Here they are after the recital, so proud.
Tess playing 'Ballade', as promised, I already posted this elsewhere but what the heck.

The recital went well, it was in a church this time because the community center the teacher usually uses was already booked. The church was huge and a had a gorgeous and well tuned (LOL) piano. Kai did so well at his very first recital and Tess played like the old pro that she is having done this since age 7. Actually, she always gets a touch of the nerves, in the videos you can see how she's kind of hunched over due to being nervous but she plugged away and played beautifully. She was annoyed at herself for the few mistakes she made, because you know it is always perfect at home.

Kai doing his song, 'Chinese Dreams'.



This is their improvisational song, keep in mind, it is improv so there is not much melody just "noodling" as their teacher says. :)



Blogger won't let me add anything else so you'll have to wait to see Tess play solo.

Sledding!

We have been getting so much snow this winter. Normally I complain about it but I have really been enjoying it this time, maybe because there has been so much that we haven't had the nasty brown ugly version because we keep getting new snow. Anyway, David has taken the kids sledding twice which is exactly two times more than last year. Like I said, there has hardly been any snow the last few years. My dear friend Nicki is a former Michigan resident now living in Texas and she asked me for some snow pictures so here they are. I don't have any oh so pretty ones, but I like these sledding shots very much.


This awesome toboggan was given to David by a older guy he talks to when he works out at the Y.


Tess getting splattered, look at the air she's getting.


Always together, these two.


When did my baby boy get so big?!


Lydia and friend looking cute.

I made these Amigurumi froggies for the kids for Valentines Day. I was debating about making them different colors so they would know which frog was theirs but I had a lot of this green yarn, so here they are, standard green frogs. In order to differentiate between them and tie them into the holiday, I sewed little heart patches on their bums with the initial of each kid. The patten is from the Lion Brand site, they have so many Amigurumi patterns that are adorable. In addition to the frogs, I'm also making 3 little turtles. I have decided those are going to be different colors. One yellow, one blue and one either purple or mixed, I have to see what's in my stash.




Tess and Kai's piano recital is this Sunday, they get to play a song together. I am so excited about seeing them up there. He's playing a song called Jackson Blues, which is 3 very simple Blues chords while Tess does what their teacher calls "noodling", which she explains as a sort of Blues-ey improvisational thing. I know, the Blues? As their daddy says, "What do these kids know about the blues?". They must know something because it sounds great to this biased mama's ears.

One of my projects for Christmas that did get completed was making book bags for my kids and our niece in Seattle. I found this wonderful and cute download from Kitschy Digitals called the Woodland Book Lovers Kit. It came with downloads for a reading log, book plates, book marks and iron ons to add to a book bag and you could personalize them all in Photoshop. The blog showed several ways that her readers had used the kit and pretty much all the ideas I used were from them. I love the way they came out. I ended up making just 3 bags with different colored pockets for each child, they all got the supplies. No reading log for the teen, however, she's out of that stage. I also didn't make her a book bag because I was worried she would think it was too babyish or tween-ish so I bought a really cool Converse canvas tote (try saying that 3 times fast) and ironed on small pockets with the little deer on them so it would tie in with the book marks and book plates. They were a hit with all 4, it made me happy. You never know how gifts like that are going to go over. Don't you the love the gnome stuffie pin? Another awesome idea from the Kitschy Digital readers. There are a few more images of the set at Flickr .

Found this cool website that can turn your pictures into Tilt-shift miniature style photos. It is so fun to play with. I didn't have time to search my iPhoto library for a perfect picture to use but I think this one demonstrates the idea pretty well. I think I might start taking photos in a certain way just so I can use this cool application.



Neat, huh? It really does look like a miniature scene now.

I planned on blogging about our wonderful holidays and I may get around to it, complete with photos, but then again I may not. We had a great Christmas and we spent New Year's Eve up at the cottage, it was really fun for just the 5 of us to get away.
I didn't want to come home but we had our annual White Elephant party to host so we had to get back to reality. That party was a blast as usual. We get to see friends that we pretty much only see once or twice a year, we make our pledges to get together more often throughout the year but that just doesn't seem to happen. Ok, I don't want to end on a downer. We did manage to not get stuck with the worst gifts and I made sure each guest left with their heinous objects. I have to be strict or else we end up with all sorts of crap hidden in our house. One year, we found a mini JFK bust, a not so miniature Indian Chief bust, a scary stuffed Harlequin music box and a flute playing bottle left from our grateful guests. Ingrates! hee hee