Look Deep into My Eyes, Daddy & Me

Lydia, Waiting for Easter

Piano Recital on April 8

Garrett wants me to write in green. So I did get one picture of one big event over the past few months. I had a Celebration for my piano students. It sounds kind of amature when you learn that only two of my students are not related to me. But I choose to spend time as a mom more than as a teacher right now. I will have plenty of teaching hours later but I only get a few more years with little children that are ours to raise, so that is number one.

The students I do have are very talented and we put on a 45 minute recital with only 5 students. And as you can imagine, Weston's pieces lasted about 30 seconds (if that). Caden did well with a few minutes of memorized music and a duet. My three teenagers, Michael Ruesch, Melody Wood, and Faith Yingling filled the rest of the program. We played on a 9 ft Steinway and boy did that feel good!!! The piano does everything you tell it too. Performing on a Steinway is like cruising in an '08 Altima (the nicest car I've had the privilege to drive) when you're used clunking along in an '81 Dodge Aries.

Our composer this time around was Robert Vandall. There are no statues of Vandall, so I handed out composing folders to hopefully inspire us. There is nothing like trying to come up with your own original material to help you appreciate all published composers and understand how music works. I love it!

I love to make my own portrait studio in the living room. I used all our portable lights and the sun, then draped a black sheet over the piano and an old black dress on the floor. The setup looked great, but Lydia was not so cooperative. I need to learn more so I can get better shots. But I probably will just learn about all the equipment I don't have so i think I'd prefer to stay ignorant for a while longer. Like maybe 200 paychecks longer.

Lydia helping me try a reflector.

My 4 Kids

Well, it took me about two hours to get all my pictures off the camera and name them, so here is the one and only you all get to see today. Just Wait, there's more . . . but don't hold your breath . . .

Here are some long overdue pictures. It may not have been worth the wait but we have been filling our lives with lots of great things (except the sickness part was not so great but we're almost all better.) For six weeks in March and April I did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with the Empress Theatre in Magna. We had 22 performances and it was awesome. Now baseball season is in full swing and both Caden's and Weston's teams are doing really well. Caden has a gun for an arm and Weston can catch anything (maybe those two talents fed on eachother), and they both get a nice hit about once per game. This league is a lot more competitive than the league we were in next year, and the boys have gotten used to it now and get better every game. It is so fun to watch them play. I don't handle watching them pitch very well - it stresses me out. But all the other aspects of the game are great. Okay, I am going to caption the pics with a little detail here and then load them one at a time for as many as I have desire to do.

Sunday we had the family over for Weston's birthday dinner. Aaron outdid himself by barbequeing ribs, hamburgers, and kabobs all on the same grill and all delicious. We had a kabob bar so everyone could make their own (a great plan in the family of a millions diets/taste preferences). And of course the usual barbeque sides.

There are no pictures of "Joseph" or of re-doing our Kitchen or of baseball (!) or of our new flowerbeds and square foot gardens, which qualify as our biggest time-grabbers and successes of the past few months (of course there are pictures documenting our children's continued health and happiness, which is always #!). I got a reflector for the camera which I tried out on Lydia in the purple shirt, so that was fun. And I practiced for her 18 month prtraits we never did with the black backgrounds.

We did get pictures of Easter and what Garrett wants to be for Halloween (another dragon costume . . . ).