My turn...

You might remember this...Kendra's first piano recital back in March:

Well, this time it was my turn:

I have been preparing for this recital since, oh, I don't know, FOREVER.  I played Moon River, which I just loved, and when I was given choices for my piece I thought of my grandmother who would have loved to hear me play it. 

Here's the thing.  Miss Connie, my teacher, has something like 50 students.  Only three are adults.  This concert was for her ADVANCED students and her adults.  I have only been playing for a year, and I have very limited practice time due to my job and other responsibilities.   I was intimidated that my vastly inexperienced self would be playing on the same night as the young adults who have been playing for 10 years! 

A note about me:  I'm a teacher.  I'm the primary chorister in my church.  I can give talks at church without batting an eyelash, and I am often called upon to be the speaker/leader in meetings, etc.  I also have sung in choirs many times, and even once sang in a production in which I sang on stage completely by myself.  I do not have a problem with being "on stage" in all of those capacities.  I rarely get nervous.  However, playing piano in front of people is a whole different ball game!  It has to do with my confidence level:  I don't have ANY with piano.   This particular piece was HARD for me.  I practiced and practiced but I never felt like I mastered it.  So this concert was a real challenge for me.

 But I did it anyway.  I was ok at the beginning of my song, but then the nerves kicked in.  Funny enough, it was my leg that bothered me most.  My pedal leg started shaking like nuts.  That made me realize how nervous I was, and then my hands started shaking.  All that shaking rattled my brain, too.  I wondered who was noticing my quivering leg!  I did ok, but I made more mistakes than I had in a long time.

 All of these lovely ladies are related to my dear Ballards, and hence have folded me into their families as well.  All of these girls are advanced students and played brilliantly.  Grandma Karen is one of the other adults that Connie teaches, and she did fantastic!  I hope in 10 years I'll play as well as those girls do.  Miss Connie is on the end.  She's been teaching piano for 50 years! 

 Here is me with my number one cheerleader.  She told me how great I was about 300 times.  Who doesn't want to try again with someone like her backing you up?  BTW:  isn't that a lovely piano?  Note to self:  next time wear a smaller heel, though.  My knees were smacked up to the bottom side of that piano! 

My dear friend Sherry got me these flowers.  She told me that she was very proud of me and that she couldn't have gotten up there to do that.  It may not have been the best performance, but I am proud of myself for doing it.

Not sure if I'm signing up for that again, though!!!  :-)

C.O.R.E. Kid

Each six weeks grading period our school recognizes a student in each class that exemplifies a character virtue.  This honor is called "C.O.R.E. Kid of Virtue".  C.O.R.E. is a district initiative called Community of Respect Everywhere. 

In my class, we talk about the virtue first and what it means, and then I have my students vote for the person who most fits what we think the virtue means.  This first marking period's virtue was Responsibility, and the class voted for Kendra!  She received her award today at the awards assembly from our principal, Mr. Drysdale.

Way to go, Kendra!

Kendra's Parable/Analogy

I have learned that Kendra is really good at analogies!  I mean, she thinks of things that I would never have thought of and amazes me!  Which is why she's in the gifted and talented program and I never was.  Clearly.

So tonight she had the lesson for family home evening.  She started by holding up a pen and a unsharpened pencil, and she asked me what the two things were and how they were different.  I said the obvious answers.  Then she said that the pen was like Jesus...it never needed to be sharpened.  It would always work perfectly.  Then she asked if I could use the unsharpened pencil to write.  Of course not.  She said then that the pencil was like us.   Then she had three little pads of paper that stacked on top of each other, the largest being at the bottom and the smallest at the top (like a pyramid).  She said the paper pads were like our life.  The bottom one was like us now, and she talked about righteous things we needed to do to "sharpen ourselves".  We listed things like prayer, scripture study, go to church, etc.  She then unveiled her electric pencil sharpener (under a blanket) and said those things are like the sharpener and proceeded to sharpen the pencil!  Wowie, I thought, that was GOOD.  The pencil wasn't totally sharp yet though.  Then she pointed to the middle pad of paper, and we talked about further things we needed to do.  Temple attendance, getting married in the temple, etc. were discussed.  Then she sharpened the pencil further.  Finally she said the top pad of paper was where we wanted to go, the celestial kingdom where we will live with Heavenly Father again and if we kept sharpening ourselves we'd get there. 

