Piano Recital

Aubrey and Connor had their first piano recital this last Monday, April 19, 2010.

A friend from my church ward, Rebekah, started teaching piano lessons to a girl who is in Aubrey's Primary class. Since Rebekah only had one student but still wanted to hold a recital, she invited Aubrey and Connor to join in on it. I was really glad she asked because both of my kids having been playing the piano for a couple of years now but have never had the opportunity to show anyone what they have learned. It's a great way for them to experience the nerves that come with performing but still be able to play a great musical piece anyway.

Aubrey and Connor right before the recital began.

Getting ready to play. Just about all of Aubrey and Connors' grandparents and great-grandparents were there to watch. We really appreciate the interest they took in wanting to be there. Here you see Aubrey getting her flute ready because she played one song with it.

I didn't get any photos of the kids playing their piano pieces because I was too busy videotaping them. (There are videos you can watch at the end of this post.) However, I did quickly snap a few pictures of Aubrey's flute duet with her Grandma Hansen playing the piano.

Both Aubrey and Connor played 3 music pieces, one of which had to be memorized. When the kids were first told that they would have to play a song by memory, they were pretty skeptical that they could actually do something like that. Aubrey put up a bigger fight about it than Connor, she was feeling very doubtful about it. However, the songs they chose were easy enough that they both had them memorized within the first day of practice.

Aubrey has now been playing the flute since the beginning of this school year. She did very well despite the fact she was really nervous, which made it hard for her to keep her breathing steady and strong in order to get a good clear sound out during some points of the song. This was her first flute solo she has ever performed.

Like I said before, we had a great turn-out from our families, which made it that much more special. Here's Ronin with Grandma Hansen and Grandma Kriss.

Aubrey and Connor with their piano teacher, Grandma Hansen.

Grandma Hansen has been absolutely wonderful with teaching our kids. It's been a great way for them to spend individual time with their grandma. I am very grateful that she's been willing to give up much of her time to teach them over these past many years.

Connor and Aubrey were quite silly and giggly during these pictures.

Aubrey and Connor's Great-grandparents, the Mortons, along with Grandma Kriss. After the recital, we were served banana splits. Yum!

Lots of hugs and congratulations right after the recital. Aubrey getting a big hug from Great-grandma Morton.

Connor with Grandma Kriss.

Aubrey hugging Great-grandma Hansen.

Connor with his Grandma Hansen and Great-Grandparents, the Hansens.

Aubrey and Connor with their mom and dad. Ronin and Rigdon were off running around the gym.

Ronin and Grandma Kriss pulling funny faces.

Here are videos of some of the songs that Aubrey and Connor played.

Connor's

Aubrey's

Aubrey's Flute Song with Grandma Hansen. I missed the first few seconds of the song, sorry!

Dear Aubrey and Connor,
Dad and I want you to know how proud we are of you. You've both come a long way with learning to play your musical instruments. Despite the fact that there are times where you'd rather not have to practice or even play at all...we are glad you have stuck with it. We know that having a talent such as this will bless you throughout your life and bring much joy to others and yourself. Keep it up!
Love, Mom and Dad

Let's Go Fly A Kite!

My mom and dad gave our kids some kites when they were over at our house this last Sunday. So on Monday the kids wanted to try them out. Since windy days are a common occurrence in our neck of the woods, it worked out really well since Monday turned out to be a very windy day.

Rigdon was happy just to watch the others and play with his new bubble pail from his birthday.

Ronin had a harder time catching on to flying a kite since he is younger than the other two and hasn't really done it much. His string and kite tail kept wrapping around his legs and getting all tangled. Needless to say, he got quite frustrated and had a meltdown. So, I put my camera down for a little bit to help him out...but not before getting a picture. :)

Connor flying his Pokeman kite - it was originally given to Ronin but they traded kites as soon as they saw what each other had.

Aubrey's kite had a harder time staying up due to the fact the winds were stronger than what her butterfly kite design was intended for and her kite kept folding back and then crashing. But that didn't keep her from sticking with it.

Ronin's dog kite.

