to part with it and lugged it up the stairs and to the car, so I gave it to her.  A few days later, I came out of the library and the horse was in my car!  Cue music from "Psycho!"  Marianne said I could only give it back if it just appeared somewhere.  So I have to figure out how, when and where to do that.  Ideas?

 This girl stole the show!  Michelle Fitzgerald, woman of many (all) talents, sewed that Little Red Riding Hood costume.  Look how Liby plays the part!

 "Liby, show me scared!"

 And then there are the Dopps. recycling costumes from years past.  This one that Coco made was worth a reprise! Xanthe was the cutest little hipster bride, wearing Araceli's baptism dress, and Freestone threw on a leather jacket from '50's day.  I didn't even get pictures of them!

 Coco and Bill...scary!  At the party, the kids go through our back yard to Coco and Bill's, then on to Josh and Emily's Ghost Gully, then up the street, around the block and back to our house.

 This year, Josh chain-sawed a path through the woods from Coco's to his house.  It was so cool!  I think he threw his back out trying to hack through the brush in 15 minutes.  Motivated by deadlines, just like his sister.  It was so worth it, Josh!

 Scott was scared of the woods!

 By the time I got over there, most of the balloons were taken by kids.  Imagine a hundred balloons.  It's so pretty!

 I'm so lucky to have Emily close by.  She is always watching my kids and solving my quandries with her spot-on advice and recommendations.  Plus, she's funny and fun, and their kids are perfect friends for mine.

 Ann Gammon, Coco's next-door neighbor.  She has a heart of gold and a hug of steel!

 Beautiful Isabella, my niece.  Isn't she a stunning Ice Princess?

 And Collin.  Yikes!

 These two little girls.  So funny!

 Ruth Ford, our back yard neighbor.  She is 89 and going strong.  Amazing woman!

 I must have blacked out for a few minutes during the candy drop because there are no pictures.  Oh ya, I remember.  My phone ran out of memory, so I used Scott's.  I even video taped some of the prime moments of our yearly fight about how to drop the candy.  Scott won this time and dropped it in a big pile instead of flinging it out over the crowd, injuring people in the process.  But his way isn't as exciting.  I'm going to win next time, so wear protective gear, everyone!  Trajan said we should have a disclaimer, "Football costumes or characters with shields only!"

 I painted this while the kids were painting, just for fun.

 All the prizes Michelle and Brittany made for the costume contest.  I have the best friends, family and neighbors!

 Somebody got a new app on his phone.

 Ruby threw on a dress and put her hair in a loose bun.  She later said, "Why is everyone so concerned about what you're supposed to be?  Can't you just be 'dressed up for Halloween'?'  Ha ha.

 This child was killing us.  She was so funny!  At this point in the night, she was wearing whiskers, ruby slippers, a Sophia the First dress, a tiara and sunglasses.  She couldn't see in the sunglasses because it was dark, and she was dragging a Fancy Nancy suitcase with wheels and holding a guinea pig.  She looked like a little blind mouse princess from Oz.  I died laughing.

This was a great Halloween.  It had everything, from bins of candy to a traditional argument about how to hurl it at kids.  It had trick-or-treating, some of us with the Kings, some with the Scheullers, pizza with Coco and Bill, visits with our Windsor neighbors, and to top it all off, the most amazing summer-like weather ever.  At the end of the night, Freestone had 72 Snickers, a dozen of them full-size.  He gets obsessed.  I'm pretty sure none of the Scheullers had any Snickers after the trading was complete!  Another Halloween in the books.  I'm sad...but happy.

Tizzy the other day:  I don't LIKE mummy band-aids.  Hashtags:
 #halloweenyourekillinme
#damnyoupinterest
Ha ha.

Bad Dog

This morning at violin lessons, Freestone was ready to start when he asked me, "Do I have ballroom today?"  I said yes, and he had some weird episode where he couldn't function.  It was not pretty.  He wouldn't grab his violin.  Janet had to leave the room "to get something" while I threatened Freestone with all that is holy.  He was fine after that, but still upset that he wasn't mentally prepared to go straight to ballroom after violin, then straight to school.  He is a kid who has to wrap his head around things before he dives in.  When I dropped him off at the school, other ballroom kids were dragging in huge cardboard boxes painted like cars.  They were also dressed like Egyptians.  Free said, "Oh ya.  We were supposed to paint a car for a drive-in movie, but I can't go anyway because of my missing homework."  He had already said he didn't want to dress like an Egyptian for Egyptian day, so he went to school car-less and in civilian clothing, and incidentally, without a package of fig newtons, which was his food assignment.  I was sad because it took everything we had to get Freestone to school dressed, even without all the acoutrements.

