The Choir Battle. And Lights At City Hall.

It's come to my attention that I'm probably not a very good mom.

And I should probably clarify that nobody actually told me that I'm not a good mom.  It's just something I've picked up on a lot recently.

Most recently this morning.

The story goes something like this:

Every year some odd number of my children decide they want to join the choir at the elementary school.  It's a big commitment since the practices are held early in the morning, before school, and with my work and school schedule, chances are pretty good that they're going to have to walk there in the early morning cold temps of November and December.

Honestly, I've been impressed with their willingness to get up and get it done.

As Cali is now our only child in elementary school, it fell upon the neighbor boy whom she walks to school with to also join choir so Cali wouldn't have to walk alone.

I'm pretty sure that neighbor boy made it to practice more often than Cali did.

Half way through Cali asks me, in her most pouty voice, "Do I have to take choir next year?"

To which I laughed, literally out loud, because, Chica, I didn't even make you take it this year, that was a choice you made all on your own.

She's not a morning person and the practices became something she dreaded simply because she didn't want to get out of bed early to go to them.  My schedule was more flexible this year than in previous years (yay online classes) so I started giving her rides most mornings and that seemed to help her attitude.

This year is also the first year that Cali is old enough to join the elementary orchestra.  She begged to take violin, and being as Casidee decided not to take violin this year, I told Cali she could use it.

I signed her up and paid the fees.

Practice is once a week, after school.

She hates it.

But frankly, it's paid for, and she's going to have to see the year out with it.

So most of my week has had a battle in it with getting that girl to choir and orchestra.  She certainly doesn't have to sign up for these things again, but she needs to fulfill her obligation and finish out this year, even if there wasn't a fee for choir and it was strictly on a volunteer basis.  And I explained that to her.  It's okay if she doesn't like it, but she can't bail when she's given her word to be there.  She can finish it out and then not sign up again.

Every year the choir sings at the lighting of the Christmas lights at our City Hall.  The kids sing, the lights across the property light up, and Santa, that jolly ol' elf himself, is there.

Cali never gave me the note with the information and time.

Luckily her orchestra teacher doesn't send notes.  She emails.  So I received the email stating when the orchestra kids needed to be at City Hall, and knowing that she also needed to be there for choir, because they've done so every other year, we raced to City Hall to get her there on time.

We made it just in time for her to join the choir performance.

Normally at concerts I take videos, but I never did that at the City Hall event because I knew the bigger concert was coming up, and I planned on taking video then.

After choir it was the orchestra's turn.

And she did well.  Even though I know she doesn't like doing it, I still had fun watching her show off her new skill.

As a reward we got in line for Santa Claus.  We checked him out from our place in line and I asked her, "Do you think he's the real one?"

She peered at him in contemplation.

"His beard looks real so I think he's the real one."

It only confirmed her thoughts when we overheard the people behind us having the same exact conversation, and coming to the same conclusion.

After Santa we checked out the lights, and went home.

 Two days later Cali had her orchestra concert where I was able to get my video of her playing the violin.  I'll post about that tomorrow.

This morning the alarm went off, and off, and off, and off... I finally went in to drag her out of bed.

"Come on, girl, you've got choir this morning."

"No I don't."

"What do you mean no you don't?"

Tayler interjects, "She forgot about the concert and didn't go."

This concert was the concert.  The whole reason for the choir and the practices.  It's done now, no more choir. I know good and well that Cali didn't forget about that concert.  I'm quite certain that she simply didn't give me the note that had the information on it, and just didn't go.

But there isn't much I can do with it at this point except sigh.

And tell her to put her violin on her backpack so she remembers it, because I paid way too much money for her to "forget" about orchestra.

I've determined that I'm not a good enough mom to be on top of this stuff, and I probably should be.

But then again, maybe I should give myself a break because what chance do I have against the nine year old who doesn't want to go to choir?

Tayler's Monster Concert.

Yesterday was okay enough.

The warmth of the sun would settle on your skin in between the whirls of the cold spring wind.  Even with the wind, light jacket weather, and that's better than snow.

Last week, in the pouring rain that lasted all week long, Tayler played in an orchestra concert that was made up of several elementary school orchestra students.  They called it the Monster Concert.  I have no idea why.

As it was, I ended up having a Spanish final on that day. Tayler was a rockstar and got herself to the Middle School (it's only a block and a half from our house) and made sure she had her brown bag dinner packed and with her.  Brynn made sure she went over to support Tayler and save me a seat.

I cranked out several pages of vocab and Spanish verb conjugations and hightailed it on over to the Middle School as quickly as I could.

