A Jon Schmidt Concert Long Overdue

When I was about 10 years old my parents took my siblings and I to a concert (in Everett, WA)featuring a pianist named Jon Schmidt and an a'capella group called the Knudeson brothers. I remember really enjoying the a'capella group and being wowed by the talent and humor of this pianist. He even laid with his back on the piano bench, head under the keys, and played a complicated song he wrote-upside down. After the concert ended I remember my family was really excited to buy the Knudeson brothers tape. But I really wanted some tapes of the pianist. I don't remember if we bought all three tapes of Jon Schmidt that night, but if we did just buy one, soon after I had all three.I remember going home and learning to play a simple(VERY simple) song I had made up upside down just like he did. I remember playing his tapes over and over in our house and listening to them constantly on my walk man while on road trips with the family. When I was about fourteen years old my grandma bought me one of his piano books which I immediately started to learn to play from. Even though I almost never practiced my scales for my piano teacher (terrible I know!), I always practiced Jon Schmidts music. His music was exciting and interesting, and so much fun to play. To this day his music is the thing I look forward to playing the most. He is my hero when it comes to music. Why it took me 16 years to go to another one of his concerts I don't know. But Saturday night was such a big deal to me and I was SO excited! Finally I was going to hear and see this guy play in person after all these years of idolising him. Scott, being the great husband he is, came along with me mostly for the ride. Leading up to it he didn't seem particularly interested or excited. Little did he know! Little did I know even. We were both SO impressed! Both of us REALLY enjoyed the concert, finding ourselves laughing out loud even for most of it because he is such a great entertainer. One of the first things he did was play Rudolph the red nosed reindeer upside down with his legs crossed and foot waving. And of course all of us in the audience were waiting for him to play "Love Story meets Viva La Vida", a mash up of Taylor Swift and Cold Play songs that was a you tube hit. He didn't disappoint. The whole concert was such an experience and I can't believe even more that it took me this long to go back. I will be doing it more regularly in the future! It makes me even more happy as well that Scott enjoyed the concert as much as I did and was really impressed. After all, he influenced my piano playing, ability, and taste for music, for most of my life.

To find out more about Jon Schmidt, his concert schedule, or to listen to some of his music, go to his website. I suggest starting out by listening to "All Of Me". One of my favorites since the beginning!

I know it's blurry, but it's him!

I recorded just the end of the Love Story meets viva la vida song. It comes in towards the end of them singing at the climax.

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thank you to Rick and Heidi for opening your home to us. Even though we don't get to go "home" for Thanksgiving, we have a great time with the family we have here. Scott's older sister and her family live just 15 minutes away, and his little brother and family live just a few minutes away. It has been a lot of fun spending time with them. Yesterday we all joined at Scott's sister's house for a wonderful meal and then some relaxing, and then we went to Scott's little brother's house(who just got an enormous TV) and watched the Polar Express. That was fun on such a big screen and everyone else hadn't seen it in a long time so they really enjoyed it too.

Here we are just starting our feast. You can see there was another table where Sydney sat and all our nephews.

Sydney talking to me about the camera. My kids would only eat the rolls. Go figure.
I had some requests for the recipe of the stuffing I made. I wish I could take credit for it's awesomeness but that goes to someone on all recipes. I guess I can take credit for the fact that I went WAY outside what I am normally comfortable with(fruit in stuffing?) but it had the most and best reviews so I thought I'd give it a shot. And it was SO good! Anyway, here is the link.

I just really like the way rustic things look when covered in snow, so I had fun taking pictures of these pots for a minute. Not too long because it was FREEZING!!!!

I love Thanksgiving, but what I love even more is that when it's over it's Christmas time!! And tomorrow we're going out to chop down our tree in the forest!! Yay!

I am Thankful For...

This Thanksgiving season we have been trying to teach David about being grateful to our Heavenly Father for all of our blessings.It's been the focus of our last two Family Home Evenings, and also of the last two Nursery Lessons. Well today I thought it would be fun to also do a little craft with David. He was very excited about his turkey! I asked him after what he was thankful for and we wrote them on the turkeys feathers. He kept saying he was thankful for Jesus over and over which is great and so cute, but after some coaxing I was also able to get a few others out of him. He is 3 after all. =)

And not to leave Sydney completely out of this post, here is a cute picture of her.

And for those of you who have scrolled down this far here is a list of the things that I am very thankful for right now...

-My Savior and His gospel.

-A wonderful, priesthood holding husband who does so much for our family.

-Our beautiful children who bring so much joy and purpose into my life.

-A warm, cosy apartment that keeps us warm from these bitter winters.

-Mine and my family's health and safety.

There are so many things I am grateful for but these are the things that are overwhelming right now in my life. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

5 Years!

Friday marked five years of marriage for Scott and I! It seems like I should be saying about now that I can't believe it, but I can. In fact, it feels like I have been with Scott my whole life. We did date in highschool, so I knew him when I was 16, but I think I feel this way because I can no longer imagine life with out him. Sorry for the cheesiness, but it's true. We have been through a lot together and we love each other so much more now than we did the day we got married. We celebrated by spending Saturday away with out the kids. It was SO wonderful! We have not done that ummmmm... ever. As you can see we didn't try to dress up really, but we had fun! We went to see A Christmas Carol and ate an AMAZING lunch at Sizzler's. We both loved the movie(Scott announced to me yesterday that he wants to buy it), but I would not take kids to watch it. There was even a part where I was scared! lol. But a lot of it is pretty dark. I thought they did a great job with it though. Then we came home, fed the kids dinner, and then left them with another set of babysitters(who put them to bed) and went to our nephew's highschool play, or musical, in Sugar city. I think it was called Don da la Mancha? It was really random but enjoyable and entertaining! The lead had an amazing voice. After that we spent the rest of the evening with my brother and sister in law whom we hadn't hung out with in quite a while. It was such a great day!!! I needed that so much. Thank you Scott, and here's to forever!

