Tessa's 5th Grade First Semester

Tessa started her 5th grade year, 6th and final year at Lundy. She was very excited to be the oldest grade at the school. She wanted to join the Safety Patrol this year and goes early every morning to do that before school. Here's a picture of her first day of school, and also one with her safety patrol belt during the first week of school. Taryn was having a hard time leaving me in the mornings, and Tessa was very helpful by signing up on the safety patrol route that monitored the kindergarten playground so that she could be near Taryn. She's such a great big sister!

At the beginning of the year, Tessa decided to run for a class officer. After hearing what her friends were doing and deciding on what she wanted, Tessa chose to ran for Vice President. These are some pictures that we took to use on her two campaigning posters. 

Tessa was very creative and decided on her own poster designs and created and colored them all by herself. We took some pictures the morning that we put them up. They stayed up in the cafeteria for two weeks until the 5th grade class voted. And Tessa was elected as Vice President. She was so happy. She goes to monthly meetings and helps the Counselor, Mrs. Derrick, with a lot of her projects and programs. Tessa was nervous about the speech she had to give in front of the entire grade, but she did great on that. And now she even does many announcements over the loud speaker for the entire school. Tessa really enjoys it and has come so far from the shy, quiet girl who started Kindergarten here.

In October, Tessa received some free tickets to the El Paso Symphony Orchestra because her orchestra teacher performs with them. We made a night of it by going with Niki Deca and her son, Ethan, who's in class with Tessa. We had a really fun time. 

We sat in the highest balcony, but they saw some of their other classmates there and thought it was pretty cool to be able to see everything from so high up. After the concert, we waited for their teacher, Mrs. Cedillos, so we could get a picture with her. The kids were so excited to give her a hug and tell her she had done a great job. 

Here's Tessa on picture day. Her hair was getting so long. 

The El Paso School Distrist put on an expo at UTEP for schools to come and show off their programs. As Student Body Vice President, Tessa took a turn representing Lundy. She was there with two of her friends, Taryn and Bianca. They talked about the programs available at Lundy like STEAM, art, LION kings, and other programs and gave out candy to those stopping by to visit their booth. 

We took a close up of one of the posters they made because there's a picture of the student body government on there and Tessa's in the picture. We also got to spend some time walking around to see the other schools' booths. One near ours was displaying their fitness program and they had a bike you could ride to see how fast you could burn a certain number of calories. Tessa wanted to give it a try. The bike was a little large for her, so it was hard to keep it going fast, but she gave it her all and had fun trying. 

I joined all the girls for their Thanksgiving Lunch in November. Tessa was able to eat with some of her friends and families when I ate with her. After we took a selfie of the two of us, I took a picture of her with Bianca and Taryn. 

The other girls were having their pictures taken with some of their school projects on this day. Tessa didn't have any projects to have a picture taken with, but I went ahead and took a picture of her anyway since she was packed up and all ready to head off to school. 

Tessa has really loved playing in the orchestra this year, and they had their first concert right before the Christmas break. Tessa plays the violin and had a great seat right on the end of her row. She was very excited to play all the songs that they had been practicing. Her favorite was a Carol of the Bells song.

For their final two numbers, I moved up to the front of the aisle so I could take some close up pictures of her while she played. The best part was during their final song, Jingle Bells, a few select students were able to stand up in front of the orchestra and play a special portion of the song. Tessa was one of those students, but she didn't even tell me, so it was a total surprise when she stood up, walked over, and practically stood right in front of me. It was awesome that I was right there to get this great picture of her while she played. 

This was the best picture I got of her half of the orchestra. It's a very large group and this is just the violin side. 

After the concert, Tessa wanted her picture with Mrs. Cedillos. While we waited our turn for that picture, we got a picture of Tessa with two of the boys from our ward who are good friends with Tessa. Here she is with Reve Andersen and Ethan Deca. And then we got the picture we wanted with Tessa and Mrs. Cedillos. 

Once a month, we are still able to visit our kids during their PE class. They call it Fun Fit Friday. I was able to go to a couple of those this year, but this is the only picture I took with Tessa during one of them. Here she is with her closest friend Bella. I also only took one picture when I stopped by Tessa's class during their Christmas party on the last day before the Christmas break. It was also a picture with just her and Bella.

I'll have to get better pictures of her entire class and with her teachers before the end of the year comes around. She's having a great 5th grade year so far and is really enjoying everything about school. She has straight As in all of her classes and she says she loves Science the most right now. Her teachers are Mrs. Currey and Mr. Martinez and she loves them both. Her 5th grade year is turning out to be the best year yet.

Abby's 7th Grade First Semester

Abby's 7th grade year has kept us very busy. During the first week of school, she tried out for and made the school volleyball team. This year they had A and B teams, and Abby made the A team. We did a little photo shoot once we got her uniform. These were our top favorites.

