Halloween 2025

Linda Minor and I finally got ward choir started for the Christmas season. That means my usually weekly space to type up my musings is gone until after Christmas. Guess that means less time to muse. I mostly forgot what last week was like except that it ended with Halloween. The specials rotation got the incorrect calendar at school, it showed we only had school on Monday/Tuesday. I really liked that calendar! Darn it I had to work on Wednesday as well. McGrath threw a tantrum at school when he was asked to make up a program for the 3rd grade Veteran’s Day performance. He didn’t want to waste paper and effort making a program parents would just throw away, besides he felt the teachers didn’t respect him. He was whining to me as I presented my POV as a parent who happens to keep most of those school programs. Ms Gingerich told him to grow up and stop acting like the program was his deal, she reminded him the program was about the students. You go girl! I volunteered to play piano just to improve the acapella versions he had students perform last year. I suggested he used AI to help whip up a paper program in about 5 minutes. He went ballistic about how terrible AI is for the environment and he would rather not abuse our planet. I about died laughing when I overheard him an hour later ask Alexa to play a song for the kinders. Wow. 

Evelyn started out parent-teacher conferences this year. EVMS threw a trunk-or-treat, book fair, and conference party Wednesday night. Evelyn wore her Rosie outfit to school that day, she looked adorbs. The kids got candy, picked a book or two out at the book fair, and followed me around bored out of their minds. Evelyn earned straight A’s, she kicked bum even with her ELA struggles. The main feedback I got from Mrs Lyman is Evelyn just needs to get the work done and less worry about perfection (dude, agreed). The line for Mr Burton took 20 minutes per student, he was taking a very long time personalizing feedback. There are no schedules for conferences, you just wait in a line for each teacher. That took forever. She is rockin’ her 6th grade experience so far. Josie and Everett went to wait in the van because the line was so long, Everett ended up leaving the van to walk over to the church for activities. I discovered Josie crying in the van because she was alone and scared. Little duck didn’t want to walk in alone to find me nor wait alone until I arrived. 

I spent 3 hours at Columbia HS the next morning meeting all the boy’s teachers starting with ELA for Phillip. His ELA teacher is super nice and very accommodating, she had all the nice things to say about how respectful Phillip is in her class. We talked about how Phillip reads best listening to books first. She let me know next semester’s book would be “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lachs.” I immediately put the audio book on hold and checked out the digital book. I met with his science teacher (Kara’s mom) and then went down to meet with Mrs Bussey and Mrs Duby about Phillip’s struggles with writing assignments (aka history and ELA). Justin joined the conversation via phone call. Ultimately, we decided to meet next week before school to hash out a plan. Justin and I related some of our frustrations with History assignments, Phillip’s challenges reading/processing/writing, and what homework looks like for us. Then I went to meet with the rest of Phillip and Everett’s teachers. Mr Geisler was not in the classroom so I spoke with the other 10th grade history teacher. Once I related Phillip’s struggles with homework he was very surprised because Phillip always reported he was doing fine. Seems like the mystery deepens! Mrs Duby said when she asked Phillip how history was going (earlier in the week) he said it was going well. So, the teachers and academic support teams are getting divided information from Phillip and then from us. I visited the nerd hallway, aka the STEM wing, to meet with Everett’s teachers. He is doing well, no real issues. Hooray. Next I visited with Mrs Hodges at Reagan Elementary about Josie. Rather surprisingly Josie tested very low for reading and comprehension, like so low she is now attending interventions. From what I understand, Josie is a good reader but doesn’t take in what she reads. She is also struggling with her multiplication facts. I also learned that once in a while Josie is not very nice toward a few of her classmates, leaning on the bossy side. The two classmates mentioned are quite difficult treat nicely. I gleaned that maybe Josie has the family ADD curse. Struggles with reading and comprehension plus memorization are quite common in girls. Yay! More drama. 

It’s HALLOWEEN! We enjoyed a lazy day until the afternoon waned away. I went grocery shopping. The boys worked on the leaf tornado in the backyard. The kids carved some of the free little pumpkins I scored from school. Everett’s flaming Elmo carving was by far the coolest. Phillip met with Austin, I drove to the wrong office so we had a video chat in the parking lot. Austin was impressed that Phillip talked about hard things in front of his Mom! I love that so far, our children do talk with us about most of their challenges. Evelyn and Josie helped Sara set up for their driveway hot dog and hot cocoa party. Evelyn rocked the Rosie Riveter costume. Josie made one heckin’ cute Ewok complete with staff. Everett was a Star Wars soldier rocking his new light saber. Phillip was his Hogwarts avatar from the game. I was once again a sick “7.” The boys disappeared with their friends to troll the neighborhood. Phillip and Ben stayed out until after 10:30 walking about. Everett and Kyran collected some candy then played games at the Hansen’s home. Josie’s friend, Lucy invited us to hang out at their driveway party. Kara’s mom arranged to drive the trick or treaters around on a hayride! Can’t resist a hayride. When we got there all the adults were downing jello shots and other fun beverages. That was a little awkward. It was nice to just go hang out with the Ostlers after riding around with Josie’s friends for a while. The girls and I walked around the neighborhood then went home. 

I had a few fall mini sessions Saturday afternoon. We spent the morning tidying the yard, the continual leaf mess is only halfway managed. I ripped out the dead garden plants and tidied the garden beds. Sunday was quite exciting as our ward got a new Bishopric. Bishop Roundy got to retire, Brother Bledsoe is our new Bishop with Brother Young and Brother Braithwaite as counselors. Ward choir started Sunday at 3 pm until our Christmas program. I was grateful for the 6 attendees.