I have mixed feelings about the reward system in which some kids get to participate in a party while others have to do homework.  I'm willing to bet the kids who are left out are some of the ones who struggle the most to keep up, and who would LOVE to be doing something right.  For some kids, it's easy-breezy to get everything done.  To put an incentive in front of the kids that may not motivate some of them (I.E. sitting in a cardboard box watching an old movie in the lunchroom), and then punish them when they don't perform, is depressing to me.  Then again, I was the kid in second grade who could not, for the life of me, earn enough fake dimes to qualify me for the weekly popcorn party.  I had a teacher who was borderline abusive, so every Friday, I had to sit at my desk with my head down, listening to the popcorn popper and smelling the warm, buttery goodness wafting toward me from the back of the room, mingled with the happy banter of children who were smarter, better, more worthy than I.  I wasn't even allowed to raise my head to look at them.  I just didn't get it.  I didn't get how to earn the dimes, or why I never did.  One time, I stole some dimes out of Janalee Hill's desk so I could experience the popcorn party, just once.  I was banned from that week's party for stealing and lying.  To this day, I don't know what I did or didn't do to disqualify me from the popcorn party.  It seemed arbitrary how the teacher would dole them out as we worked, and maybe it was.  She was a sociopath.  But it wasn't for lack of wanting to succeed that I failed.  Being excluded just made me more miserable.

So I'm reading my own experiences into Freestone's.  According to my dad, that's the whole problem with today's get-in-touch-with-your-emotions world.  My grandfather was raised on a farm, and carried farm ethics over into his law practice.  The notion of analyzing a criminal's behavior was counter to the practical morals of farm life.  In regards to the insanity defense in a case, my grandfather said, "When a dog goes after a sheep and kills it, you don't ask what the dog's childhood was like.  You just shoot the son-of-a-%#*."

So in theory, I'm OK with saying, "Look, here are the standards, and if you meet them you will be rewarded."  But then I become the parent of a desperate little boy who is brilliant and funny and loving, and who got up at 6 to go to violin to make his mom happy.  Who practices every day and goes to dance classes and scouts, and babysits and takes care of his dog and cooks dinner and stays up late talking to his mom and dad.  But he didn't make a box car because he knew he wasn't worthy.

When I go to school to take him his fig newtons, he is sitting alone in a classroom doing homework, dressed in a floor-length Egyptian tunic that another mom lent him when he came without a costume.  He's wearing eye liner that another parent put on him.  I have failed him.  Suddenly, I'm that second-grader with her head down on her desk, breathing in the buttery smell of everyone else's achievement.

I take my brilliant child away from there and go see Nana.  At her house, everybody qualifies, even the bad dogs.

Bring Back 1978

It's the end of the term.  I feel like by the time Tziporah gets to high school, I'll be begging her to take two gym classes, life skills math and be a teacher's aide.  I am exhausted!  Maybe it's because Xanthe's Monday Marathon stretched into Tuesday.  She races home from school every Monday and digs into her packets.  She was still feverishly working last night at 7:30 when I went to teach.  She follows me around making me translate every question and then help her come up with the answers in French.  It's so hard!!  {"It's so hard," she whined.}  Yes, I'm whining.  But you don't understand!  I had to threaten to call Xanthe's teacher if she didn't put her homework down.  I promised Xanthe that I would go through her "writers' circle" essay and correct it before I went to bed if she would just stop doing homework and start on her reading.

The next morning, I was woken up by Xanthe's face an inch away from mine.  "Did you read it?"

No, of course I didn't read it!  I was wiped out from the three hours of French homework I had.  I never intended to read it.  I lied!  

And then there's Freestone.  Freestone's teachers sent an email with a list A MILE LONG of missing homework assignments.  It's like he's been on a mission to avoid turning in a single homework assignment all year, and he's succeeding beyond anyone's wildest expectations.  Even when I sit with him and complete work, he fails to turn it in.  It's weird.  I don't know what's up with Freestone, but I do know that nobody, and I mean nobody, can not-turn-homework-in like our boy.  He's a champ.  I have gotten so tired, what with Xanthe's determination and Freestone's striving for the Guinness World Record for Most Homework Avoided, I have given Freestone the rest of the term off.  That means one week of not having to write down stupid comments about the books you read.  It means watching a TV show when it's on instead of waiting until the weekend.  It means eating dinner with your mom without simultaneously doing math.  It's like 1978.

Remember when we would all shake our heads about the state of education in this country and how we were all turning out to be dumb-dumbs compared to the rest of the world?  Well, be careful what you wish for, because I wish I could go back to those days and warn people, "I've seen the future!  And the future is hard!  There's homework!  Lots of homework!  In foreign languages!  Just keep your heads down and settle for mediocrity!"  Nowdays, my kids are getting an amazing education, and...it is freakin' hard!  I'm having to say things to my kids like, "I don't think you should mummify mice for the science fair.  How would we...Where would we even..."

