Turkey Time Travel

Let's do a little time travel through photographs, shall we?

Every November at Bethke Elementary, the first graders perform a Reader's Theater Play about the Pilgrims coming to the Americas. When Ramona was in first grade, she was assigned the part of a pilgrim. 

Flashback two years: Ramona's First Grade Reader's Theater

I made her a cute little costume and fully anticipated that Mika would also be assigned to be a pilgrim this year so she could re-use the outfit, but such was not the case. My first-grade Mika was chosen to be a Native American, so out came the fabric scraps, thread, and paints. 

I used an old beige-colored shirt of mine for the dress, an old pair of Forest's khakis for the fringe, and painted some smaller scraps for the belt and headband. It was one more costume to make after an already-busy-month-of-costume-making, but I had fun. Also, now I have both a pilgrim and Native American costume, so if Paula ends up attending first grade at Bethke, we should be covered!

November 2017: Mika's First Grade Reader's Theater

Mika with her teacher, Mrs. Harras:

Mika with her friend Miley:

Ramona cut out of part of her third grade colonial days celebration to come see her sister perform. On our way out of the school, we stopped to get a picture of her with Ms. Fennimore's turkey.

All the third grade parents were assigned to decorate a feather for their child. I wrote her a poem called "Ode to Ramona."

Thanksgiving 2017:

We spent Thanksgiving Day at home and invited my friend Linda over for dinner. She is the percussionist for our community orchestra and serves on the orchestra board with me. The kids loved her fun stories and jokes.

Ramona, Mika and Paula turned some pumpkins into turkeys while they waited for dessert.

It was about this time that one of Wylie's best words was "football." We got a pretty good picture of him lounging on the couch, enjoying his favorite sport on the big screen that afternoon. When dessert was served, he learned another important word: "pie." He repeated it over and over again with a huge grin on his face as he stuffed his face full of apple pie and ice cream.

Linda used to be a middle school music teacher, and shared a motto that she encouraged her students to remember: "As you go through life, make this your goal. Look at the donut and not the hole." She wrote it down for us on a piece of paper, and it was significant enough for Ramona that she now has it taped to her bedroom door.

It is significant for me, too. I am grateful for those wise words we were able to hear last Thanksgiving, and for photographs that help me remember favorite moments with my little turkeys.