Halloween Costumes

This afternoon we all put on our costumes and went to a Halloween Fun Fest at the high school.

The Lindsays: A bee, a banana, a fairytale princess, Mulan and a jack-o-lantern

There were games for the kids to play, a face painting table, and a Haunted Hallway.


The kids thought Daddy's banana costume was the funniest thing ever.


Have you ever seen a cuter pumpkin!?


It was a relatively fun time... although in hindsight, we definitely should have skipped the Haunted Hallway. The girls were so scared that they clung to both of my legs and I could barely even walk. The whole time we were in the dark hallway, trying to make our past the scary beings, all I could think was,"There are going to be nightmares tonight."

Tomorrow we're having pizza with friends and then going trick or treating.

I am already dreading all of the buckets of candy they'll bring home!

Costume Recital

Today's Costume Recital was GREAT!! Absolutely fantastic!!

Of course, there were the inevitable slip-ups due to nerves, but all in all, I was honestly impressed with every single performance.

We had quite a varied program this year! The students' ages ranged from 5-15, with their playing experience between 2 months to 6 years. Nine out of the ten students were girls.

For four of the students, this was their very first recital. (For Amanda, it was technically her second recital, since she played one piece at last year's... but this was her first time as an "official" student on my schedule.)

The costumes were very creative. We had Belle from "Beauty and the Beast", a few phantoms, a Native American, a genie, a blue M&M, and so on.

My 2010 Studio: Nine girls and one very brave boy.

Amanda was a fairy tale princess... or a good witch. We couldn't quite decide.

Eva wanted to dress up too, even though she wasn't in the recital.
Here she is posing as Mulan for a quick picture before she headed to the playground with the babysitter.

Amanda was the third student to perform and she played two duets and one solo. She was the very definition of calm, cool and collected!

First up was "The Silly Song" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Next we played a duet of "Gallop, Pony", an example of music in A minor.

And her grand finale was a very difficult piece, again in A minor, called "Pterodactyls." She had a few tiny glitches but only because she was nervous.

I was so proud of her!

After all of the student performances, I played three pieces while the kids enjoyed some well-deserved refreshments. (One of the student's moms made pumpkin caramel whoopie pies.... ohhhh boy, were those good!)

My bee costume

I played a Classical piece called "Bees in the Clover", followed by a jazz piece called "A Taste of Honey", which you may recognize as a Beatles or Barbra Streisand hit. I finished the recital off with a contemporary piece called "Ghost Stories. It was filled with dissonance, contrasting dynamics and descending chromatic chords.

Now that it's all over, I can breathe a huge sigh of relief... and begin preparing for the upcoming holiday season. We start learning Christmas carols already next week!

A Special Halloween Lunch

I always forget how much more free time I have on my hands when I don't have to worry about teaching. (Since we have the Costume Recital this week, it takes the place of the week's regularly scheduled private lessons.)

I have really enjoyed the extra time. Yesterday Amanda and I spent the morning together running errands followed by a stop for iced coffee and a cream puff. We went to the playground where Amanda played and met new friends while I had a nice phone chat with my dad.

Today Eva and I spent time together making Halloween decorations and preparing for tomorrow's recital. We read books together, made a batch of pumpkin bars and watched "Super Why" - all while Liam slept and Amanda was at school.

At the gym the other day, I came across some kid-friendly Halloween-themed recipes. I figured since I had the extra time, I would go ahead and make a special Halloween lunch for the girls.

Being the geek I am, I was very excited about this. I told the kids to play in the next room so as not to ruin the surprise. While I busied myself making lunch, Liam took advantage of that very moment to pull himself up to a standing position for the first time. I turned my head to look into the next room, and there he was standing confidently at the train table!

I have a feeling his world, and ours, is about to change in a very big way!!! Yikes!

Anyhow, here's how lunch turned out.

I started with "Witchy Fingers", which is nothing more than carrots with a red pepper fingernail, glued on by a tiny dab of cream cheese. For a little treat, I added "Marshmallow Ghosts", simply marshmallows with chocolate chip eyes.


Then I made "Jack O'Lantern grilled cheese sandwiches", served along with mandarin orange slices, which I assembled on the plate to look like butterflies. And for dessert, the pumpkin cookies that we made over the weekend.


It took me FOREVER to carve the carrot sticks into fingers... and then make the indentations for the fingernails! But I was proud of how it all turned out.

As for the girls, they ate everything except for the red pepper, which they pulled off. I'd call that a success.

Amanda's School Picture

We just received Amanda's Kindergarten school photo. I love it!


We opted for the digital version because we figured a shot of all three siblings would be best. Still, if you'd like a print of just Amanda, let me know what size you'd like and I will send one out.