I have to tell you a funny story, even though it's not my story.  It's my brother Josh.  Emily was looking at his kindergarten class picture and noticed our cousin Jamison in the picture.  Jamison didn't go to our school.  When Emily asked about it, Josh said, "I dunno.  Mom and Pat were probably doing something and they sent him to school with me that day."  Yep.  Jamison's parents went on a trip and Jamison stayed at our house.  And of course, since it was the '70's, he just went to kindergarten with Josh instead of at his own school.  And the teacher put him in the class picture!  Can you imagine that scenario today?  "Teacher, this is my cousin.  He lives in Bountiful, but his mom and dad went on a trip.  So can he be in my class for two weeks?  Great.  Thanks."  That would never happen in 2014.  Remember how I got an email from Ptolemy's kindergarten teacher about him being "checked out" on the reading rug?  How do you think it would go over if he actually checked out and went to school in a neighboring town for a couple weeks?  Man, our kids aren't going to have any good stories to tell.  Too bad, because they appear to be very good at writing, based on their test scores.

Shelter Weekend

 Autumn is more spectacular in other climates, I'm sure, but if you're a Utah girl, there is nothing better than the Rocky Mountain landscape coming alive with the dusty, rusty colors of fall.  And I'm sure there are people in the world who had more exciting plans than mine this past weekend, but if I had to choose a place and a plan, there is noplace I would rather have been than in Park City with some of my oldest friends.  Nobody is sure quite how this particular group was distilled out of many years of shared Davis County memories, but I think it was meant to be.

The only drawback to a blissful weekend retreat is that something happens to the space-time continuum and time just races by at an astonishing pace.  Huge chunks of time just fall away amid discussions of everything under the sun and stuffing your face with chocolate.  It's like the opposite of what sometimes happens in Sacrament meeting when you wonder how it could possibly be the same day as when you arrived and the meeting is only half over.

We must have indeed spent those hours together, though, because we did go to Sushi Blue for dinner Friday night, I did get up semi-early Saturday and walk to the Silver Star and watch for poop fairies, we did fit in a little hike, and we did take an art class Saturday afternoon, we opened presents and cooked dinner and at the end of it all, a whole lot of Coke products were missing.  So there's proof that we did have the time.

Scott's weekend was flying by at home, too.  It's hard to be a single dad on Saturday this time of year.  We had to eliminate a cello play-in, a flute workshop and the Utah football game and just stick to the basics.  Scott was on a daddying high all weekend.  He eats this stuff up.  He would be a great stay-at-home dad.  The kids would be so clean and happy.

 And stoned.  Just kidding.  Golda went to the Halloween dance Saturday dressed as a hippie thanks to - who else - Jen Ramsdell's costuming acumen and generosity.  Thank you again!

 Evidently Scott bought some Halloween costumage so the rest of the kids wouldn't have to be strictly confined to old ballet costumes for the ward trunk-or-treat.

 OK, still somewhat old-ballet-costume heavy on some.

 Blatantly disobeying the "no crossdressing" rule at the trunk-or-treat.  You mustachioed rebels!

 Far more amazing than he looks.  lol

 Dopp kids, with Ellison subbing for Golda.

 Xanthe in her happy place, looking beautiful.

 And after that...Golda and her group came over after the dance for some caramel apples with Nikki's topping idea, and to watch Watcher in the Woods.  Scott loves to stage a party, and he's good at it!

 Emily and Jess (Christine's daughter)

Zach.  What a great catch for the Halloween dance, huh?  Anyway, all of that was going on while I was away.  I love that our group was getting texts and pics from our families the whole time.  We love to have these weekends together, but our hearts are truly with our families.  Still...what fun we had running away from home!

 Jen Ramsdell.  You know her.  Everyone does.  And since to know her is to love her, don't you just love her?  I do.  And in the foreground are the two women who share my birthday weekend, Michelle and Jennie.

 The Dopp girls of the group

 Tiffany, our real working artist, did not enjoy - or adhere to - the time constraints or artistic constraints of this project!

 Look at Jen's clouds!  Masterpiece!

 Sarah, my partner in art crime since the early days of routinely ruining my mom's Merle Norman makeup in the name of performance art, circa 1981.

 Michelle Butler (Okay, Fitzgerald), our resident expert.  She knows how to art and craft, and knows all the secrets and shortcuts of artistic success.

 Jennie was afraid she wouldn't be able to pull off an artistic endeavor.  What EVER!!!

 My palette expanded...and expanded.  I'm sure that definitely says something about my personality, that I couldn't restrict my color mixing to the designated space.  My luggage did the same thing, throwing clothes out all over Sarah's condo.  Let's call it right-brained creativity, shall we?

 Beautiful Christine!  She joked that if our paintings reflected who we are, then she is a five-year-old.  In reality, I think all the paintings in the class turned out great, and it was a lot of fun.

 They've taken me in, even though they know stuff about me that isn't even in the journals my kids have read.  I don't know that they had a choice.  I've just kindof always been there, pointing and flexing next to Sarah in a size 2T leotard, begging Michelle's 6th grade potato chips, showing up in smocked dresses at birthday parties, playing the violin with Christine, eating far more than my share of chocolate chip cookies at Chris and Jen's wedding, and relying on Jennie for advice of every kind.  I'm hard to get rid of.  Plus, I send out a lot of invitations, and eventually, you have to say yes.

 The birthday girls!

 Speaking of saying yes...YES!  Sarah, thank you for hosting us in your beautiful space.