Nervous Energy

Tonight is our piano recital and we've got a lot of nervous energy coursing through the house.  After I finished teaching the last piano lessons this morning this was the very loud chaotic scene that ensued.

All four of them raced for the piano at once, anxious to do a little more practicing.  Wouldn't it be nice if they were so anxious to practice everyday!  They are all prepared and I expect they will play very well.

And I must confess that they are not the only ones with nervous energy today.  It is a very rewarding experience to see my piano students perform well when I know how much they've practiced and how much hard work has gone into it.  That being said, I feel for them and I feel their performance is a reflection of me as a teacher.  So yes, I get quite nervous as well.

Thus I am going to continue with this blog post.  It calms me.

Here we have loaves and fishes to feed the 5,000.  Okay, maybe just to feed the older kids' book club, but it was still such a clever and tasty idea that one of the girls in the club came up with.  The book was The Bronze Bow, a historical fiction set at the the time of Christ. 

Ho-ho-ho!  Merry Christmas.  Clark's Santa Lego he made and has entered into a Lego building competition through the Lego magazine.  All hail Legos! 
Clark is BEGGING for more Legos for Christmas.  Truthfully, the lad has A LOT of Legos already, but there is a new set of Dino Legos that has come out that he desperately wants.  He is so desperate, in fact, that he is searching for ways of us to save money or make more money, so he can get them for Christmas. 
Here are a few of his suggestions:

• Turn the heat off so we save on the gas bill
• Walk to Walmart to do grocery shopping to save on gas
• Not having our regular parent/child dates
• Listing his unfinished basement room for rent on KSL classifieds. "I'm sure some homeless guy would think it was really nice."

Although Legos are rather pricey, so is any other item that a 12 year old boy would be interested in.  I'm just thanking my lucky stars that he is still into "toys" like Legos.  He could be asking for phones, laptops, game systems... oh, yes, things could be much worse.

The students of Bethany's violin teacher did a Christmas performance at Festival of Trees.  There were about 20 performers, in several different groupings playing 13 songs.  Bethany played in 9 of them, but this was my favorite.  These four girls played Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabelle.  Bethany is quite a bit younger than the other 3, but she did so well and was so excited to be called up into the big leagues with the older girls.  Sadly, I didn't record that song, but when I put up videos of the kids piano songs, I'll put up one of her playing violin as well. 

Here is a bigger group song. 

I'd love to post more right now, but the natives are restless downstairs and I do believe they want me to come put them to work.  Silly children.  Don't they know that when Mom blogs during the middle of the day (which I rarely do for obvious reasons) they should play nicely so I won't come down and make them work.  If they leave me alone, I will leave them alone.  But alas, they love me too much and miss my company when I let them alone.  So, we work!