Sing Out Play and Costumes

Carmen and I were involved in a play last weekend. The play was called Switching Channels.

Sing Out is a play program offered only to the 5th and 6th graders in our town. Any student who tries out is somehow involved in the play. Each student is given a minor role exposing them to theatre in a fun way. Linda Gadilauskus, a mother who grew up in Shrewsbury, participated in Sing Out as a kid herself. When her children were of the age she began the tradition again. She writes the plays herself and gives all the proceeds back Sherwood middle school (our 5th and 6th grade). Tobin participated in Sing Out in 6th grade, but I have been involved in these plays since Sarai was in 5th grade. For four years I have made/created costumes for the play. I had also been involved as the costume director. This year, life is much busier and asked that someone else step up to organize the costumes. I was still asked to create some costumes!

My job with costumes this year was to create ones for particular commercials used in the play. I had to create the Fruit of the Loom guys:

Here is the apple: I made an inner shirt so I could stuff fiber fill between the red shirt and the inner one.

Here is the fig character. Here is cut out leaves from felt and sewed them all over the shirt. I only sewed the top of the leaves so they would move freely.

and the grapes. As you can see they are covered in balloons. Each character had a hat to match their costume. My mother had made me a pumpkin costume when I was 8. Somehow, that hat is now in my possession. I used that hat and created my own pattern from which I made these hats.

a Toothbrush costume and a toothpaste costume.

Pepsodine is a made up toothpaste name. Yes, it is similar to Pepsidine, which is for sore gums. The director wrote the name into the play thinking it was a toothpaste from the 50s. The name was wrong, but we kept it this way since most people wouldn't realize the mix-up.

These took planning, searching for ideas on the web and late nights to finish them. The toothbrush is made with 500 straws shoved into a shoe box that I spray painted and covered with white fabric left over from the toothpaste costume. The long pole for the brush is a tube from wrapping paper. The girl who played the toothbrush loved her prop. She was also the fig for the Fruit of the Loom.

Here is Carmen in her announcer outfit. She is wearing a jacket I recently bought for myself.

Tobin is 16!

Yesterday, March 16th was Tobin's golden birthday. He turned 16 on the 16th.

We had a small, but nice celebration. Chip and Marita came down. Isaac, Jenna and Aidan came over for dinner and dessert. Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, a runners dream dinner! Dessert was chocolate cake with mousse filling.

Happy birthday Tobin!

Presents time:

When I asked Tobin what he wanted for his birthday, he responded "socks"!

Tobin and his running buddies began a tradition of wearing their running shirts as bandannas over the summer during runs. Jenna was so happy to have given him a new bandanna for his birthday.

Aidan doesn't like to eat much dinner at my house. But boy did he love the cake. Whose son is he? I think he had plenty of chocolate in utero and has a love for it.

Oak Basketball Team

Sarai's Oak Basketball season is over. They had an amazing season. Their record was 9 and 3.

I have many great pictures of her that I will get to soon, but I wanted to post the best picture of the team. The week after vacation all the girls got together for one last fun practice and to celebrate a wonderful season. It was actually the first time, in the whole season, that everyone made it to practice! I was able to rush over and take this photo of the team. No one is wearing their uniform, but who they are and how each individual acts is captured in this photo. It is a great shot and I'm so glad I was able to capture it.



Coach Steve has been Sarai's basketball coach for years. This year he was hired to be the Oak Middle School coach. The 7th graders and 8th graders all worked together as a team. They all became close friends and encouraged each other throughout the season. It has been an amazing year in basketball for Sarai.

Musem of Science

This week was Massachusetts' Feb. vacation. We went to the Museum of Science on Monday, as did much of the state!


It was very crowded, but we had a good time. We saw an Omni Theatre movie on Arabia, which was amazing! We also saw a 3-D show on Planet You. This freaked the kids out with how much bacteria lives on you and learning about bed bugs!



Even though we were at the museum for 5 hours we didn't see many exhibits. Rachel had not seen the lightning show before, so we made point to see that one. It was great. While Abram was driving into Boston I read How to Photograph Absolutely Anything. I noticed a few pages dedicated to take pictures of fireworks. I am glad I read up on this because I used the same function while we saw the lightning show. Here are some of the best pictures I captured.







This one reminds me of Harry Potter and wizards shooting lightning from their wands.




No one noticed the painted mural in the back of the room until I showed them this picture. It is wonderful how the camera can capture light that our eyes don't see in the dark.





Before we left Abram wanted to go into an exhibit called Running the Numbers. The kids and I laughed because "of course Abram would want to go in there", but honestly it was one of the most interesting exhibits we had all been in. Each one of us enjoyed it for different reasons.