Eva's school pictures were yesterday, and that's where we always get a great sibling shot. Those won't come in until closer to Christmas though.

Amanda: "Tambourine Tune"

We've been talking a lot about minor keys this month because Halloween is the perfect time to play that type of music.

Kids will describe minor as sounding scary, sad, angry or mysterious. Typically this is some of their favorite stuff to play!

Here is Amanda playing one of her favorite pieces from this week's assignment, Tambourine Tune, along with the pre-recorded accompaniment.

Amanda says,"It's really FUN to play! It sounds sneaky, I think."

If you enjoyed that, come back on Thursday or Friday. I'm going to attempt to record all of the recital performances and if all goes well, I'll have Amanda's performance available for you to see.

More Fall Photos

Fall is always my favorite time of year around here and we are at the peak of the foliage now. The church next door to us has the most beautiful trees every year, especially against the stark white of the building.


I'm very happy with the mums I bought a few weeks ago from a local farm. I have never seen mums this big before!


The next set of photos were taken at the Amanda's school's Annual Harvest Day a few weekends ago.

The "donut on a string" contest was tough for Eva because she couldn't open her mouth as wide as all of the older kids!

At least they got to eat the donut after one of the other kids won.

Posing with Katelynn: They all chose rainbows for their face/hand painting.

And finally, a shot of our pumpkins all aglow last night.


Dave created the ones on the far right and actually used a jigsaw for the pumpkin on top. It turned out pretty well!

I carved the ones on the far left as well as the moon/stars one in the center. The moon/stars might be my favorite pumpkin ever. The stars wrap around the edges so you can see it from all sides.

This morning, the girls helped me decorate the studio for this Thursday's Costume Recital, which we are really looking forward to. We've been snacking on pumpkin seeds all day and I made another big batch of applesauce this afternoon.

Now it looks, tastes AND smells like fall around here!

Whatever works...

Liam has come up with his own mode of transportation.

It's sort of a "hop and scoot" method.

He's actually pretty efficient and can even manage to steer himself toward his desired destination.



I guess it's probably a lot easier on the knees than crawling on a wood floor would be.

Getting Ready for Halloween

Today was the perfect day to work on getting ready for Halloween. It was cloudy, gray and looked like rain.

What better way to turn a day around than by making a big batch of pumpkin cookies! We made several dozen and fun decorating them with sprinkles, gumdrops and chocolate chips.


They turned out pretty well... and tasted mighty delicious too!


When Liam went down for his nap, we worked on carving our pumpkins.

The girls' job was to sift through all of the pumpkin guts and collect all of the seeds. This was no easy task because it was cold outside and those little hands got pretty chilly! Once it started raining, we took the party inside.

Here we are with our jack o' lanterns!


We can't wait to see how they look tonight once we put candles inside!

The 2010 Lindsay family pumpkins

Little Buddy

Liam, aka Buddy or Bumblebee as we call him at least half the time, is becoming more and more fun by the day! He'll be 9 months old tomorrow, and at his last physical a few weeks ago, he was 19.5 pounds. He is tall (81st percentile) and is just about ready to start wearing the 12 month clothing.

He is developing quite a sense of humor and loves to laugh and play games.

He and Eva have been hitting it off pretty well lately, developing their own little friendship. If anyone can get him riled up, it's her. He especially loves playing Peek-a-Boo with her.



Amanda, on the other hand, plays the role of "Assistant Mother" and is nurturing, affectionate and helpful.

Liam is also getting closer and closer to crawling. He has gotten up on all fours a few times and his upper body strength is developing, although most of the time he ends up going backward instead of forward. He always seems puzzled when he gets to the wood floor and starts sliding faster!



He is still such a happy and easygoing little guy. I could just eat him up.

The other day a friend gave us a goat that sings "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music.

(You might want to turn your speakers down when you watch this next video.)



As soon as I heard it, I was taken back in time to when Amanda had the pink pig that sang "My Girl."

This video was taken when Amanda was about 8 months old, the same age Liam is now.



It sure is fun to go back and look at the old videos and pictures.

Brrr...

When I went to the gym this morning with the girls, it was only 42*.

Amanda complained that she needed mittens and I couldn't disagree. The heat could not kick in fast enough for us!

Meanwhile back at the house, Dave had started the first wood fire of the season. Unfortunately our planning was not the greatest and we didn't have any newspaper or kindling, and all of the wood on the pile was damp from the previous day's rain. Nonetheless, when we got home, smoke was billowing out of the chimney and it was toasty warm inside.

Stocking up on dry would will definitely be on the agenda for the weekend!

For some reason, the first fire of the season was very exciting for Amanda and Eva. When we arrived home, Amanda pulled out her notebook and sat at the table writing a letter to Santa. I explained that it wasn't even Halloween yet, but nothing could stop her. She is a kid, after all.

