Ian's 7-year Portraits

I couldn't get myself and Ian to JCPennys for a portrait session (plus they doubled their prices) so I thought hey, I have a phone with a nice camera! So I called Ian outside and snapped a bunch of shots. My mom helped by standing behind me, in an attempt to get Ian to laugh, or at least smile. I think the pictures turned out cute. The lightings not perfect, but its good enough. I made a collage through one of my phone apps and sent it into Shutterfly to get printed out. I ordered a 10X10" print and hung it in the front room. I also ordered a plain 8X10 of just one pose, I'll either give it to Grandma or hang it on my wall by the stairs. Isn't he the cutest? He's gotten so big. It was hard to pick only a few poses!

  

 

Ian Turns 7!

My baby has turned 7! How did that happen?? Grandma and Grandpa came down to help celebrate Ian's birthday. Ian said "no" several times to having a friend party, so I didn't argue with that. Easier for me. On Friday evening, we tried a new place (new to us, anyway) called the Mac Shack, since mac n cheese is Ian's favorite food. It was good, a little pricey though.

Jan. 22

Happy to be eating his favorite food!

 The morning of his birthday, I got the idea to invite a few friends of his as a little surprise for Ian. I invited 4 friends, and 3 of them came. I told them they didn't need to bring a gift. I had bought Ian one large gift--a keyboard I found off of Craigslist for $50. It was a good deal I probably saved myself $150 or so. The keyboard I found is a Casio with 100's of voices and built-in speakers. Its about a decade old, but still works great! 

Anyway, his little friends showed up around 6:00. Ian was so happy and surprised to see them! Erik and Grandpa had already picked up the pizzas. I made chocolate cupcakes with green frosting, as requested by Ian. Boy parties are so easy---all you need is something for them to hit each other with that won't cause too much injury, and you can don't hardly have to do anything, except make sure they're not too out of control. I had balloons on a stick and they spent most of the time chasing and whacking each other with the balloons. Its funny to me to watch boys play. They are so physical...they're always pushing, shoving, punching, or touching each other in some brutal fashion. Ian had such a fun time at his impromptu party! I think all the kids had a fun time, since none of them wanted to leave when their parents came to pick them up. 

 

Happy 7th birthday, sweet Ian-Bean!

So much birthday fun!

Ian's new Casio keyboard. It was his one and only gift from us.

Grandma got Ian some light-bright paper replacement patterns.

 

Random January Happenings, Part II (Plus Some Crazy Pianos)

Here are more fun things that happened in the month of January:


I read a big fat thick book about the piano and its cultural and social history (titled "Men, Women, and Pianos"), and it was extremely interesting to me. I learned so much and I totally enjoyed geeking out at all the weird pianos invented that were described (not thoroughly enough for me) in the book. I looked up these unique pianos online. For most I didn't find much; only once source or one picture. There are many other strange and interesting pianos, of course--these are just a few. Anyway, I think they're pretty cool:

 "Wind" piano, circa 1798.

 I only found one article with a picture on the entire internet, and of course its in German. There is an English translation but its a poor one. This piano is similar to an organ, contains 300 lbs of brass, and is 7 feet long. It could only be played slowly. Do you get the gist of why this instrument never really caught on?  I would love to know how this "wind" piano sounds! 

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 Clutsam Concave piano, circa 1844. 

This piano was designed so the pianist didn't have to reach so far. It never caught on, because frankly, its not too hard to reach those high and low notes, and those notes aren't played regularly anyway.

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The Hexogonal Piano, about 1834.

 This piano, I would imagine is more in the category of decorative furniture than musical instrument! I bet it sounds just awful. It looks pretty cool though.

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The folding bed piano, 1865

Now we're just getting silly. I suppose its a great space saver, if you gotta have a piano! I would think that the strings would vibrate sympathetically with one's snoring, and with every toss and turn, a dissonant chord would resonate. Not my idea of a sound sleep!

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The Janko keyboard, 1882

Another weird piano. Perhaps the weirdest, and yet the most intelligent, because it challenges the very nature of the traditional keyboard in a clever and brilliant way. Can it even be called a piano? It was "designed to overcome two limitations on the traditional piano keyboard", though it never really caught on. For one, piano music was written for a traditional keyboard, for another, the entire pedagogy of piano playing would have to be altered in order for this instrument to be fully embraced. You can read more about it on Wikipedia here, this piano really is an interesting concept. I wonder if it actually sounds like a piano? I'd love to hear it, play it (or at least press some keys), but I would particularly love to see what the inside of it looks like! 

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The Hawkins Upright Piano, 1801

The first true, American-made upright piano. This guy was on to something. I think upright pianos now out number grand pianos!

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Okay okay, back to real life:

Jan 18

Ian at the piano. He likes playing the piano, and it shows!

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Jan. 22

I set up a play-doh can pyramid so Ian could knock it down with his remote control Mario kart. I should have gotten a video!

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Jan. 22

Ian went to a birthday party (good thing I didn't have his scheduled that day!). It was a girl birthday party, so he was a bit reluctant to join in, but when his friend showed up he was ready to play!

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This is a recording of a piano/organ duet I did at church with another lady in our ward for Christmas back in December. I played the piano; she played the organ. This isn't an actual live recording, obviously, but one I made on my keyboard. I'm playing both parts. The real deal sounded much, much prettier and nicer. I was just sight-reading the organ part as I recorded it so that I could practice my piano part with it. I took a video since I needed to clear the record buttons on my keyboard and I would have lost the duet forever since there are no recordings of it that I could find online!