Here is the Museum of Science's description of the exhibit:


Sociologists tell us that the human mind cannot meaningfully grasp numbers higher than a few thousand. Yet, understanding the consequences of our choices requires us to comprehend the incremental effect of millions or billions of small acts. How can we sensitize ourselves and, in turn, change our choices?
Photographer Chris Jordan's large-format prints, assembled from thousands of smaller photographs, dramatically translate the raw language of statistics into powerful images of global mass culture that we can respond to emotionally. Seeing the cumulative impact of individual actions through this talented artist's lens awakens us to the enormity of our personal decisions.


I took pictures of Chris Jordan's work from afar and up close.

this is a picture depicting the amount of trash found in the Pacific Ocean. It is as large as the state of Texas. All the material used in creating this piece of art was taken directly from trash in the Pacific Ocean. 'The Great Wave' is a famous print by Japanese artist Hokusai.

This is a close up of "wave" art.

This one depicts the number of plastic cups used every 6 hours on airlines in the US - 1 million.

Here's a close up.

This represents the number of paper bags used daily in grocery stores. This number was also close to 1 million. I like how he created a mural of birch trees with layering each bag.

The close up:

'A Sunday on la Grande Jatte' is by Georges Seurat.Here it is recreated with individual soda cans! Wait until you see the close up. I forgot to even look at the statistic being represented here.

I was impressed how he used different can, with amazing detail, to recreate the right colors needed for the art work.

Here's my painting of "We're Done"!

There were other pieces at this exhibit. The ones I showed you were my favorites.

Leagues in Winter Track

Tobin has been running winter track. He mainly runs the 2 mile. In most indoor tracks he has to run 22 -23 laps around the track to complete the 2 mile course. I haven't been able to see many of his races because they are often far away. When the meet is in Shrewsbury I usually don't know when he will be running his race. A meet can last 3+ hours.

Saturday, Feb 7th was the Leagues race in Fitchburg, MA. Abram was able to get there just before his race began. Here are some pictures from that race.





Tobin was competing this day with a teammate, CJ. They ran cross country together. CJ had been able to finish a few of the races faster than Tobin. CJ is the guy to Tobin's right in these two pictures. Today was different!




Tobin pushed it hard to the end, as you can see in the expression on his face. He PR-ed with a 10:37 2 mile!

Today he will run again on the same course for Districts. He hopes to place third in the race. he's running with two of the fastest guys in the state.

Tobin Got Lighter

When the cross country team went to State's they all shaved their legs. Tobin decided that for winter track he would not cut his hair on his head.

These pictures are from his race at Leagues on Saturday Feb. 6th, 2010.

Tonight a transformation happened. Tobin decided that during our family dinner with Jenna and Isaac, he would cut his hair short.

Here is the process:

The first cut,

The mullet look,

Touching up the ears and sideburns

I had been refusing to cut his hair this short. I finally said Jenna could while I took pictures. He does look good, but I do miss the curly locks.

Here are the contrasting pictures:

Weekend after Christmas Games

Leigh's big present for Christmas was a new lens for her camera. It is a "fast" lens, so-called because it can operate at wider apertures and give faster shutter speeds. We chose this to allow her to take indoor sports photos, where dimly lit gymnasiums (gymnasia?) make it difficult to capture action shots without blurring the subjects. The weekend after Christmas gave a couple opportunities to test out the new lens, as Carmen had an indoor soccer game and Sarai had a basketball game. The pictures turned out well, although the soccer photos are a little muted due to the glare of shooting through the plexiglass.


One thing Carmen likes about indoor soccer is playing physical off of the boards. Number 13 on the opposing team was a head shorter than Carmen, but her speed and aggression made up for her size. Here Carmen keeps the ball away from #13, but they end up a bit entangled.



Carmen is not shy about communicating to her teammates during the game, telling them to get back to cover her spot when she goes for the ball, or move up to be in a better spot to receive a pass. Her screeches are heard if she's on the field or the bench. Here she directs traffic before taking a free kick.





Finally, a couple action photos. I love the flying ponytail.




Sarai's basketball team has been clicking the last couple games. They still need to work on reducing turnovers, but they've been making shots and playing good defense. They've been establishing leads, which has allowed the younger players to get more playing time.



Sarai has a good layup and does a nice job not rushing the shot when she has time. She had several baskets off fast breaks or long passes. Below, a layup from the left, a shot from under the hoop, and layup from the right:





She also made a jump shot from the elbow and got points from the free-throw line. One of her goals for the season was to do better at free throws, after missing several during the first two games of the season. This game, she made three of her first four attempts, which was a big confidence boost. I think she ended up 4 of 7 from the line. Here she is lining up to take her shots, while Michelle catches her breath during the break in the action.


I enjoy watching Sarai play defense, particularly man-to-man. She is very good at applying what she has learned and executing their plays as designed. In man-to-man defense, she denies the shot and applies strong pressure. Here she is putting her hips into boxing out.


And lastly, more ponytail action on the press-break.