Dancing with Daffodils

This year was Brandon's golden birthday. On Friday he turned 10 on the 10th and I tried hard to make it a special day. He did get a delay after three snow days and another delay so that was pretty sweet. Since we had time I took him out to breakfast at Panera after the other kids had all left for school. He used to come along with me a lot when I would go out to lunch with friends at Panera when he was 3 and 4 so he came to love their bagels and smoothies, which is what he got on Friday. Then he went to school and I wrapped a few gifts and I had already decorated with golden balloons and a golden banner but then I made his dessert and got all ready for dinner stuff too. He came home and everyone else was still at activities so I let him watch a movie and made dinner (chicken Alfredo with homemade bread sticks) and finally when everyone got home we had dinner, he opened presents, and we had dessert (an Oreo pudding dessert instead of cake). He got a new bike so that was partly why t...

 Christmas day I woke up about 8:20 am and woke Josh up and then I got Emma and Brandon and woke up the big kids. Curtis was especially slow so we didn't start opening up presents until almost 9am. We had a more low-key Christmas this year with all of our traveling this year and especially our recent Disney trip. We want the kids to appreciate that we choose to spend our money doing things instead of having things. So Lily got a leotard from Santa, a jewelry box and some earrings, Curtis got a nice watch to track his running, books and a game, Emma got a decorative gnome that she was super excited about and boots and a Tigger sweatshirt and a necklace I bought her while in Disney, Brandon got some minion PJs, a Winnie the Pooh hat, a LEGO gadget book and a Little League World Series sweatshirt (actually so did Curtis) and Josh got a bunch of clothes. He got me a nice speaker to play music in our kitchen and my kids got me some slippers that I can wear when I am driving them all ove...

 Last Monday was my piano recital. I made all sorts of treats and cleaned my house and set it up for the recital. I was really proud of my 12 students; everyone played their songs well and it was a nice evening. It is always fun to hang out with the parents and I enjoy hosting them in my home at Christmas time. Some students brought me little gifts too which was so thoughtful and sweet. My Australian student is moving back to Australia soon so we said goodbye to her family but they told me a new Australian family is moving into their house and they have a daughter who wants to take piano lessons so I may have a new student in January. It did get a little crazy with kids running around and my older kids had homework to finish and we hadn't eaten dinner yet so it was good when everyone finally cleared out. Lily said I'm just too good of a hostess that people don't like to leave, which is good. :) But it went well and I was happy to check it off my list. I also didn't take...