Sarah's Piano Recital

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Sarah has been taking piano lessons from Sister Stott for almost a year. She really has a love for playing the piano. It has been so neat to watch her talent blossom in the two years since she started taking lessons. For this recital, Sarah played a really cute song called "The Spinning Song". When I told my own teacher this she was surprised considering that Sarah has only been taking lessons for 2 years. So she gave me a copy to practice with and I can say, because I've tried to play it - it is not an easy song! (o:

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I need to get better at uploading my videos on here - pictures don't do these recitals justice. (o:

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Marilyn's cute students. Her boys standing in the back played the most amazing duet!

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We love Marilyn. She's been great for Sarah!

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Angela supporting Sarah and getting some yummy sweets at the end for her reward of sitting quietly!

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Poor Nat had a harder time making it through the recital. She got some barkdust in her eye during recess earlier in the day. It was a sad day for her - when she got her owie - she had to wait in the office for mommy to come get her. (I was at Out of This World with Angela, Tina and Tori - thanks to Tina for taking Angela so she could stay and play - we had only been there a half hour when I got the call from school.) Then we ran her to the doctor to make sure everything was okay and worked hard all day to help it feel better.

Natalie's Violin Recital

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Natalie's second violin recital was lots of fun. She knew what to expect and had more confidence. Plus, because she's been doing a lot of practice learning to read notes (the 'songs' she practices are more like drills), she got to play the same song, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" but a bit fancier and with even better hand position. It's fun to see how much she's learned in the last 6 months. She was so cute. It was also really neat to see the amazing talent of the older students and Heidi's family. Very inspiring for Natalie! (o: Although, by the end, as she checked off all the performers on the program she wasn't feeling inspired; just hungry!

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I think Natalie's favorite part was going to Sweet Tomatoes to celebrate her hard work!

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I had to get a picture of each of the girls trays. They crack me up. Natalie LOVES veggies and fruit so she had a pretty colorful tray.

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Angela's tray - actually I'm surprised to even see peas made it on there!

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And Sarah's lovely yellow tray. (o:

Little Violinist

Natalie recently started violin lessons with one of my very accomplished young women.

We have this family in our ward. They are very musically talented and perform all together often in the community and for our ward activities and programs.

Whenever they play in sacrament meeting Natalie is in awe. Most of the family members play a string instrument. During one performance, Natalie didn't even blink. She sat up straight and listened so intently. After she said, "Mommy, I want to play that." pointing to the violin. At the time I said that she was too young. Then I laughed when she replied, "She's little!" Referring to one of the girls who isn't much older than Natalie.

So I mentioned this to the oldest daughter, Heidi, who is one of my young women.

Recently, one of her students moved and left a spot open for Natalie so I jumped at the opportunity. We found an adorable 1/8 size violin on EBay and Natalie is LOVING violin lessons. I don't know much about violin, but she seems to be doing great and is willing to practice.

So far most of her practice is a bit tedious because she has to practice holding the bow and violin correctly. I've been worried that she would get bored, but she is eating it all up and taking it very seriously. I'm so proud of her! I hope she sticks with it for a long time.

We had a few issues of jealousy from Sarah when the violin arrived. It looks like so much fun, like a toy. Sarah played with it a couple times and the feeling of being jealous has faded. Sarah is very passionate about her talent in piano and likes the idea, that we brought up, of her and Natalie getting to play duets together someday on their different instruments. (o: (And Angela says that she wants to be the one to play the drums . . .)

Natalie demonstrating the correct way to hold a bow.

She can play the first part of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and it sounds so pretty! (o: Go Nat!

Michael Jackson Dies

I'm in shock.

For the last 20 years Michael Jackson's life has just seemed to spiral out of control. I'll admit I haven't been the most loyal fan. Once he started going through all his weird plastic surgeries, I just didn't know quite what to think and I moved on.

But back in the day, Michael Jackson was an icon, an idol. He was the pinnacle of fame and I was a fan through and through. Michael Jackson's Thriller album was the first cassette tape I ever REALLY REALLY wanted. Before that I didn't really care about any particular rock group or musician.

When I was in third grade, my aunt Amy bought me the Thriller cassette tape, (for a birthday maybe??) I still remember how much that meant to me and my joy in discovering my gift - I even remember where I was when I opened/saw my gift. We were at a mall and I was standing in a department store surrounded by clothes. The memory is burned in my mind forever - that's how important that moment was for me. (She also gave me a Culture Club cassette with it - anyone remember Boy George?) Maybe that's one reason why she's still one of my most favorite people! (o:

I listened to that tape nonstop and wore my Michael Jackson pin with the above picture on my acid washed jean jacket every day to school. We didn't have MTV at my house, but I remember visiting aunt Jill's apartment and parking myself in front of her TV hoping and waiting for the Thriller music video to come on. It was all anybody ever talked about in third grade - 1983-84. Just about every girl had a huge crush on Michael, boys tried to dance like him, everyone tried to do the 'moonwalk' - he was HUGE. There isn't really anyone I can think of that can compare to the near 'worship status' that Michael Jackson held for people back in the 80's. Not even close.

So even though me and millions of others kind of lost interest when Michael started heading down the path of weirdness, I still marvel at the icon he once was (and actually continued to be for many) and I mourn his untimely death. I'm grateful for the fun memories and will always love the Thriller album. It's classic and it brings back so many memories. We recently bought the Thriller music video off of ITunes and now I can watch it whenever I want. (in our day of instant gratification - "back in my day, we had to wait for hours for MTV to play the music videos we wanted to see.") I will always remember the Michael from those days - good times.

And as one friend I talked to today said, "I hope wherever he is now, that there is good therapy." (o: Poor Michael - he had such a tragic life. His untimely death, unfortunately, kind of fit the theme of his life.

He was an amazingly talented man...

Lenka!!

In the last post I mentioned how much we LOVE music in our family. We listen to music together a lot and one of our most FAVORITE performers right now is Lenka. My music loving hubby discovered her album a little over a week ago on I-Tunes and we are all hooked. We've listened to her album all week driving around and at home and we each have our favorite 3-4 songs. She has an awesome voice and really fun and creative songs. We crank up the volume and love to sing along. Check out her website http://www.lenkamusic.com/news and you can hear one of our favorite songs, "The Show" and see the music video that goes with it. We heard this song for the first time on the radio today, so maybe some of you have heard of her. That must mean other people have discovered her... Happy listening.