Fall in a Nutshell, part 2: Moving on, moving up

This page has been our one and only family blog for almost 2 years...but now we are moving to another blog that has more features, so it should be better. Please continue on to http://www.blockes2.blogspot.com/ to view our latest news and pictures in the next couple of weeks. The original blockes will still be up and viewable if you ever want to look back on the archives. :) For now, I will finish Fall in a Nutshell with part 2.

Thanksgiving - a little out of order

Elliott learned how to play ping-pong. Jillian and Susan played darts, and Jillian won! :)


Elliott is in awe of the train sets at the hobby shop in Toledo.



Jillian holds the wreath we bought.




Heidi holds up the tree for Brooks

Elliott and Mac help set up the tree, too.

Veteran's Day 2009: Brooks and Susan drove to Milwaukee for the American Orff-Schulwerk Association National Convention. It was great! Here are some of the local Great Lakes chapters represented. Our local chapter, Greater Chicago Area OSA co-hosted.

Elliott's First Haircut

Our neighbor, Wendy, has her own business in her home after working for years at a specialty kid's salon. Here she is getting Elliott covered and settled.

He's watching Thomas during the cut, while holding a Thomas engine and the remote. :)

He's almost done!

Now he looks like a little man! Or a really cute little boy with a man haircut. :)

Fall in a Nutshell, part 1

LABOR DAY AT BROOKFIELD ZOO
Zebra


Bison



Camels


Emu...I think, and Jillian. SO cute!


Jillian with antlers



I love goats!


Aww...can I take hime home with me? I promise I'll take good care of him!



...I'll love and hug on him...I mean, her....


FUN AROUND THE HOUSE...OR SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE...
Leif Erikson Day at Lori's


Playing with the phone on Daddy's nightstand, calling Nana and Grampa


Daddy puts Elliott in his shopping cart for the last time...before he tips over and cuts his lip really good and scares Mommy! It's hard to see your baby bleeding!



I love yogurt so much, I think I'll wear it!


KEITH AND KRISTIN GETTY CONCERT!

Keith, Kristin, Susan, and Brooks, both couples had "In Christ Alone" at their weddings.

The group that went to the concert at Moody.

(left-right, top-bottom) Lynn, Hamille, Lori, Kimberley,

Jayme, Susan, and Brooks


HOSTING 129 AND AN EVENING WITH PASTOR MOODY

Our living room can hold about 30 people...but don't get any ideas.

Summer in Review - Condensed Version

Here are a few highlights from the summer that weren't the new house. :)

Elliott and Mommy go to the Brookfield Zoo with Papa Zoo on a nice summer day before school starts back up.

We help Nana celebrate turning 60 at Red Lobster.

Daddy, Jillian, and Elliott look for a ball and car in one of his books. This is one of the first times he finds a picture of one of his favorite things and says it.

Taking a walk at the River Walk. Elliott would have jumped in the fountain if we didn't keep a close eye on him.

Jillian's birthday party with friends from Roy De Shane at Nana's house.

Grandpa and Grandma Locke come for a visit around Grandpa's birthday.

On Jillian's birthday, she got 9 pink roses from Mommy and Daddy.

Uncle Bob and Nana came over to help out with the new house. Uncle Bob brought a power saw. Awesome!

Elliott attended his first baseball game -- the Kane County Cougars. He was in awe of the fireworks at the end.

New House, early stages

Here are the long-awaited, much anticipated pictures (and videos!) of our new house at 1500 E. Thomas Rd. in Wheaton, IL.

Here are some minute-long videos that I took with my new digital camera of the upstairs and downstairs for those that want the tour. :) Sorry if you get motion-sick after watching them!

Upstairs


Downstairs

These are pictures of our new house either before we moved in or just after.

Jillian by the front door from upstairs view.

Elliott getting into trouble, playing with the toliet, in our master bath (small, but MASTER!)

Brooks and Elliott check out the kid's tub in the mirror; kid's bathroom has double sinks. Yay!

Master bedroom. Salem blue

Jillian's room--precious pink


Elliott's room--it's a boy!

Brooks mowing the lawn for the first time--front yard.

Neighbors in our living room for Jillian's birthday; view from kitchen

Same: living room, but you can see the fireplace.


BIG kitchen, complete with many guests to show just how big it is. :)

You can't see the stainless steel appliances, except for the frigde to the left, but you can see outside!

The most recent picture: the new table and chairs. Paint color is green crystal. Loving this room!

I'm finding that my style is country yet modern. Not quite Martha Stewart...more like Martha Stewart on a budget while trying to be a little green and not throw away something good just because it doesn't match perfectly or something. Nonetheless, love the table! Linda says it has formica on the top--good for families with small children. :)

I'll try to put up the newer pictures soon. We are hoping to go to the Brookfield Zoo today with the kids on Labor Day.

Orff Level I Fun!

After spending two weeks downtown for my Orff Level 1 class, I thought I'd share a few photos. I LOVED it and am thinking about doing Level 2 in the future, but not next year--I have too many other classes to take for my graduate program! Yes, I officially started at VanderCook over the summer. Next year, I will take classes "full time" (more like undergraduate scheduling) for about 6 or 7 weeks. It will be a very busy time, but at least it will be stuff I can use for my job! :)

We did a lot of fun group activities, and at the end of the day we had "Special Topic". We started with the "drumming guy". Here's a group on African drums.

Here's a poem from Dr. Suess that we read and put fun instrument parts to.

Recorder class: we learned about pentatonic scales and playing them on recorder and notating them (or not!)


Here was a really cool poster for a cool silly noise activity in recorder class.

Here are some students playing "metals" on drum day.


This is notation for a xylophone piece we performed called Hiya.

Here's the drum guy showing a real African xylophone.

And a real djembe, and some real African rhythms on the board behind him.

This is my friend, Valerie, who took Intro to Orff with me in March. She's really great! She played tenor recorder in our recorder ensemble.

Brooks came out to see our "sharing day" (aka performance)

I was so happy to see him and share with him!