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Monday, March 28, 2011

Opposites...

 Dark.
Black and White.
 ***shudder***


Bright.
 Colors.
My Precious...

New marker day! I found these pretties at Overstock.com and their discounted price plus a coupon made me finally able to stomach buying them. For anyone who ever wondered if Copics are worth it...They are. Oh yeah. I've been a Prismacolor girl my entire adult life, and I still like them. Heck as you can see by my handy tote there, I am an any kind of marker girl, but Prismacolors have always been my thing.

However, I like the Copic markers so much I might actually try to keep them away from my kids. And that is pretty much heresy here in Candyland. We'll see how long I can keep their art supply absorbing little selves away from my new babies...

Happy new week everyone - Wishing everyone color and light!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Spring Break 2011

This is how we do Spring Break in Michigan.
Those of us who stay in Michigan, that is. Many flee.








Oh my gosh, look at that tongue on my nephew! Scroll down to my last post and guess which person in that picture is the mother to this child. Like mother, like son. :0)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

My weekend looked something like this...

A weekend shindig with my beautiful cousins (the girls that is). There was constant chatter, foo-foo drinks, the passing around of a gorgeous baby, a memorable trip to a gigantic vitamin store and hula hoops. It was time well spent! I am now a strange combination of refreshed and exhausted.


The hula hoops were my contribution to the party. Here they are mixed with our family hoops looking all candylicious. I was a hula hoop making machine before I left. :0)

I had such a good time and I love that I am close to my cousins even this far into adulthood. Now I am getting back to the 'real' world. And ughhh.... the news in Japan is just constantly on my mind. I wish there was something more I could do than just push paypal buttons with my measly contributions. Does anyone else find it hard to balance such big, bad world news with regular days?  My spirit doesn't always know how to juggle the polarity of it all. I guess it is a lesson to be grateful for what we have, when we have it. And today, I am grateful for my beautiful family. Sending love to all!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Happy Birthday Dad!

It's that time of year again when I post a Happy Birthday video for my dad. He lives across the country which makes visiting difficult but computers help ease the distance a bit. Obviously since I'm posting the videos in this public fashion anyone is welcome to view them. :0)

Here are links to past videos... 2007 (which was my first post to this blog actually)... Here's the vid for 2008... Okay, I forgot in 2009 but here's a link to a cute kid video a posted around his birthday... And I failed again in 2010. But here it is in 2011 and I am only one day late with my offering and I am excited to finally be fulfilling a promise to record my daughter playing the piano.

A little background on this video... My daughter started piano a few years ago when her Kindermusik teacher started offering an intriguing program called Simply Music. My daughter was using a keyboard I had from my high school days, which was more of a toy than musical instrument. But lacking the funds for an upgrade we made it work. My dad visited us that year around the holidays and the kids opened a lovely keyboard from him that Christmas. A much appreciated gift and it was well used over the years.

Here they are opening the keyboard...
 It looks like my husband is trying to keep my son from jumping on top of it.
Oh my gosh! They are so little! This feels like yesterday.

 The box... of course!

Giving Grandpa his gifts.

I've promised to post video of the kids playing piano for awhile and well, time flies and all that, and suddenly it is four years later. But I finally sat down and compiled a video of my daughter playing through the years. I can't find any videos of her playing at all in 2010... sigh, so there is quite a jump in skill level that happens at the end of the video.

In the video you can see the small pathetic keyboard we started with, then the two songs in the middle are played on the keyboard from my dad. The keyboard in the final song is something we saved for and bought when my daughter reached a level where she needed a full key range this past year. We passed the gift keyboard on to my sister and her sons and they hope to begin piano lessons when their sons get a bit older. So anyway, here is the video of my girl.



My boy started piano lessons this year, so here's a video of him playing too. I was running out of steam after making the first video so this one is less edited and more chatty. A fun little note: The second song he plays in this video is the first song my daughter plays in her video.



Happy Birthday, Dad! Hope this year is the best. Thank you so much for your contribution to my children's love of music. Music makes our house such a happy, happy place and you are a part of that! We love you!