Once Ronin got the hang of keeping his kite in the air, he was loving it. The boys discovered that they could try and fight with each other's kites while they were in the air, which made it that much more fun for Ronin.

It was really easy for these kite strings to get tangled up, the wind made it much more difficult.

Way to go Ronin!

Aubrey and Ronin kites criss-crossed over each other in the air at one point which ended up snapping Ronin's kite string. His kite floated two houses over and landed in a tree. Ronin and I gave up trying to get it out since it was so high up. However, by this time our kite flying fun had attracted the neighbor kids and so they managed to climb up and get it out for us.

Rigdon pointing out the kites to the neighbor kids that showed up.

Man, it's really windy!

Kite flying was a lot of fun! Thanks mom and dad for the kites!!!

Happy Birthday Rigdon!

Today is Rigdon's 2nd birthday! Wow, what joy this little guy has brought into our life over the last two years. We are so happy that he is part of our family. He is so full of fun, smiles, sweetness, and bursting energy.

We actually celebrated his birthday two days ago on Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa Hansen and Great-grandparents, the Mortons.

Here is Rigdon with his "Doggy Cake." Since he loves dogs so much, I thought that this would be perfect for him. No, I didn't make the cake - I bought it for only $4.00 (soooo worth it.)

Here's a close-up. Cute!!!

Let's get the party started. Rigdon's blowing out the candles. He knew just what to do since he's seen all of his siblings do the same.


Rigdon's Grandma and Grandpa Hansen.

Rigdon's Great-grandparents, the Mortons.

Ronin and the Mortons watching the action.

Aubrey did the videotaping for us - she did a really good job.

Rigdon also loves horses (I think that was inevitable since he shares a horse-filled room with Aubrey.) Anyhow, since he always trying to snatch Aubrey's Breyer horses, we got Rigdon some of his own little horses to play with.

Aubrey gave Rigdon a binder with several pages of Bella Sara cards (horse trading cards.) I wasn't kidding when I said he loved horses. He loves looking through Aubrey's cards so Aubrey was kind enough to give him some of hers. What a great sister!

I think one of Rigdon's favorite gifts was the bubble pail with three bubble-blowing sticks. Rigdon caught on quickly what to do and loved blowing his own bubbles.

Perfecting his technique.

Having fun blowing bubbles.

Blow hard, Rigdon!

Rigdon's response to just about every gift (including the clothes) was "Wow!"

Grandma and Grandpa Hansen also gave Rigdon a Bubble mower. I think he'll really have some fun with that.....when the weather warms up a little bit more.

Jed's Grandparents gave Rigdon some clothes and this horse coloring book. Aubrey was already asking Rigdon if she could color in it too.

Our first school snow day.....in April

This week was an interesting one as far as weather goes. Just when you think spring might poke her head around the corner, a storm system came in Monday night and dumped 4 inches of snow on the ground. Because of the wind and amount of snow, our kids got to have their first snow day of this school season....in April. Crazy!!!!!!! We had gone through the whole winter without school ever cancelling because of a bad winter day and here we are in April. I had already gathered up all of our winter stuff and had it all ready to stick in the garage for another year -then I had to pull it all out again. The kids of course were overjoyed at the thought of not having to go to school.

So I did what any good mom does when her kids are out of school for the day....that's right, she makes them go out into the very cold weather and work on shoveling the drive-way.

We had just barbequed two days prior...talk about messed up.

This is Ronin when he first went outside.....


This is Ronin 20 minutes later...."I'm cold, Mom! Can I be done?" (It really was cold with the wind blowing so I knew he wasn't just trying to get out of shoveling.)



Usually, I just make the boys go out and shovel, but this time I sent Aubrey out too.

Ronin isn't one to let any opportunity slip by....Jed came home for a few minutes and Ronin was ready for him. I took this picture from inside the house.

Lot's of snow!

Connor's thrilled face, showing how happy he is to be shoveling.

I am sure those of you enjoying your 80 degree weather are so envious of us right now, aren't you?

Hot chocolate, anyone?