Fall concert

Last Thursday, in the midst of a horrendous and damaging thunderstorm, Hildebrandt's bands held their fall concert. As usual, Austen's band (the Honor Band) played beautifully.

Austen is right in the center of these photos. It's hard to tell because of all the hair, but that's our boy!

Proud DARE graduate

Yesterday, the entire 5th grade at Parker's school graduated from the DARE program -- a 9-week curriculum which teaches youngsters about the situations in which they may find themselves regarding drugs, alcohol, etc. -- and how to say no or walk away. This may be the most valuable set of lessons these kids learn all year.

Parker is right in the middle of the first picture, showing him with his classmates. The second picture shows a very proud young man with his certificate.

Yayyy, Parker!

A shift

From now on, almost all the photos of Grace, Audace, and Ruse will be posted on their own blog! Momma Grace & Company

See you there!

Kira's reading

When I went to pick up Kira, Parker, and their neighbor pals Austin and Abbi at school the other day, I waited in the kindergarten playground area. I saw Kira come out of her building, pink backpack (SuperGirl!) on, running and reading at the same time. It's a wonder she could see where she was going!

Turns out she had taken Green Eggs and Ham to school (favorite book day?), and she was reading it to herself even after school was over. Then she climbed the jungle gym and kept on reading. She needed help with words like "could" and "would" and "anywhere" but other than that she was reading quite well on her own ... and loving it!

Photos from October 14

Here are a couple of photos I wanted to post that I took last Saturday. The first one is the window-wall with the page that announced that Austen had made it into the All-Region Band. Whenever someone posted a new set of results, there was almost a stampede of students to find out if theirs was up!

The second picture is of Austen (gray sweatshirt) with his pals as they waited for these types of announcements -- or rejoiced after the results were posted. Imagine a junior high's cafeteria filled with happy (read: yelling and screaming) 7th and 8th graders!

Grace LOVES the kitty-kitchen!

Finally, I can post photos!

Grace doesn't usually stray far from the food and water dishes! She was keeping an eye on the water dish in which I had put ice cubes (she and her boys seem to like their water COLD!); I think the crackling sound was a bit unnerving for her!

She will also seem to guard the water dish, and then drink a bit, guard some more, drink some more, etc. This can go on for quite a while, and her boys know enough not to come too near when she's in water-dish-guarding mode!

Fun li'l family!

Blogger!

Well, that's just wonderful (<~~sarcasm intended). Blogger isn't allowing me to upload pictures. Is anyone else having this problem? Probably so. I'm not usually the "lone ranger" when it comes to things like this.

I was going to post a couple of photos I took last Saturday at the all-region band competition Austen participated in. Anne posted the details here: http://www.bloghouston.net/item/4266

All I wanted to do was to post a couple of photos. Maybe tomorrow!

Cute, funny boys!

On Saturday, during housecleaning time, Ruse discovered how much FUN it is to dive into a rolled up rug! And Audace thought it was fun to jump on top of the lumpy, moving rug! Such funny boys!

If you want to see a little movie of this adventure, here it is!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9wZEN6ZHR8

Enjoy!