Piano Festival

Hailey had an opportunity to do something a little different today. Her piano teacher had given all her students a chance to sign up to play in a local festival. I have a hard time calling it a festival because to me that usually means a party and such but this wasn't like that. It isn't really a competition either, it is more of an opportunity for a pianist to get to play in front of a few judges and see where they are at. They have a scoring system and the kids can eventually earn something called a "Gold Cup". But I believe it takes about 50 points to get a cup and each judging can allot you anywhere from 1-5 points.
Hailey in this picture is practicing for the festival before we leave home.

The place where the festival was at was interesting. It was held in a private School of the Arts that is located in the town of Eagle (about 15 minutes from where we live). The room we waited in was neat! The walls were all painted to look like red brick with some graffiti or behind this one piano they actually had curtains painted that looked very real. Here is one of the lunch tables. Tyler liked these so we took a few pictures of them.

This is us patiently waiting. I was VERY BUMMED to find out that you couldn't sit in and watch. The kids were brought to a separate, private room and played only for the judges. Do they really think that me in the room taking a few hundred pictures would have been distracting??? I spent most of the time Hailey was gone chatting with her piano teacher, Andrea. She is a very nice lady and lives right up the street.

Kurt and Tyler are patiently waiting too!

This is a picture taken with Hailey and her piano teacher Andrea right after her turn! What a look of relief was on her face! She was so serious and quiet before hand I felt sad for her. But, she survived. She felt like she did fairly well and said out of 1-5 she would have given herself a 3. I was happy she had the chance to do this.

Of course I took the opportunity to use this as a small photo session! This wasn't the piano Hailey had to test on but it was sitting in the lunch area we were waiting in and thought it was a nice prop!

Made Tyler pose too! He was having trouble sitting still. I wanted a smile out of him but his facial expressions changed so much that this is what I ended up getting by the time it flashed!

I wanted to take another one with a smile but a 6 year old has his limits on cooperation and the pouting and chair slinking started! Hayden was spending the night at Jonathan's so I couldn't get one with him and the piano!

Kurt was being a stinker too! He wasn't cooperating too much with my picture taking either. I informed him that I haven't been able to really do anything on the blog just about him and he seemed fine with that. I will have to step up on catching him doing things!

I realized something too that a "blogger" is probably tagged as the "over-achiever Mom". I was really one of the only people that was taking pictures in the waiting room (Andrea did take one of her two children in front of the piano). I feel like I should wear a button or shirt that says "Don't mind me, I'm a blogaholic"!

I am really impressed with Hailey because she is currently playing two instruments! She plays violin in the orchestra at her school and piano privately. I think I would be too overwhelmed to do two, actually, even one! She really has her father in her with her interest in music! To top it all off she has excellent grades too! We are so happy for/with her - what a smart kid! You go girl!

Tylerisms . . .

I have decided that I am going to start up random posts with the title of "Tylerisms"!
There is something about Tyler that is very funny. He has quite the electric personality and keeps all of us in stitches. Most of the time he isn't trying but he just has this innocent, naive, simple way of looking at things which he readily shares!
Like the story of how he had to go to Hell in school . . . I think I have shared that one before but he had said something the other day that made me laugh.

While helping him get dressed after his bath the other night he said, "Mom, I know why God made arms"! I said, "Oh really, why"?
Ty said, "To keep our armpits warm"!
I have to admit I laughed right then and there. I have to also admit that I had never thought of it before. He was so serious!

These pictures really capture Ty's personality. I hope to share more with you when they come. He is a true blessing to this family - he can be outright hilarious without even knowing it. He goes to the beat of his own drummer and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Quilting 101, Take 2 . . .

The work on the quilt has slowed down quite a bit. With the parties and such that needed planning, Hailey and I hadn't had a lot of time to work on our quilt blocks. I have to admit the ones we have completed turned out pretty good, for being first-timers and all!

There are three blocks left, I just finished one of the three last night and it isn't in this picture. I have another one left but it has some applique on it and I am going to have to do a little more "research" on this one to get it right. Hailey also has one to finish but she has had almost NO time with homework lately.


Here are the fabrics that are going to be used in piecing the whole thing together. The green one will also be the whole back of the quilt. The original plan called for a light blue and bright red and I have to honestly say it wasn't colors that I was too excited about so I decided to pick a few colors out of the blocks I liked that matched my favorite colors and ones found in my home and went with them instead. My sister Pat had taken Tyler out for lunch one Saturday when Hayden was really sick and actually picked these out for me. They are beautiful. I had sent her with the blocks with my favorite colors and gave her some description of what I was thinking of and I think she did a fantastic job!

If you remember back to my last post on quilting you will remember that I had mentioned some books I had read that really inspired me to want to quilt. Well, from those books the Author had gotten together with another quilter and they created this full color book of the quilts that were written about in the books. I absolutely fell in love with this one because of the leaves all around the border. I decided I would get creative and try to make one of these leaves. . .

Well, sadly to say, it didn't go too well! It was MUCH harder than I thought. I couldn't believe how many pieces it took to create! I thought I would do it in reverse by making the background dark instead, maybe be more stunning - this is some old fabric I had in the house. Hmmmmm. I had to measure it to make sure my eyes weren't fooling me but one end of my block is actually one inch BIGGER than the other end (not stunning)!!!!! How horrible is that! Can you tell which side?

