I’m sure you’re curious why this is phase I… Well, we planned on taking photos of him in his JROTC uniform. Unfortunately, he forgot his tie. So with other things going on, we have to find a different time to do this. And another location. But it will get done!

Without further ado, this is a slide show of our favorite shots…

An early winter snow storm dumped over 10 inches of wet snow.   The heavy snow blanketed the trees and weighed down the leaf-covered branches, causing all sorts of trouble.  Every couple of hours during the storm, one of us would go outside and shake the snow off the branches of our little trees.  This was the only way to keep the branches from snapping.  While we stood outside you could hear tree branches breaking all around the neighborhood.  This storm  even  brought down a few large trees.  The power went out Saturday afternoon and was not restored until Monday evening.  Losing power is a recurring theme here in New York.  We have had many opportunities to use our generator.  Many of our neighbors left their homes for the weekend because they didn’t have heat or water.

I was glad I had made Sarah’s birthday cake the day before.  I toasted coconut for the top of her cake in a pot on the wood burning stove.  This is not the most comfortable place to stand for long periods of a time so dad pulled out the camp stove to cook dinner.  On Sunday morning we brought in our pumpkins off the porch, only to discover they were frozen solid.  It took most of the day to thaw them out enough to carve them.   On Halloween,  Sarah and Mason spent the evening with friends.  Junior stayed home to pass out candy  to the few die hard trick-or-treaters.  Alexandra and her friend trick-or-treated around the block, but only found a couple houses passing out candy.  I didn’t want to hike all around our neighborhood with the little girls, so Dad and I decided to take the three youngest girls trick-or-treating to a friend’s neighborhood in Washingtonville.  This was one of the strangest  Halloweens I have ever experienced.  A few neighborhoods in Cornwall even postponed trick-or-treating until Wednesday.  This is the first time I had ever heard of postponing Halloween.  I, for one, was happy no one came trick-or-treating to our house on Wednesday.  I was ready to have it over with and move on.

Just before school started Grandma & Grandpa Hendricks took us to Walt Disney world in Florida.  We had a blast going to all the parks.   We stayed in the Fort Wilderness Cabins and housekeeping even made it fun by propping the toys into different positions while we were gone.  The first night we came back they had Jessie from Toy Story sitting with the remote and the TV on.  Another night she was put in the window in a cute pose.  We had breakfast in Cinderella’s Castle for Kate’s Birthday.  Allie and Kate spent a couple of hours in the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique getting their hair done and dressed up as princesses.  Claire was too little for the makeover, but she got a Tinkerbell dress for consolation.

Dad, Chris, Jr., Mason, and Sarah got to go snorkeling at Epcot in the 5.7 million gallon fish tank at the Nemo pavilion.  We were very busy from morning to night.  We even spent one day at Universal Studios so Mason could go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  It was pretty cool, and the butter beer was tasty.  It went way too fast.  We had a great time and hope we can go back in the future.

We now have 5 of our six kids in school.  Chris is a senior this year and can’t wait to be out on his own.  We are working hard helping him apply to West Point.  We are not ready to have him leave just yet.  Mason is a sophomore, Sarah is in 7th grade, Alexandra is in 5th grade, and Kate started Kindergarten.  We didn’t get a picture but I started school this fall as well.  I am a little scared but it will be a good experience for me.

Kate turned 5 and started kindergarten this year.  I was worried that she would be too young to handle school.  Boy was I wrong.  She loves riding the bus and if she could she would go stay at school all day.  She was so excited to celebrate her birthday at Cinderella’s dinning table in her castle at Dinsey World.  It is all she talked about all summer.She had a blast meeting her favorite princess Belle and getting her hair done at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

At the end of the school year, Allie brought home a flyer for this play. She wanted to try out because Mr. Davis (her choir teacher) invited her. Mason thought it would be fun so he went too. They both did great at their auditions, and were given parts in the play. Mason was to play Dan, one of Joseph’s brothers, and Allie would be part of the children’s chorus.

This was a pretty professional production for a little local theater. The people who run the theater have done stuff on Broadway, and were able to make this look great. They even got the actual coat that Joseph wore in the original Broadway production.

The kids had to practice a lot. There was only about a month of practice before the play started. But they both worked hard and did a great job. They did 11 performances! The director was delighted with our kids. She remarked how willing Mason was to help with anything, how hard he worked, and what a good job he did for never having done this before. So naturally we were proud of him. He also rearranged his summer to do this.

Unfortunately, we can’t show any video or pictures from the play due to licensing restrictions. But we do have some pictures of the kids and the cast. I think they’ll be doing more – Mason wants to sign up with the fall production. You can find out more about the theater group at http://www.justoffbwy.com.

My, how time flies.  I can hardly believe that Kate will be in kindergarten this fall.  We have a busy school year ahead.  Our next step is getting Claire potty trained.  (Not looking forward to that though it will be nice not to have to change diapers anymore.)  Then we will be working hard on helping Junior apply to West Point.  Hard to believe we are about to have our first move out.  They grow up too fast.