Trumpet Tune - Spring Recital 2013

Mr. Orange finished his 3rd year of Let's Play Music last spring.  He started with a new piano teacher in the fall and I really wasn't satisfied with her.  Mr. Orange only wants to play the piano, and in the future the violin.  I begged some friends to tell me who their child was taking from and I was able to sneak Mr. Orange in with her in March.  I love, love, love his new teacher.  She has been fabulous.  I'll admit, it has been a bit intense (for me), but he loves taking lessons from her and he has improved a lot in the short time he has been with her.

For the past several weeks he has been working on his recital piece, Trumpet Tune.  He practiced it backwards and forwards, inside out and upside down.  Well, maybe not upside down, but just about.  :)  He was very excited when he found out that his cousin from Wisconsin would be here for the recital.

 Here they are putting on their best recital faces....

 And this is how they usually look.  ;)

 We arrived early and Mr. Orange practiced a bit (and we were able to take pictures).  I asked him if he was ready and he sort of rolled his eyes at me and said, "Yes.  Of course I am."  Duh!  Why would I think any different?

He did so well and I am so proud of him.  

I am so grateful for our family members who were able to be there to support him.  It meant a lot to him.

I love this little guy (who is growing up way, way, way too quickly!!!!).

One Tooth Down

Miss Pink woke up Wednesday morning and just knew that her tooth needed to come out.

As soon as breakfast was over Mr. Orange talked her into tying her tooth to the door and he would slam it shut.

 It took awhile for Mr. Blue to get the string tied to Miss Pink's tooth.

When it was on tight, Mr. Blue asked Miss Pink if she was ready for him to tie the string to the door.

Her response?

"Um, no Dad."

 Needless to say, the tooth did not come out after breakfast.

Miss Pink spent most of the day in front of the mirror trying to get it to come out.

By Thursday, it was hanging on by a thread.

I wanted to reach in her mouth and "pop" it out.

I refrained.

 We went to dinner with her Uncle and cousin and while we were sitting and talking she looked up at me and guess what?

Her tooth was in her hand and she had a window in her mouth!

She was so excited to put her first tooth under her pillow.

The Tooth Fairy made it and gave that animal-loving girl a pretty cool elephant and butterfly.

I can't believe how grown up she is!

Toothpicks and Dolls

Miss Pink found the toothpicks.

 I think she has a pretty bright future in either acupuncture

or voodoo.

Either option could come in handy, I am sure.

Sleeping

Since Mr. Orange has been out of school, Miss Pink thinks they need to have a sleepover every night.

I wonder how long this will last.

Looks a little squishy to me!

Venus

Nana gave us some special glasses a few days ago with some specific instructions:

You need to watch Venus move across the sun.

Miss Pink didn't make it to the viewing party.

She was being a bit crabby and fell asleep too early.

 Mr. Orange, on the other hand, put those glasses on and watched, and watched, and watched, and, well, you get the idea.

 He was fascinated.

So was I.

Ensign Peak

Since it was Mr. Orange's last day of school we decided to jam-pack it with fun.

When school let out we ran down to Thanksgiving Point to have lunch with Gramma.

Then we went to Wal-Mart to buy a backyard pool.

The kids played in the pool until Mr. Blue got home from work.

We ate dinner then headed up to Salt Lake to hike Ensign Peak.

 I love this hike.

The views are incredible.

 And it's perfect for kids too.

Miss Pink and I ran the whole way down.

When the boys finally caught up to us, we talked them into some ice cream on the way home.

Let summer begin!

Last Day of School - First Grade

Wow.

It finally came.

The last day of school.

Mr. Orange was so excited to get to school that he absolutely, could not, hold still long enough for me to take a picture of him.

 "We're going to have a lot of fun this summer.  Right, Mom?  Right???"

 Mr. Orange with his Chinese teacher - W. Lao Shi.  She was an incredible teacher.  I cannot believe the patience that she had with these kids (mine in particular).  It was amazing to see Mr. Orange's progress this year.  Once he decided to pay attention in class (insert bribes by the parents and creative teaching by the teacher) he decided that he really did like Chinese.  I'm so excited to see how he does next year.

I would have taken a picture of his English teacher, but he had several.  Mrs. B. had a baby right after Christmas.  Then they had a long-term substitute.  Mrs. B. decided not to come back and to stay home with her baby.  Enter Mrs. J. - also pregnant.  She had her baby 9 days early and missed the last 2, or so weeks of school.  Enter long-term substitute number 2.  That is 4 teachers for his English class alone!  Incredible.  Let's hope he has post-menopausal teachers next year.  :)  I'm only half kidding about that.

Since I never got around to posting Mr. Orange's last day of Kindergarten picture, I figured I'd stick it in here.  Mrs. Y. was a great teacher and friend.  I loved, loved, loved volunteering in her classroom.  Mr. Orange loved her too.

Track

Track conditioning ended tonight.