THEN, as if that wasn't good enough, she had both of our winter coats out and she handed me mine and put hers on.  She proceeded to say that the coat is like all those things we talked about that sharpened our pencil, and like the coat in winter that keeps us warm, those good things we do protect us from Satan and the things he wants us to do. 

Um...really?  So, I'm sitting there thinking maybe her primary teacher used these analogies or something and she wanted to share them. But no.  When I asked where she got her idea she said, "When I was thinking about what I wanted to do I just saw those things in my room and the idea came to my head."  And let me tell you, she thought of that idea in about 1 minute flat from the time she remembered that she was going to do the lesson tonight. 

Maybe I'm nuts, but I think that is pretty ah-mazing. 

**PS:  the funny part was that she went to write with the pen (the analagous Jesus) and it was dry.  She said with a laugh, "Jesus doesn't work.  Of course I mean the pen that is supposed to represent Jesus.  Jesus always works."  Ha!

**PSS:  Lest anyone think this is a result of the amazing job I am doing as a parent, trust me when I say Nay!  I thank the Lord for the Primary program and its teachers.  I do some, but not as much as I should, and they sure take up my slack in the most awesome way!

Teaching Kendra

I just typed an email to a friend and I realized what I wrote to her was something I wanted to be sure to remember.  Hence, I'm typing it here where it will be published into our book of memories.

I have really enjoyed seeing Kendra as a student and not just my kid.  I'm so grateful to my principal for the complete support in being able to be her teacher this year.  This is a tremendous opportunity!  Here's what I knew about "School Kendra" before this year:  she is a good student, tries really hard, is a "teacher pleaser", is well-liked in her class, kids recognize her as a "good kid" by picking her for things like student of virtue and other honors (those things are usually voted upon by peers).  She has lots of friends, but usually has only one close friend. 

Here's what I have learned about "School Kendra" by being her teacher.  She is still a good student and tries hard.  She is like most kids and makes mistakes, and she does have to work for her good grades.  She is not one of those kids that "gets it" off the bat ALL the time, although she does most of the time.  A funny thing I've learned is that she is long-winded!  When she raises her hand I have to be prepared for an elaborated answer, to the point that I've devised a system with her that I've used with similar kids like her in the past.  I tell her that she gives me a whole plate of spaghetti when I'm really only looking for one noodle.  The code, if she gets too elaborative, is "One noodle, Kendra!" 

I've confirmed that she is very well respected by her peers.  When I met with the kids at the beginning of the year (I sent Kendra to another class for this), I talked to them about having Kendra in class and if they ever felt like I was favoring her or anything they should come to me.  I said something along the lines of, "Kendra is a pretty good kid", and one of my students jumped right in and said, "Yeah, Kendra has never, ever, never gotten in trouble at school.  Never!" 

Here's the coolest thing I've noticed.  While Kendra is a friend to everyone, I would say that she is not in what most would deem the "popular" crowd.  She is friends with the popular kids, to be sure.  You know the ones;  the cheerleaders, the ones wearing the most stylish clothes, the ones going ga-ga over Justin Bieber or the latest pop star boy.  But Kendra is just enough different that she isn't in the heart of that in-crowd.  She hangs out with them at times, and she likes them all, but she doesn't live or die over what they think or what they are doing that she isn't doing.  Her close friends are usually the quieter ones, the ones that think like her.  And to be honest, if I could choose the path for her to take, this would be it.  I like how this looks for the future if this is the road she continues to travel.

Summer's last hurrah...

I guess since we are starting our third week of school this week, summer hurrah-ed a while back, but I guess today made it OFFICIAL.  We were invited to party on the boat house of these fine people...

