RECITAL!

It was an interesting and exciting day today! The roads were covered in ice this morning, so they delayed school by two hours. They had already cancelled seminary last night, so I woke up at 6:30, picked up the laptop that I had left next to the bed with the school's website already pulled up on it, refreshed the page, saw the big red bar that said, "DELAYED!", put the laptop back down, turned off the alarm and went back to sleep! As soon as the kids woke up and realized that there was snow outside, they were dressed and out the door. Why don't they do that on school days? I usually have to drag them out of bed! We had a fun morning playing outside, then came in for oatmeal and hot chocolate and then it was off to school. Porter's school is the latest, and with the delay they didn't start until 11:20! I had an 11:15 appointment, so I dropped him on my way, and then went shopping afterwards. I went to Fred Meyer and got all the rest of the stuff for my Christmas baking, and a few things I needed to stock up the Primary closet. Then we went to the music store to get Suzuki Violin Books 9 and 10 for Hayden, plus I looked around for ideas for little gifts for my piano students. The least expensive items were about $6, so I vetoed that idea. The little boys were cute while I was in there. Turner walked right up to an electric piano and started playing "Jolly Old St Nicholas." He was so cute. After the music store we went to the dollar store which is where I found my gifts for my students. I got them each a cute little snow globe. I got a little bit of Christmas candy and other stuff there too. I love the dollar store.

By the time I got home, it was nearly two! That late start really cut my day short! I had thrown some stew meat in the crock pot before I left for my appointment, so the house smelled wonderful! Dix helped me carry in my bags, and then I hurried to put the perishable foods away before I had to leave for piano. I remembered at the last minute that I needed to put the veggies in the stew, so I did some seriously speedy peeling and chopping. Totally worth it, though, to have dinner ready when I got home! My lessons went well. We moved the piano (remember, this is a GRAND piano!)so that seating for the recital would be better. I had taken my programs over, and they were kind of plain, so my dad embellished them by printing some little colored gifts on the bottom. They looked really cute. I ran home and had a quick dinner and then Turner, Regan and I changed into nice clothes for the recital. It was very cozy, but it was fun. I definitely need to get a bigger spot next time. Especially if I take on any more students. Turner went first and was so stinking cute. He played his song perfectly while looking around the room. He wasn't a bit nervous and really enjoyed performing. Especially the clapping at the end! He played Jolly Old St Nicholas and Regan played Frosty the Snowman. Regan did really well, too. About half an hour before the recital, she sat down to play it and couldn't remember it at all! So she worked on it for a little while and pulled it off just fine! In all, I have eight students including my two children that I'm teaching. It was a very short recital--like maybe 15 minutes. People brought treats to share afterwards and it was very nice. Again, the only improvement would have been more space. I was very emotional today about the whole thing. I was so excited and so glad that I finally took the plunge to teach, and so proud of each of my kids that I teach. I really love doing this! (Pictures of the recital tomorrow, probably.)

When I got home, I gently encouraged (read: nagged) Dix to fix the leaky toilet, so he did that while I got kids to bed and then started the laundry. And now we have water leaking out of the bottom of the washing machine. Hopefully it was just a fluke, not a sign of a dying washing machine! I'm so behind on laundry and will have just as busy a day tomorrow as I had today, so I'm trying to get several loads done tonight so I can at least have clean clothes, even if they're not folded and put away!

I started reading Charlotte's Web to Regan, Turner and Cooper yesterday. I know that Cooper isn't really getting it, but he lays in bed and listens quietly while I read. He's so cute. My copy of Charlotte's Web was given to me by my Grandma Fred when I was four years old. My mom read it to me several times, I've read it dozens of times and now I'm reading it to my kids. I told Regan that we need to take really good care of it so that she can read it to her little girl! She thought it was so cool. Inside the front cover of the book is my Grandma's handwriting (who is currently 92 years old!) that says, "To Leslie, Love, Grandma Fred, Christmas 1975." How cool is that?

Alright, time to go start the rounds, and then hopefully get some sleep before it's time to start all over again!