During the first practices, Abby's coach, Coach Mendoza, saw Abby setting and decided to have Abby be the setter. She made friends quickly with the other girls and loved playing. She was asked to be co-captain with her friend Sophia. Here's some pictures from their first games, one of their team huddle and one of Abby serving.

They stared out the season with a three day tournament. Abby's team ended up losing their first game in three sets. They won the first set, when Abby played, but lost the second set. And they were really close during the third set, but ended up losing. It was a hard loss for the team.

But by the end of the tournament, they were playing for 3rd place overall and ended up winning that game, so they received a trophy. The team was so excited. They started to really work together and play hard together.

Here's Sophia with Abby and the trophy and then one with just Abby holding the trophy. It was a great way to start out the season.

Here are a few more pictures from another one of Abby's games. It was hard to remember to take pictures and videos because I would be watching the game so intently. They traveled around town for a couple of their games and this was one of their away games.

The team's coach encouraged the girls to attend high school volleyball games, so I went with Abby when Coronado HS played Franklin HS. Both of those schools are close to where we live and are rivals with very good volleyball teams. Abby knows a lot of the players as well from attending their summer volleyball camps. I took this picture of Abby with some of her teammates: Sophia, Paulina, Abby, and Andrea. 

Abby went to Cindy Renee's birthday party at the beginning of the year. Her mijas still get together although they don't see each other as much since they have new schedules. Cindy Renee and Hope were both on the volleyball team with Abby and Alejandra made the cheerleading team. They still have fun when they get together.

Cindy Renee's mom sent me the pictures they took while at her party. They had a great time.

Abby is in the Honor Band this year at school and started the year as 2nd chair beneath an 8th grader. They had their first fundraiser at Bobo's where I helped collect money, so I grabbed this picture of Abby and her BFF, Braelinn, while they ran around with friends.

The Honor and Symphonic Bands at Hornedo were asked to join the Franklin marching band at one of their football games. They went right after school to practice playing a few songs with the marching band on the field, and then they got to sit with them in the stands and perform with them during the halftime show. Here are all the French horns from Hornedo. Abby's the third from the right. She was embarrassed to have me bother her with taking a picture, but she was happy when she saw how cool it turned out.

Abby met the horn players in the Franklin marching band as they sat mixed in with the high school kids. They had fun playing the fight song after touchdowns and learning all the chants and fun dances that high school marching bands do during football games. It was so fun for me too, since we hadn't been to a high school game in awhile. It brought back lots of fun marching band  memories for me. The other girls liked it too because they saw a lot of friends from school who were also there supporting siblings, and they got food from the concessions, which they thought was the best part.

This was the best picture I could get while both bands were on the field. Abby's in there somewhere. It was fun for the kids to see the high school band perform their halftime show and then to go onto the field with them to play. Since I was representing the Hornedo band booster club, I was able to go on the field too and help pass out water and treats to the middle school kids.

During the month of October, for Breast Cancer Awareness, the volleyball team wore pink socks and pink bows. Here are a couple more pictures of their games. Abby always played the first set and with her team almost always won. When she set Sophia, who was their best hitter, they were amazing. Getting the other girls to pass her the ball so she could set was one of their challenges. The second half of the team, who always played the second set sometimes lost their set, so Abby's group would have to go in and try and win the third set. It was very stressful for them and for us to watch, but Abby got a lot of playing time that way. We loved watching her play.

Before the homecoming game at the high school, they always have a parade and the middle school teams who feed into the high school get to participate. The little girls and I met on a corner with a bunch of other people from our ward and watched the parade. There are a lot of youth from our ward and the neighboring ward who were in the parade, so it was fun to cheer for everyone we knew as they passed by and tossed candy. This was the truck that held most of Abby's volleyball team. Even though they were driving slowly, it was too fast for me to find Abby and get a picture of her, but she's in there somewhere.

At Hornedo, they held a pep rally before their last home games for football and volleyball. I was able to go and squeeze in with Audrey and all the students. Abby got to perform in the band and also get recognized with the volleyball team.

Audrey had her good camera with her and took some awesome pictures for me. I love this one of Abby and her horn section.

Sophia got to announce each of the volleyball players and everyone cheered as their names were called. Abby got a lot of loud cheers. She was number 6, which was Tyler's number in sports, and it has become her favorite number just like her dad.

Here's the entire team after they were announced. They had a fun time together and played so well.

The Hornedo bands had their annual Halloween concert and the kids are able to dress up in costume. Abby and Braelinn were Pac Man ghosts and got a lot of compliments from people they passed. They ended up not wearing them when they actually played though because the cardboard was a little hard to maneuver around while holding instruments.

