Category: Uncategorized (Page 71 of 201)

I had my studio recitals last Saturday.  It went wonderfully.  And, even though I was mostly sure that the baby wouldn’t come early, it’s still a relief that I made it.   And this time I had a ton of Seniors doing their last recital.  I always get nervous when I have to talk extra at the end and to honor the seniors I had them each come up and gave them flowers and gave a little speech about them.  (Actually I gave flowers to the girls and a little cactus to the guy–he thought it was really funny.)  And after the final performance (by my most advanced student who is a Senior and graduating) she gave a moving speech to me and a bouquet of flowers.  She talked about how she was ready to quit piano before she came to me and how she was able to find her passion in piano again and encouraged the younger students to hang on.  It was so sweet!

I also had my very first student graduate that I’ve had the entire time.  She started back in 3rd grade and I’ve been teaching long enough now to see a student all the way though school!   I went to her grad party this past weekend and she made a shadow box commemorating her years in lessons.  I loved seeing it!  She had her first recital picture along with her last recital picture.

That’s right!  We got the bunk bed!

My project for next week is to start pulling all the stuff out of the kids’ rooms to purge and condense.  We also have to hang another rod in the closet for Josiah’s clothes.  Then by next weekend we should be able to actually assemble the bunk bed!  (Oh, yeah, and we need to buy another mattress too)  Fun times!

For now I’m trying to get all the last details in place for my recital tomorrow.  I’m so close!  I can’t wait to get past the recital… my stress level will lower SIGNIFICANTLY.  🙂

I have two songs I’ve been listening to a lot this week.

The first song is “What are Words” by The Piano Guys featuring Peter & Evynne Hollens.  It’s so beautiful.  Plus I just love the Piano Guys. I’ve told Tim we should learn it to sing together.  He just grunted.  Haha!  Well, I guess I’ll just sing along with myself.

The other song I’ve been enjoying listening to this week is “The I love you song” from The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee.  I’ve never seen this musical before–in fact I wasn’t familiar with the songs at all, but one of my students recommended this song.  It’s a little long but from 4:30 on is where the music gets more active.  My favorite part is at 4:57.  The harmonies are so tight and emotional.   The song itself is actually quite sad.  Her Mother left them years ago to visit Bombay and never returned and her Father is never there for her (and I’m not sure, but might also be abusive).  This is the write up about the entrance of the song “Olive is saddened to learn that her father is running even later than planned. Her word is chimerical, and mirroring the word’s definition, she imagines her parents being there and giving her the love that she always has wanted and yearned for, while showing the problems with her own family.”

We had a gathering of church people over this Sunday–it was all of the worship team members and the tech/lighting crew.  As it is with most volunteers in church you don’t get to see each other much at church, because the week you’re volunteering the others are not.  So, Tim wanted to have a gathering with all the people (plus their families) so we could actually meet each other!  We planned it a few weeks ago and just crossed our fingers that the weather would be nice enough to be able to go outside.  As the day was approaching this week the weather appeared to be against us… storms predicted all weekend.   Bummer.

But we decided that, no matter what, we would have the party and just find things for all the kids to do inside.

It rained on and off on Saturday and when we woke up Sunday and it was still raining.  BUT… but by the time we left church the rain had stopped and the sun was actually peeking through the clouds (and it was windy–which was actually helping to dry off the grass).  By the time people started showing up at noon it was delightful outside.  We had just over 40 people (including kids) show up.    The kids played outside in the sunshine running and playing yard games as the adults sat on the deck and in the house chatting.  It was glorious!  People stayed for a few hours and finally started leaving about mid afternoon.  The last person walked out to their car, I kid you not, within 10 min. it was absolutely POURING outside.  It came seemingly out of nowhere!

Coincidence?  I think not.  😉

It was Chloe’s turn to take her Thank-You pictures for her teacher.  I must say, it was significantly easier working with a subject who actually keeps looking at the camera.  🙂  Our neighbor heard we were taking pictures and said we could pose in front of their flowing pink tree (see above) which was just wonderful.  Chloe had a fun time, and we got a handful of really nice pictures.

Here were some others that were cute, but didn’t quite make the cut:

Alisa is back from college and helping nanny again this Spring.  Today is her first day back (her college let out super early–but that works out awesome for us!).  She’s here 3 days a week and we have two others filling the remaining days.  The kids (and Tim and I, of course) are so excited to have her back.  🙂

This is going to be a fun Spring!

It took two coats of paint on every wall (which I expected) and two full days of painting which equaled one very sore pregnant lady… but I got it done!  We had a few small dings and scratches to patch and sand along the way, so it’s nice to have those taken care of for now.  The whole basement feels much more clean.  I love it.  Here are a few before and after pictures (although the before ones are not the best…)

Basement before: walls were a light greenish color and then a darker tealish color by the tv

Here’s another picture of the color before. It’s hard to see on the screen, but it was definitely green

And one more before…

Now the after: we did white on the top and gray on the bottom

The tv wall got a coat of blue

Here’s the in process picture as we were testing paint. The colors were similar but just enough different that we couldn’t leave the tv wall unpainted

The bottom of the steps also became gray and the whole steps area at the bottom and on the way up were painted white

The kids have safely arrived at Nana and Bumpa’s house!  It’s strangely quiet here.  I have a huge list of things I want to get done, and yet, here I sit on the couch watching Friends.  🙂  Tomorrow I’ll get to the list.

And I have the paint all ready, see!?