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Jan. 25

Elisa got to go on a field trip to "Biztown". Her career was someone that works for Honor Health (but not a nurse or doctor--an administrator, maybe?). She had to dress the part. She was super excited to go and had a really fun time. She could tell you more about it, I'm sure! Her teacher sent me this picture.

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Jan. 26

Ian found some silly glasses!

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Jan. 31

I can't get enough of taking pictures of Ian while he sleeps. He's just so cherubic and adorable I can't help it!

A Visit From Grandpa Ron and Grandma Julie

 Jan. 27-30

My mom was sick (Omicron?) and my dad's work told him to stay home, so I invited them down here while he had the time off because he almost never gets time off. We already had the Omicron so I wasn't worried about catching anything. And I was correct in that.  We had fun! They didn't stay for very long, just through the weekend. On Friday my mom and I got lunch at Lou Malnati's pizza and went shopping at Marshalls, where I spent more money then I expected to, but I got sooo much good stuff cheaper than I could find elsewhere. In the evening, we watched some shows and I ordered buffalo wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. I accidently ordered the boneless wings instead of the regular wings. They were alright. To pricey for the quality of chicken they give. Chick-fil-a is so much better!

My dad eating dinner from Buffalo Wild Wings

 The next day we took Elisa and went to Goodwill (she found a skirt and boots she liked) and to Target. Elisa had a gift card to Target so I let her pick out a few things, along with her very first "bra". Not really a bra--more a seamless, shortened tank top for that extra layer of comfort and confidence. For lunch we stopped at Chick-fil-a. My dad stayed home most of the time to do job searching and watch the boys. In the afternoon, we played with the guinea pigs on the lawn and I took some pictures of Ian (a later post). Later that evening, we all went out to Bobby Q's for some yummy dinner. I shared the steak platter with my mom. 

How can dull-witted, beady-eyed, stink-butt little rodents be so adorable?!?

Fluffers wears a hat!

Elisa, and the empty platter that held our appetizer, the Q Rolls.

The next day was Sunday. My dad went with us to church, but mom stayed home since she wasn't feeling 100%. They left not long after church was over for the long 6-7 hr drive home to Cedar City.

Looking at stuff on Grandma's phone.

A pretty good pic of Grandma and Grandpa and the kids

An antique piano stool (from the late 1800's if my research is correct) that my mom gave to me. My Grandma randomly bought it from someone (in the 70's?) for mostly no reason other that she liked it. The feet have glass balls, which is a defining feature. It needs repair--the spokes are broken off. I just placed them back together but they can fall back out at anytime. I like it this stool and I think its cool. Cool stool. 

My parents bought my grandma's cedar chest down since I said I wanted it. My mom said this cedar chest was made in 1949, but I think its even older than that since one of the papers has 1947 written on it. I love this chest. Erik complained about it, but it is so so nice! The best feature is that it locks! I can lock up all my treats and electronics or really anything I don't want the kids to touch. It is also quite gorgeous and sturdy!

A Visit from Omicron

Jan 12-16

Around January 12/13, Erik mentioned one of his coworkers tested positive for Covid (omicron variant, most likely) and he was feeling a little tired that evening. He went into work the next day and took a Covid test and it was negative. So he worked all that day and came home and still wasn't feeling well. He went into work the next morning was was feeling worse, so his chief medical officer had him take another test, and this time it was positive. Erik got all of his cases covered for the weekend. The Omicron got him pretty good, he was down for a couple of days laying around in bed. After two days of lying around, he started to feel better. I think the timing of Erik's Covid was pretty good. He didn't have to work yet another weekend, and he had taken Monday (MLK day) off anyway so he didn't loose out on too much work.
As far as the kids went...Ian had a runny nose Thursday but I sent him to school anyway. His teacher was all worried about him, so I kept him home Friday and Elisa too, since she claimed she wasn't feeling well. Ian's runny nose was pretty mild but he did develop a slight cough that lasted a few days. Elisa's "sickness" didn't go anywhere but I kept her and Ian home from church as well. I went to church since I had to play keyboards, and Gabe came with. I didn't bother getting the kids or myself tested and I never will, unless its for travel. Gabe had zero symptoms and neither did I, despite my kissing Ian and sharing a room with Erik. It was nice to have that extra day of school so the kids could take another day to "quarantine" from school. Erik went back to work Tuesday and the kids went back to school that same day, and the school was none the wiser.
If this pandemic taught me anything, its to keep my health and medical info to myself. We told very few people about Omicron's little visit. So much for all that shutting down, social distancing, masks, vaxx's--most people ended up catching Covid (via Omicron) one way or another. Goes to show you just can't control a virus. Its gonna get who its gonna get. I was never worried about it and yet somehow Covid has passed me by. So whatever. The CDC can go suck an egg. Getting sick is part of life, most intelligent people understand that. Of course being sick is not fun, but neither are any of the restrictions placed upon us in order to keep us "healthy and safe". There will always be people that have a harder time or have complications, or end up in the hospital or whatever else (most of these have some other health condition going on), but that should not prevent the rest of us healthy folks from living our lives as we choose. Life is a risk we all take!

   

Erik's Positive Covid test

This is Covid in kids. Scary, isn't it? 

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