I took a peek at her letter when she was finished.

Some of her requests were pretty normal...

"Can I have a rell maggc wand?" (real magic wand)

She continued with...

"Can I have an ingrond pool?" (inground pool)
"Can Eva have a younacorn? And me too?" (unicorn)

And then she really started stretching.

"Can I hav my brhday sooner?" (birthday)
"Can Eva go to scool with me?"
"Can Eva hav a pony?"

But my favorite was this one.

"Can my fmaly be roalte?" (family be royalty)

Fat chance, my dear.

Overheard...

Said 5 year old Amanda this morning,"These barrettes always get STUCK in my hair!"

Three year old Eva replied matter-of-factly,"That's because you have curls. You should have gotten straight hair like me."

As if Amanda REQUESTED curly hair upon birth. (10/17/10)

Take Your Parent to Preschool

This morning I got to go to Preschool with Eva for their annual "Take Your Parent to School Day."

For an hour, she led me around and showed me what she does in a typical day.

We started with playdough, a special homemade playdough that is seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice. It smelled good enough to eat.


Here is part of the scene we created.


Then we did a craft where we painted each other's hands.


Here's Eva with her teacher, Mrs. McCarthy.


We took a break for apple juice and bagels, played Rainbow Fish dominoes, and made towers and streets out of giant wooden blocks.


It was a fun morning!

Vermont, Leaves and OctoberFest

We had a great, albeit short, time in Vermont last weekend.

The ride up was absolutely gorgeous, with so many vibrant colors and different shades of red, yellow and orange. My camera did not do it justice. It was truly the epitome of New England foliage, the type of picturesque scenery you'd find in a calendar.


Unfortunately we received a phone call from our realtor on the drive up saying that an interested party wanted to look at the house at the end of the week. Between the predicted rain and a normal work week, that didn't leave any time to get the house and yard ready for such a presentation. Reluctantly, we decided it would be to our advantage to cut the trip a bit short and skip the Science and Nature Museum and nature hikes. What a bummer!

We spent a few hours at the Harpoon Brewery OctoberFest, eating traditional German food like bratwurst, potato pancakes, knockwurst, red cabbage and German potato salad.


Their German potato salad was served cold and couldn't hold a candle to Mom's tasty, warm German potato salad! And the potato pancakes tasted more like frozen hash brown patties rather than the kind Dad always made. I guess homemade is always better.


We sampled a few beers...


...listened to the Jolly KopperSchmidts German Band...


...and watched the kids dance. Amanda performed a mean Chicken Dance; Eva was too shy to show off her stuff. Here they are having fun dancing the "polka."

Liam sat happily in his stroller, bouncing up and down to the music from time to time, and doing his fair share of people watching.


We had a delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant, which supplied the girls with something I'd never seen before: Wikki Stix. Picture colored wax-covered pipe cleaners that can be bent into objects or shapes. The girls were so enthralled with this diversion that they never even opened their coloring books... and barely touched their tacos. Back at the hotel, they sat on the carpeted floor making all sorts of creations. If only our favorite restaurants would have such a thing!!

And of course, we swam. If you asked the girls what their favorite part of the trip was, I'm sure they'd say the swimming.

We'll definitely have to make another trip up to the area sometime to do all of the things we didn't have time for, but it will have to wait until next year. Peak foliage season is over for now.

As for the house showing, our quick return home may have paid off. The interested party liked the property and according to our realtor, they want to come back again next week for another look! Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for us...

Leaf Peeping

We had originally planned to spend Columbus Day weekend, a three day weekend, in Burlington, Vermont. Unfortunately by the time I got around to looking up hotels, everything was booked!!

We came up with a Plan B that we're pretty excited about it. We'll be heading up to White River Junction, VT tomorrow morning and staying overnight. It is right in the middle of Vermont, smack dab between the Green Mountains and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The girls think it's so cool that we're going to be in "the mountains." (I have a feeling they're picturing something out of Candyland, like the Peppermint Forest or Lollipop Woods. I hope they're not disappointed once they see the real thing.)

I found an interactive science and nature museum, Montshire Museum of Science, just 5 miles from our hotel, so that's definitely on the agenda. The foliage is supposed to be at its peak this weekend, which explains why it was hard to find a hotel room. We'll probably do a fair amount of driving and if the weather is nice, we'll do some of the museums nature walks.

The Harpoon Brewery is also holding an OctoberFest up there this weekend and I've heard that it's a lot of fun for the family. There is a Chicken Dancing contest and a German Oompa Band. We found out that Omi is going to be there with a friend the same day.

Of course, the highlight of the weekend will more then likely be the hotel swimming pool. The girls are eager to practice their swimming skills.

