Hi All-

we just got home from Sophie’s very first Piano Recital.  This was an adjudicated festival… which basically means you get scored and written comments about your playing.  We haven’t seen the remarks yet (they give them to the piano teachers and then the teachers go through them with the students at their lessons) but Sophie did get a nice blue ribbon and a certificate grading her playing as “Superior” which is pretty cool.  The three of us watched her play in a little room with 4 other kids and their families.  It was fun to see the other kids play and see Soph get a little nervous, too.  (Afterwards she said her armpits were sweaty…) She played nearly perfectly (there was only one tiny mistake that we could hear).  They don’t allow any photos or recording at this festival, so she just sat down and played her two pieces after we got home.  And we used Markie’s Christmas present the GoPro to film as a practice.  Hence the fish eye. Anyway- here is her playing, all in one take.  Not as clean as the recital, but you can see her tunes at least.

So, this morning, Mark and I went up to Kirk Elementary to watch the Martin Luther King Assembly…

Pretty awesome, eh? DId you see the cameo applause from Max at the end (he’s the one wearing the Wilson jersey.)

So, yesterday we celebrated part 2 of the birthday shindig.  We started off with the holiday traditional visit to our favorite dumpling place, then took a trip down (the escalator) to Snowflake Lane.  The kids got to invited to dance in the “mosh pit” by Rudolph, and had a pretty good time, as evidenced by the video below.  Sophie is the one flapping around in the leopard print coat and Max is the one with his back to the camera in the green and blue striped hat trying to catch snowflakes.  Mark makes an appearance, too-thoroughly enjoying his most favorite holiday song ever.  After all that fun, it was home to open presents!  Max had a great day and loved all his fun new clothes, books and toys he got.  Yes, it was a little later night than usual, but how often does one turn 6?  He went to bed with a big smile on his face and now we are all ready for school to get out tomorrow so we can rrreeeeally count the days until Christmas!

We had a surprise birthday dinner over at my folks last night!  Max got a real kick out of it! The kids got to play, my mom had made a delicious dinner, then the surprise part kicked in when some presents appeared.  Sophie was even confused… “Whose birthday is it?” she asked.  Max knew.  His!  After that we had a decoy dessert (yummy homemade raspberry ice cream with Grandma’s raspberries) and then it was Cake Time!  Check it out:

Max had been talking about wanting a “Frozen” (the movie) themed party.  Since the “theme” was already “surprise!” I decided to make a chocolate cake with Olaf at the beach on top.  I was very pleased with the results and even better, the cake was delicious! (Phew…baking has not been my strong suit…)  Joining the usual suspects were Margot’s beau Darren and his son, Henry.  Henry is in first grade and the three of them tore around the house and had a fabulous time doing who knows what downstairs and playing with Grandpa’s train under the tree.  The party went past everyone’s bedtime, but a great time was had by all.  Later this week, on his actual birthday we are going to do our annual trek up the eat dumplings and watch the show at Snowflake Lane, then come home and do round 2 of presents.  Max is pretty darn lucky!  Stay tuned for more!

Here it is… a little Christmas rendition for you all…with a cameo by Max.

This occurred last night.  I thought it was pretty cute and indicative of Max’s style on the piano.  He’s not the bang away mercilessly on the keys style, but more the tickle the ivories style.  And, at least this time, it sort of works!

Sophie has been taking formal piano lessons at home for about a month and a half and is now reading music and able to play a variety of some simple songs, too.  I am waiting for a truly “wow” song to post here, but it’s coming!  We might get lucky with Jingle Bells perhaps!  In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on this little nugget of delicious silliness…otherwise known as the Friday Night Dance Party.

Our girl turned 8 on Sunday, and to celebrate we threw her not one but two parties! The first one was mid-week for some girlfriends from school.  We made it a modified Tea Party theme and everyone got to paint their initial and other things on a tote bag to take home…. that was a hit!  Margot came to help manage the chaos (thank you!) and we both were more than ready for wine afterwards. All good kids but it’s amazing how the squealing factor ramps up as you add more girls to  the mix.

The next party was just this past Saturday evening with my folks… we had some snacks and champagne, a nice dinner, birthday cake and of course presents!  Thank you everyone for the great gifts!  Sophie has been learning how to properly type at school and wanted to try that out for her thank you notes- hence all the emails you got.  She spent a long time working on each- but I guess she’s still pretty inexperienced at it judging by the, ah… LENGTH of each email. Short and to the point, yes? So, I have attached the requisite “Happy Birthday to you” video as well as a slew of pics from both parties below.  Enjoy!!

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At long last, the day I couldn’t really imagine coming, is here. BOTH kids are in school, the same school, together, at the same time.  YIPPEE!!!  Sophie started two days ago, but as they stagger the start for the new kindergarteners, Max had to wait the extra 2 days until it was his turn to go.  And boy, they were l-o-n-g!!  But, he made it!  Max got to ride the big bus with his sister and all the other kids.  I met him up at school to go into his class with him for a few minutes to sort school supplies, then when his teacher, Miss Peterson, called them to go sit on the carpet, I got one really big wave (the pic in in the gallery below) and off I went.  Not a tear from me this time around (Max, I still love you just as much as your sister, I swear…) probably because he was so incredibly excited to finally get to go to kindergarten that I was too excited to even be a little sad that he is growing up.  It’s all good. 🙂  After his “half day” was over, he got on the bus and came home.  He was all smiles and energy after his first day… the first words off the bus?  “Mom… I LOVED it!”  Then he proceeded to eat an entire tray of sushi for lunch, so all that learning really made him hungry. Check out the pictures below… I think they are pretty cute!!

As you know….about a year ago we did a “little deal” with a neighbor to buy the back 1/3 of her yard, which butted into our yard, essentially doubling our lot’s square footage. It was a deal that was over a year in the making (she initially was going to sell to a builder who would have ruined it for everyone by putting in 2 houses in the space… ) but common sense and the mutual desire for surrounding nature won out and we struck a deal!  So, last summer we began the process to make her space our own.  Following are the pictures that are worth a thousand and one words… you might notice that there are mostly sunny pics… it has been an amazing summer this year!  We haven’t been blogging as we’ve been busy in the yard (both work and lots of play) plus our usual summer fun of spending as much time as possible on the boat.  That blog will come soon (before we go back to school!!)  Anyway- there are plenty of captions to explain our yard journey…take a look!

Well, we are back from a truly fabulous vacation. We went to our “usual” spot on Maui, north of Kaanapali in Napili, and were blessed with great weather (our tans tell that story) and lots of fun times.  The kids are officially old enough to do what you should do on a beach vacation as a kid: swim, swim, eat, play in the sand, snorkel, swim, body surf, eat, swim some more, eat, eat some more, shower, eat again, sleep. And repeat.  And because of that, we were able to do what parents should do on vacation: sit in the sun, read, swim, apply sunscreen, read, swim, watch the kids, read, drink rum and guava, read, swim, watch the kids, re-apply sunscreen, drink, eat, sit in the sun and swim.  We also saw whales leaping around out there, and on 2 different days we saw a heard of spinner dolphins fishing. We snorkeled a few times, Max got to do it this trip and loved it, so that was pretty cool, and we saw lots of turtles swimming and eating in Napili Bay.  A few times we got about 3 feet away from them, which was really neat to watch them up close.  They were HUGE!! We had some yummy food, a LOT of rum and guava juice, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Below are a bunch of pictures… I think you will see, it was beautiful and so. Much. Fun.

Happy Easter to you all!!