Aren't they cute?  Our Ballards sure know how to throw a shin dig.  They are the ultimate hosts. 

The party included all the water fun anybody could possibly want.  There were huge floating thingys the kids love to climb up and then jump off of:

Kendra got to bring her friend, R, which was awesome.  Here they are with the lovely L getting ready to tell boys, "This raft is GIRLS ONLY!"  Oh, dear.

I took the JetSki out with R and then gave L a ride as well.  The water was pretty choppy so I don't go super duper fast, but Scott did say it looked like I was kickin' it as we passed him in the speedboat.

I didn't get any pics of the JetSki because, well, I was on it. 

Back to the boathouse, and Kendra and R wanted me to go out with them on the kayaks.  They took the two-man kayak while I used the solo kayak.  Gotta say, it was hilarious.  Those girls couldn't steer to save their lives.  I kept having to yell, "Right paddle, right paddle!" or "Left paddle, left paddle!" because they kept aiming the front of the kayak to the nearest shore/impass/parked boat/tree.  We finally made it back.  Whew.

Again, no pics of this.  Again, I was on a kayak.  I don't trust myself enough to take my very nice camera out on water, thank you very much.

Kids swam more, I sat and chatted with adults more.   Here are some "off the diving board" shots of the girls.

Cute little bobbin' heads. 

The Ballards provided brats and dogs and the fixin's and everyone else brought sides and drinks.  YUM.

This morning, Kendra and I "labored".  We cleaned our house from head to toe.  Then we got to enjoy the rest of our Labor Day with awesome people. 

Kendra and R taking "resting from your labors" seriously!

  Thanks, dear friends, for having us!  We love you!

Sundays are for...

napping!

Kendra snapped this photo of the hound dawg nappin' today.  Of course, for Grady, EVERY day is for napping.

  She also snapped a pic of me AND the hound, because yes, those are my feet and they belong to my nappin' self.  But the pic showed a rather unflattering version of my mouth hanging wide open mid-snooze, so you just get this one.  It is glorious being the editor of my own blog---I get to choose what you see and what you don't!!! 

Playground owie

Kendra had her first playground incident of the school year on Friday at recess.  Actually, we really don't have a playground.  There is a TEENY TINY little playset on the other side of the school, but it is reserved for the teeny tiny kiddos.  When we moved here and I first saw the school, I remember one of the first things I thought was, "Where is the playground?"  Apparently, some years ago, they decided that schools around here didn't need playgrounds.  Something about having kids use their imaginations outside instead of providing entertainment for them.  Uh huh.  Colleen's translation:  teachers, please spend more of your own money on playground equipment so the kids have something to do.  I have, indeed, spent my own money on a pretty decent amount of balls, including a football, soccer ball, several basketballs (thank goodness for garage sales!) and tennis balls which the kids love for playing wall ball.   Ok, sorry for griping, on with the story...

So my kiddos play outside on an area that has a pretty large open grassy area and then a big blacktop area with one basketball hoop.  We also have a nice covered pavilion area with four steel picnic style tables, and that is where the teachers usually congregate while watching the kids play.  I was sitting and chatting with a few kiddos on Friday when I turned my head at the exact moment that Kendra took a huge spill on the blacktop (which has a fine coat of gravel on top of it due to weathering of the blacktop material).  She wasn't even running...her feet just slid out from under her on the gravel.  She went down in a big ole splat!

Now here's where I'm not sure being her teacher was a good thing or a bad thing.  Kendra is super brave in public--she really hates to cry in front of people.  But this fall resulted in some nasty scrapes, and that combined with her MOMMY being out there resulted in some tears.  I helped her up and walked her over to sit on a picnic table seat, and immediately saw that she was bleeding from several places and needed the attention of our nurse.  Her friend, K, offered to take her down to the office.   Here is the bandaged up girl last night at home: 

I did ask Kendra later if she felt it was better or worse to have me as a teacher in a moment like that.  She said she was super glad I was there because it made her feel better, even if it did make her cry!