Abby is also playing in the top Jazz Band this year at school. There was a mixup with her schedule at the beginning of the year because she was supposed to be in Spanish, but she decided to keep her schedule as is and she's enjoyed Jazz Band so far. The best part is that she plays her instrument every day instead of every other day, so it's great for keeping her improvement up. The hard part is normally French horns aren't in jazz bands, so she's usually playing trombone music. But her ability to sightread and play different rhythms has greatly increased. Here's a picture of the Jazz Band on the left and the Honor band on the right.

During the school's volleyball season, we kept debating about what Abby would do during the off-season. Talking to other parents, we decided Abby needed to keep playing volleyball, but the YMCA sports weren't going to be enough of a challenge for her anymore. So we ended up joining a club team at Stars. They started practices in November, and played on their league as well to be able to start playing some games even though the club tournaments didn't start until January. Here's Abby and her Stars 13 Blue team during one of their first league games. Because they practice 4-5 times a week, they pretty much annihilated all their league competition, but the games were good practice to get them used to playing together. Abby plays as a middle hitter most of the time, but learns and works on all the positions which will only help her on her future school teams.

In December, the club had their first Christmas tournament. They played all day on Saturday. They play pool games in the morning where they play three other teams and then are ranked from there for the bracket portion of play that takes place in the afternoon. Our girls are the 13s team, but play up at a lot of tournaments and were playing against 14 and 15 year old teams at this tournament. They ended up in the Silver bracket, but that allowed them to play teams more on their level and they were able to win that bracket so they medaled. It was fun to see them play all day and be together with all the other parents watching our girls play together. During this same day, Abby had All-Region tryouts for band. She missed one of the tournament games to try out, but we drove across town where she played three numbers that she had been practicing for months. I sat outside the room where she auditioned and I could tell which one she was when she played for the blind audition. She played really well, but with the tournament, we had to rush back to her games without waiting to see how she did. I received a text from her band director later that afternoon telling me that she had made third chair! They took 20 French horns from all those who had auditioned. Ten for the Symphonic, top band, and ten for the Concert band. And Abby made 3rd chair in the top band. We were so proud of her!

Here's Abby with Braelinn being goofy with some photo props. Abby likes to take funny pictures on her iPod, so I have her send me the ones she really likes so I can include them here.

In December, Hornedo does a Fine Arts Night where the top band, top orchestra, and choir perform together. This was the first time that Abby got to wear her black gown which is their normal attire for band concerts. I grabbed a couple close up pictures before the concert started. Olivia is the 8th grader, first chair player, with Abby in the horn section.

Here's a picture of the entire Honor Band when they performed some of their Christmas concert numbers before the orchestra performed.

Abby's All-Region band had three rehearsals and a concert over the period of one week. At their first group rehearsal, I grabbed a picture from the door while waiting for them to finish. It was a huge band, but so fun for her to be able to play with other great middle school players from the city. Abby was 3rd chair in this band, and her friend from Hornedo, Olivia, was 10th chair, so they hung out together. There were four other Hornedo students in the Symphonic band with them. And there were three other Hornedo students in the Concert band. Nine students from Hornedo had made the All-Region bands. Such a great accomplishment.

The All-Region concert was held on a Saturday night. Abby was hard to see because they had 5 horns in one row and 5 horns in the back row, so she was right in the middle of the first five. Luckily after the concert, they had each row stand up separately starting from the back, so I was able to get a picture of her when she stood up. It was the only time we could see her. Their director was from a middle school in the McKinney, TX area so Abby thought that was cool. All the kids liked him and thought he was very nice and funny.

We purchased Abby a t-shirt and a plaque with her name, so we took these pictures after the concert. We found Olivia outside too and grabbed a picture with the girls together. Even though it made for a stressful week, Abby enjoyed the experience, and we were so proud of her.

Right after Abby's concert, Abby rushed over to Sophie's house where her volleyball team was having fun, bonding activity. Sophie's mom, Marisa, sent this picture to all the parents. They had pizza, visited, and just hung out getting ready for their upcoming busy volleyball season.

During the bands Christmas concert at Hornedo, the students were encouraged to wear Christmas clothes included ugly sweaters. I took just one picture before they started playing, but I had to mention that with her high seating from All-Region, Abby was placed as first chair in the honor band at school. So proud of that girl and all of her hard work!

At the end of the league season which ended right before the Christmas break, they play a tournament. Abby's team placed first in the tournament and got a medal. They took a picture with the second place team who also got medals because they had fun playing together.

I think this was the only picture I took of Abby on her actual birthday when she turned 13. She had regular volleyball practice the evening of her birthday so we didn't get to celebrate until later. We had taken cookies to practice to share with her teammates and she had Braelinn over during the Christmas Break as her "party," but it was a low key birthday even though she became a teenager! We love this girl and how grown up she is. She is almost as tall as me now and is very mature. She's very dedicated to her volleyball and her French horn, but also keeps up with her grades and is very organized in her school work. She's helpful with her sisters and does anything to get time away with Dad because they get along so well. She is an amazing young women and we love her so much! Happy 13th Birthday Abby!!