Here are all the templates for the leaf block. Some of these you needed several of the same size. Needless to say it took me about 2 1/2 DAYS to go from fabric to block. The seam ripper was involved in this project too. I have now stepped back from my plans on making that quilt in the book for the time being. I have also learned many valuable lessons. DON'T use paper as templates, DON'T use Tailor's chalk to do the tracing, it's too thickand not very accurate, Pencils DON'T mark too good on black material, Seam size IS important, DON'T underestimate rotary cutters(I used scissors), Needles do draw blood when you are tired, Somethings are smarter to just buy than to make!

(kidding on the last one, maybe)!

So, I have stepped back on trying to make a whole entire quilt from scratch from a book of professional quilters! I might actually opt to get another kit for my second quilt before venturing out on my own. There also is a big difference between fabric you get at Jo-Ann fabrics and a specialty quilt store! Quality and by far price!

Also, what is great about doing things like this is that it really teaches you to appreciate things! I sure stare a lot at my quilt on my bed that I ordered from JCPenney's many years ago! And the quilts that Grammy has sent in the past all have a higher place than even before. They were always loved and special to us because they were from her but now that I know all the work involved they are even more incredible to me now! Thanks for all your hard work Grammy! These are treasures for us!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAILEY !!!!!!

One week later after Hayden's Birthday and now it is time for Hailey's! She turned 14 this year and I cannot believe how quickly time has passed!
Hailey LOVES birthday parties and would love to have HUGE ones every year but I had to limit her this year. I told her she could invite six friends. It was sad because several of them couldn't make it but I think the girls that could had a good time!

We usually have a theme type party but this year she didn't really pick a theme so we just went with "teenage girl stuff" theme. Anything with candy, friends and fun!


The first thing we did was get started on her Treasure Hunt. She really wanted to do this. I had so many ideas of things that I wanted to do for that but we had a lot going on the past week or so and I kept getting a writers block when it came to writing out the clues so I only ended up coming up with 6 destinations. The girls are reading clue #1 here.

I had them going around the neighborhood. Here the clue was taped underneath the park bench. They have already been to the neighborhood park and clear up to the subdivision entrance. I let them go alone. I didn't think they would want me following them with the camera. In hindsight I wish I would have, it would have been a more interesting blog.

This was the clue they found in the clothes dryer. This was the final clue that helped them to find the actual "treasure"!

Here was the treasure . . . a pinata! Hailey had wanted one so I figured I would go with it! Hey, where did that monkey come from???? I think it needs to go back to the Bakers house, it is getting way to comfortable here!

Now to head back outside for the pinata fun. In this picture Tyler is letting Alayna know that he doesn't want to be blindfolded. He just wanted to watch. But honestly it looks like Alayna is trying to suffocate him. Just in case you are worried, he survives!

The problem we ran into here was trying to get the rope up on the hoop! It was a lightweight rope and there was a significant breeze. It took many tries, lots of perseverance and girls who desperately wanted the candy inside!

We finally got it hooked up! Now for all the fun!

This was really sad! Hailey got a good whack in but only the top cone came off (why they had the hanging loop hooked to that I will never know) so the pinata just fell to the ground while one of the cones was hanging from the rope . . .

Hailey and Alayna entertained the troops while I took the rope down and wound it all around the center of the pinata so we could try again. Mind you, we had to go through the whole process of getting the rope back up over the hoop!

If you ask me, I think Alayna is having a little too much fun "pretending" to hit Hailey! Hmmmm, hidden aggressions?

Quick picture op! You can plainly see the brilliant retying job I did on the pinata! Aren't mom's creative?

Oh, you can't believe how much excitement a cone that is shaped like a birthday hat can bring to a group of girls. Throughout the rest of the pictures you will see that they ALL had to have their picture taken with one on their head!

Kayla looks mighty fancy!

Hannah's turn to get the pinata! I think I frustrated her because I would move it up and down so they couldn't easily hit it. I wanted to make this last a while. I knew, one solid hit and it was over! Hannah meant business!

Alayna's turn! I think she laughed the whole time!

Tyler had fun too! Even though he was the only boy! I will hide this picture when he is going through his teen years!

Kayla's turn!

Now it is Hailey's turn!

For anyone who thinks that girls are sweet and gentle has never been around them when there is a pinata full of chocolate and they have a bat! It never had a chance!

Going for the spoils! Girls can also been pretty aggressive when picking up chocolate too! They found all that candy in a matter of minutes! Even mud didn't hinder them!

Sorry Tyler! You have to be fast! Girls and chocolate . . . poor little guy didn't have a chance!

Back inside for the present part! Hailey got a lot of neat things. Lots of things with smells!

On to the cake! Instead of putting all fourteen candles on her cake we opted to put one next to four! Kept the fire alarms from going off!

Rebecca was here to help! She is a very close friend of mine and Hailey loves to spend time with her too! She was helping with taking pictures and stuff. I let her know that I really could have used her last week when I was dealing with all ten people at Hayden's party. She laughed!

The punch she is putting together was the sweetest stuff I have ever had in my LIFE! I was pretty sure when I was drinking it that I could feel my teeth disintergrating as it passed over them! Yeah, it was THAT sweet! Of course, the girls loved it!

Well, now I am free for a little while for the birthdays. Tyler's and Kurt's comes up in July but I am not going to think about it. I am just going to put my feet up, close my eyes and rest! Wow, who ever thought that a mere birthday can take so much out of you!

Happy Birthday Hailey!