I made it just in time to catch her in action for a few songs.




Compared to their beginning concert (here) I think they're coming along nicely.

Tayler has expressed her interest in a lot of areas, learning to play the cello, playing soccer, and in drawing.  I love how she's stretching out and finding the things that make her happy and developing talents.

It's a fun thing to watch as a parent.

Even if it does keep me running from one thing to the next.

Casidee's Christmas Concerts

Playing a bit of catch up here with Casidee's Christmas concerts.

Somehow she ended up in choir as well as orchestra this year.  It's interesting since she didn't actually sign up for choir, but whatever.

Also, it's helpful that the orchestra teacher and the choir teacher are the same person.  So the concerts were all held on the same night, which I appreciated since having three nights of concerts the week before with Tayler and Cali.

It struck me how much better Casidee's orchestra is sounding since they started last year.  I'm really excited to have her grow in the talent.

A big thank you to Brynn who was willing to crawl up to the front and get the videos for me.

Concert Season is in Full Swing

With concert season being in full swing we had a busy week filled with music last week.

Cali and Tayler kicked us off by singing at our City Hall (here) on Monday, Tayler had her Christmas orchestra concert on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Cali and Tayler had their official Christmas choir concert.  That's a lot of concerts for Tayler too, since she was in all of them.

Next week we have Casidee's orchestra and choir concerts, but luckily those will be on the same night.

This week we're excited because The Man is having a birthday.  We have plans to spoil him and celebrate him, and show him that we love him.

I love pinterest for the ideas!

And now... for some concert pictures and videos.

All I wanted was a smile.  Just one smile.

Turns out this is as good as I was going to get.

Sometimes, as a mom, you come to learn that cutting your losses, at times, can be better than trying to win, and you just walk away while shaking your head.

And I'm sorry for the sub par phone pictures.  

You know that child?  The child that does weird dance moves while singing?

That may have been my child during this concert.  And the girl in the blue and gray stripes next to my child?  Her mom probably was not enjoying my child's influence on her child very much.

Thanks to Casidee for being my photographer and videographer for the night.



Cali's favorite song:



Tayler's favorite choir song (she liked it because they sang part of it in German):



Tayler's favorite orchestra song:





I like to post the orchestra concert songs because I think it will be fun in a few years to compare how they sound as they practice and learn and play longer.

Today is my math final and then I'm free to enjoy the holiday season with my Circus.  The tree is up, the porch is lit up with lights (I may or may not have picked a cold snow storm to accomplish that in?  I don't know why, I think it was more or less: "let's just get this done already").

This year my aim is to keep it simple yet focused.  I think sometimes I lose the feel of what I'm doing in all the busy details. We have the list of things we need to finish buying but the kids want to help wrap, which I think will be fun, and take a lot of busy-ness off of me.  I skipped decorating the inside of the house on Halloween and ended up loving how simple it was so I think I'll do the same with Christmas.  Aside from the tree and stockings of course.

I'm looking forward to this month.

Cello

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Halloween has come and gone but I still have one thing to post about it.

Tayler decided she wanted to take orchestra lessons through her school, and being inspired by her sister, Casidee, decided she wanted to learn to play the violin.

I, however, being inspired by the Piano Guys, convinced her that the way to go would be with the cello.



And Tayler agreed.

So it begins.  With "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in concert.  And this Halloween song where they all wrote their own solo parts, to get a feel for the different ways their instruments work.



I hope my girls stick with their instruments.  I think music is such an inspiring outlet.  One day I hope to learn to play the cello myself.

Until then, I'll live vicariously through them.

And this one for kicks because it was hilarious.

Hula Hoop. Final Orchestra Concert. A Ramble About Some Goals For The Summer.

Cali signed up to hula hoop in the second grade talent show.

And she was determined that I should be there to watch her, because, you know, watching her do it every night in the front yard isn't enough.

Obviously.

I think next year, if she wants to do it, we should get someone to help her with an actual routine.

But being her mom, I was super impressed at her ability to get up on stage and be like "whatever" about it.

Casidee also had her end of year concert for orchestra.

Beauty and the Beast:



And an orchestra cover of Firework:



I'd like to keep The Circus busy through the summer, I'm just not sure how to do it.

I bought some work books for Cali to practice her math and language skills.  I'm thinking I need to read chapter books with her before bed.  I think I'll start with The Last Unicorn.

I bought Cas some violin music for popular pop songs and I hope she'll practice them over the summer.  Brynn will be joining her in the music area next year with the clarinet and I would love to learn to play the cello.  We could start our own band?