David Turns Three!

I can't believe it, but my boy has turned 3 years old! He is growing so fast! The last 3 years have been so wonderful and I can't imagine life with out this little bundle of joy. He is such a blessing to us. It is so much fun to see his enthusiasm for life! He is such a good little talker too and I love hearing all the things he has to say.
We threw him a party with some friends tonight and he was SO excited I can't even describe it really. We did a Mickey Mouse theme because that's the show he watches and loves. And I have a friend who has recently gotten into cake decorating and for now only charges for ingredients. So I asked her to make a Mickey Mouse Club House cake for David. It was awesome! Didn't she do a great job? Thanks Megan! And it was delicious too! =)


When David finally saw his cake(which he'd been asking for desperately ALL day) he tried to take a big bite out of it. It was pretty hilarious. You can see in the pictures how excited he was...
The first thing we did was Pin the Nose on Mickey. I had fun making it and the kids all seemed to enjoy playing it, so that went well! After David saw that he wasn't on the nose, he took it off and placed it correctly. So cute.

I guess this is what Sydney looks like from Scott's point of view. Scott took most of these pictures.

The other game we played was "Pass the parcel" or atleast a variation of it, and the kids had fun with that one too. It's where when the music stops the kids holding the ball of wadded paper gets to take off a layer, and each layer has a treat inside. Sydney and her friend in the middle didn't actually play, but of course had to be a part of it. =)

Beginning to open presents...

I know this one is blurry but I loved David's expression as he shows his Daddy what he got.

He'd just eaten a hershey's kiss. Must've been good!

Blowing out the candles...

I had David pose(kind of) with his friend Tanner because they hardly see each other any more now that they've move a little further away. They had a lot of fun with those balloons and actually in this picture David was trying to tackle Tanner at the same time. I think that's why he looks so much shorter. I mean he is a little shorter than his friend, but not that much. And I was very lucky to get it in the split second they were both looking at the camera!

Sydney's new favorite book

Just in the last couple weeks Sydney has discovered the Noah's Ark "flap" book that Grandma Sorenson gave to David a couple years ago. She LOVES this book, and multiple times through the day I will find her like this...


I haven't had much to post about for a while, but tomorrow is David's 3rd birthday and the next day is our 5 year anniversary, so I will be posting more soon!

Letter Blocks

So I am not a crafty person at all, but when the Relief Society of our church does easy crafts that will look good in my house, I like to do them. Last Wednesday I stained the blocks at the activity and then I chose the paper(the "O" and "E" are lightly polka dotted), cut the letters out and modpdged everything today on my own. They had a cool letter cutter thing(no idea what it's called) at the craft store where I bought the paper so that's how I got the nice looking letters. Anyway, they're not amazing, but I think they'll make a nice addition to our household decor. And they do look better in person.

Last Warm Day

This fall has been extremely cold, but last week their were a couple nicer days and one where we could even take our coats off! We definitely took advantage of it and stayed at the park longer than we normally do. Mostly though we have been stuck inside or just going to the store, while I've been speed walking in the evening with out the kids. I don't mind being cold! Anyways, I mostly put these pictures up for family. I know they enjoy seeing the pictures. =)

30 Weeks

Tomorrow I will be 30 weeks along! How exciting! =) I thought it would be fun to do a comparison between me at 24 weeks, and 30 weeks. The top is 30, the bottom one is 24. I feel huge compared to before. Definately starting to make things harder. Everything is looking good and baby is healthy!

Result of Day Light Savings

Halloween

This Halloween was the first time I'd actually made an effort as my kids are now old enough to appreciate it. Well David is. He was a lion and Sydney was a pumkin. Both costumes found at the DI for about $10 total. Scott was unfortunately sick and bed ridden all day, so I did everything with the kids by myself. At 4pm we went to our ward activity. The kids had fun and got some fun little prizes from the booths they had. And then we joined up with Kelly, my old walking partner who moved, and her kids to go trick or treating. David and Tanner had such a fun time together. They kept running ahead and we'd have to call them back. And then whenever a door opened David stepped right in to get his candy. Not shy about it at all. When we trick or treated at my cousins house, that he's been to several times, he just ran all the way in to the kitchen. lol. It was so much fun to see them again and over all too quickly. Then I put the kids to bed and Scott and I finished watching Prince Caspian which he'd been watching in bed, and then watched "17 again" for the first time. I actually was surprised cause I really liked that movie. So that was our Halloween! Now David keeps asking for candy but I'm really regulating it!

Saying goodbye to his friend.

Supplement to the Last Post

I mentioned in the last post that Sydney likes to say "Budiss". Well here ya go.

I would say she's saying "What's this", except for she says it for a lot of other things also. This is just one example. I think she just made it up! =)