Good Report on Eva

Allow me to share some really good news with you...

Last week when I went to pick Eva up from Preschool, her teacher waited until all the other children had been picked up and then called me into the classroom.

I was worried. The night before, Eva had had a horrible tantrum at bedtime. It left both Dave and I shaking our heads and shrugging our shoulders, not knowing what had even caused such a crazy reaction or how to prevent it in the future. I was afraid Eva's teacher was going to tell me news of more bad behavior.

On the contrary!

Her teacher began telling me how wonderfully Eva has adapted to Preschool, how she is excelling in all areas and how much she enjoys having Eva in the class. Whew! I let out a major sigh of relief.

The teacher then went on to say that Eva is the peer model for her classroom. She has hit all of the milestones so the teacher let me know that she is going to increase her expectations and "raise the bar." I agreed that it would be best to keep her challenged, as she responds best with this approach.

We learned that Eva is the only child who can write her own name. Mrs. McCarthy was especially amazed with Eva's ability to complete difficult puzzles. (At our home visit, I told the teacher this was one of Eva's strongest skills.) Supposedly it took the teacher 15 minutes to do the puzzle that Eva did in less time! Eva's spatial skills have always impressed me. Just this morning, she solved one of those 3x3 square movable tile puzzles! I have yet to solve it and we've had it for years! Maybe she'll be a math whiz like her daddy.


Every night this week, we have had family game time before bed, playing an alphabet version of Memory. We have been consistently amazed at Eva's ability to match these upper and lower case letter pairs!

This morning, she and Dave played a game by themselves while I was out with Amanda. When I got home, Dave was absolutely shocked that Eva had beat him. "She really beat me! Legitimately beat me!!"

I should add that it was a Disney Princess Memory Game, so perhaps that had something to do with it. I don't think Dave is very familiar with the characters so it probably increased the difficulty for him! But still...

It is so wonderful to hear positive news about our children, but even better that this time it comes in the form of praise for Eva. I often worry that she gets lost in the shuffle, hidden in Amanda's shadow. This news helps to ease those worries.

Eva poses with the sand castle she made with Daddy last weekend.

Eva is a very bright and interesting kid. She is very different from Amanda so I am finding that I have to approach things differently. Even the Preschool teacher, who also had Amanda when she was three, said,"Amanda and Eva are two very different bugs!"

Just this afternoon I read a book to Eva about how differences are what make us special and unique. I need to remember this.

Razzle Dazzle Star of the Day

During the first week of Kindergarten, Amanda had to find five things that would help her classmates get to know her a little better. She was supposed to include things like her favorite color or a wrapper from her favorite candy. It was fun to see what she chose.

The items were put into an "All About Me" bag, which remained safe at school until it was her turn to be the "Razzle Dazzle Star of the Day." On that day, she would have the opportunity to share the contents of her bag and her classmates could ask her additional questions about herself.

Today Amanda came home from school all excited because she was finally the Star of the Day.


Her bag contained:
- the Little House on the Prairie bonnet that Grandma Jo made for her
- a candy wrapper from some German taffy candy that Omi sometimes buys
- the blue ribbon she won at her first 50 yard dash race
- a silver fairy wand, because she loves to dress up like a princess
- a picture of her family, taken in Wisconsin on our summer vacation

Some of the questions her classmates asked included:
- What's your favorite dinner? (Answer: sushi)
- What's your favorite animal? (Answer: Olivia... her stuffed Velveteen rabbit)

It was definitely a special day for Amanda!

Eva's new haircut

I just love Eva's new haircut!

Nice and short... and easy to care for.

I think it suits her very well.


However, now Amanda is telling me that she wants hers cut short like Eva's. I'm reluctant to cut off all of those beautiful curls. (She had a "trim" the other day, but it really doesn't look any different!)

Yesterday we found out that someone in one of the Kindergarten classes has a confirmed case of head lice. Suddenly a short haircut doesn't sound like such a bad idea after all!

Liam... and Barbie

Liam has an obsession with Workout Barbie.

He loves to bend her every which way, pull her hair and whip her all around.

Uh oh. Mama caught me playing with dolls again.
I'll bet she posts this on her blog.

Maybe it's time to get him some cars and trucks?

Liam can clap

Liam has learned how to clap!



He is also starting to wave a little bit, which simply means flailing his right arm wildly in the air.

He seems to think that clapping is a good substitute for the sign language "more" I've been trying to teach him. When he wants more cereal, he will clap and look to me with his mouth wide open, waiting.

It is so much fun to see him change from a baby to a little person!

Still no interest in crawling but he is definitely getting stronger. He can stand easily when holding onto something. Maybe he'll just skip the crawling stage all together.