Yeah, maybe not.

As for the rest of them...

Maybe I'll sign them up for the library reading program.

Oh, Brynn wants to try her hand at gardening so she's been giving a flower bed in the backyard to be responsible for.  She wants to plant forget-me-nots.  The only thing is, the flower bed is in a shady spot so she's going to have to do some research to see if that will be okay for forget-me-nots.

I think landscape and gardening will be a good skill for her to work on this summer.

I myself have ventured out and planted strawberries in the front yard (they probably won't produce until next year) and I'm going to try a single tomato plant in the backyard.  Actually, I'll be getting that in the ground tonight.  I hope it's not too late.

I'm a known plant killer so we'll see how this goes.

Here's my official goals for the summer:

keep the tomato plant alive
refinish the wood base of my hammock
refinish the back deck
refinish the kitchen table until we can buy a new one
build a firepit in the front yard
not fail summer semester because it's stinkin' hard to want to do homework in the summer, yo
take The Circus up Bell Canyon to the waterfall

this may be a doable list.

I start with the tomato plant and some sanding tonight!

To My Man and To Our Kids: Thank You

After work yesterday I headed home through the traffic and the dreary winter atmosphere.

I had one hour to make dinner and get Casidee to her orchestra concert.  Looking back at it now, I admit, it should have been a crockpot day.

But it wasn't.

So I put noodles on to boil and sauteed onions and browned ground beef.  Everything was coming along perfectly until it was time to go and the noodles still weren't soft and the whole thing still needed to be thrown together and put in the oven for a bit.

I turned to The Man, who was curled up on the couch with his video game.

"Can you help finish dinner?  I need to leave."

He was so willing.  He's always willing.  So I told him what else needed to be done.

He gave me a blank stare.

"The recipe is open on the laptop on the counter."

"Oh good.  That will help."

I know him.

I know we can have full conversations about something and then he'll turn around a day or two later, or even the next day, and tell me he didn't know about it.

(Sometimes he'll even give me completely different views and opinions on the matter we've already discussed).

So I turned from the TV room door and looked at the food on the counter that still needed to be mixed with the meat sauce simmering on the stove and all of it waiting on the giant pot of bubbling pasta.

Usually I turn to Cas who is pretty good in the kitchen.  Everyday when she gets home from school she'll call and ask what can she do to help with dinner.  She did that today but we weren't too solid on what the menu was so I didn't know what to tell her.

I turned to Jayme who was playing checkers with Papa Mike.

"Jay can I show you really fast what needs to be done to finish dinner?"

She stepped away from her checkers game and came to the stove where I showed her that this sauce needs to be mixed with this pasta when it's done and these things need to sprinkled on top and it all needs to go in the oven.

She said she got it.

So I took Cas, who'd simply eaten a sandwich,

(well, not simply.  She made a pretty gourmet sandwich with lettuce and cheese and the whole she-bang)

and we left.

Cas seems to love playing.  She's asked for violin sheet music for her birthday.  It will be interesting in a year or two to compare how she plays then to how she's playing now.

And I'll admit, I was relieved when I came home and found that dinner was not only finished, but half eaten.

I told The Man thank you for finishing it up, to which he replied, "it wasn't me.  It was the girls."

My life is busy to the max with everything that I'm trying accomplish right now, and with trying to still be present and involved as a mother.

How grateful I am for my family who steps up when I need help.

And let's face it, that's a lot.  It's a humbling thing to say that no, I can't do it all.  But together with my family, we can.

So to my man, and to our kids:

Thank you.

Beginning Orchestra

Once upon a time Casidee signed up for orchestra, even though she'd never played an instrument before.

We had an old hand me down violin from Grandma Julie that used to be Aunt Kristin's so Cas decided she'd give learning how to play it a whirl.

And she fell in love with it.

The teacher said that this years beginning class is way ahead of where the beginning class last year was.

They're learning things and playing songs in their first concert that last year wasn't able to do until the end of the year.

They replayed a song and let parents swarm the front of the stage to get better pictures of their kids.

Which I loved because Cas was in the middle so it was hard for me to see more than her shoes and the top of her head.

 And when it was all said and done her boyfriend, Max, showed up out of the blue with flowers.
And they were even green, her favorite color.

She hadn't even known he was coming.

I love that his family is teaching him how to treat his girl.

And in return I'm teaching Cas how to treat her boy.

Our kids need to learn these things.

Way to go Deeds.

Considering you've only been doing this for three months, I'm seriously impressed.