Mr. Orange had to run the mile again.

It was hotter than hot.

He did so well - 11:21!

I couldn't talk him into doing track for the summer.

Maybe he'll want to next summer after watching the Olympics. :)

I'm so proud of him.

He improved so much in 6 short weeks.

Way to go Mr. Orange!!

Sidewalk Paint = Lifesaver

I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest.

I love all of the great ideas I find on the site, but really hate how uncreative/unorganized/unawesome it makes me feel.

Tonight I loved Pinterest.

My kids were driving me crazy around dinnertime.

(What?!  My kids?!  I know, they are complete angels - always.  Mmm, hmm.)

I remembered seeing a recipe for sidewalk paint.

 Hooray!  Hooray!  It saved my day.

 The kids were entertained for an hour while I made dinner.

Thank you Pinterest for helping me be an awesome mom today.

the HOMM

I decided earlier in the year that I would not do a marathon this year.

Half marathons are another story.

I did the Thanksgiving Point Half a few weeks ago and loved it.

About a week ago I found out about the inaugural Herriman Oquirrh Mountain Marathon and figured, "Ah, what the heck?  I can do the half.  Besides, it's supposed to be fast and basically...awesome."  Prices for the race went up the Thursday before the race at midnight.  I signed up at 11:55 p.m.  Little did I know what I had gotten myself into!

Friday the kids and I drove to the park where the finish line would be to pick up my race packet.  No one was there.  Talked to a few people working at the park, they made some phone calls, and I found out I needed to go to the running store to pick it up.  At least I knew where I needed to be at 6 the next morning!

Before we (all 140 of us - 100 for the half, 40 for the marathon) loaded onto the buses, the race director gave us some basic instructions:  Half marathoners and marathoners will be on the same course off and on.  Pay attention to the orange spray paint on the road, blah, blah, blah....

We loaded onto the buses.  I sat next to a nice girl from Alaska.  The drive up Butterfield Canyon was beautiful (and totally scary - the road was as wide as the bus and super twisty.  I felt like I was on one of those "most dangerous roads in the world") and I knew the run down was going to be fun.

They dropped us off.  Waited for everyone to use the bathroom then blew the horn and off we went.  I should have held my horses a bit because I took off fast - waaaay too fast.  I tried to slow down, but the grade was so steep it was almost impossible.  Plus, I have changed my stride this year and I cannot figure out how to go downhill.  (Yes, I am a running dork.)  Needless to say, but mile 8 my feet were on fire.  I was paying close attention to the spray paint on the road and kept following the half arrows on the right.  I was really not having fun by mile 11.  I wanted to be done - 2 miles ago.

I kept running (okay sometimes I was hobbling), pumped up the music a bit (not that it helped) and saw my last aid station at mile 12.  Sweet, I thought, I can get to the end of this.  I can even run to the end of this.  I knew I had one mile left in me.  I grabbed my water from the kid sitting at the aid station and followed the "halfer" in front of me to the left.  I ran for a little way and started to look around.  I knew where the finish line and I knew there was no way in you know where that I was ever going to circle back there in less than a mile.  

So I stopped.

Right in the middle of the road, I stopped.

I turned around and almost got run over by two men.  I stopped them and said, "Hey aren't you guys running the half too?"  They said that they were.  I said, "We are on the marathon course."  They looked at me like I was kidding, but the three of us decided to turn around.  Problem - we had to run UPHILL.  Okay, so the three of us walked up the hill.  Sure enough, at the corner where we turned left, was spray paint, with an arrow pointing straight, not left, for the half marathoners.  UGH!  We still had a mile to go.  (I feel really bad for the girl that was in front of me.  I couldn't catch her, or call out to her.  I don't know how far she went before she turned around...)  The guys and I hobbled in.  I actually had to take my shoes off when I got to the finishing shoot, I couldn't take another step in those blasted things.

I was disappointed when I crossed the finish line, until I looked at my watch and realized that I finished the race in the same amount of time I finished the Thanksgiving Point Half.  After the race I clocked my detour.  1.5 miles.  Are you kidding me?  Why oh why didn't I listen to that little voice when I started turning left that said, "DON'T GO LEFT!  GO STRAIGHT!!!"  I'll never make THAT mistake again!!!  I have no idea what my time would have been.  But I'm guessing that my last 2.5 miles were close to 11 or 12 minute miles.  Had I not done the detour, my time would have been close to 1:45, which would have felt like a world record to me.  :)

So, what did I learn from this race?

*  Inaugural races are great.  At what other race does the race director drive his car up next to you and offer to take your jacket to the finish line because it's getting hot outside??

*  School buses can get you up a narrow, twisty, mountain road safely (even if you are too scared to look out the window.)

*  PAY ATTENTION TO SPRAY PAINT!!!

*  Practice going downhill with a new stride before trying it out on a super steep downhill race.

*  Be sure to have a massage scheduled later in the day.

*  I will definitely have to do this race again!