Madden's Recital Pieces

Callie's 1st Piano Recital

Silly Sleepover Girls

Like, Oh My God!

Madden had a like, totally rad 80's roller skating party.

Snow day + Birthday party = 1 very happy Valley Girl!

Snow Day!

No school on Friday, February 4, 2011. Hooray!

Sneak Peek

The girls and I got to go along on Aunt Melanie's bridal portrait shoot. So much fun!

Stunningly gorgeous. A beautiful bride. Can't wait. Lucky Jeff. Lucky Melanie. Happy couple.

1/11/11

She turned 11 on 1/11/11. Kinda Cool.
And her sister will turn 10 this year on 10/01/11.
I'm not sure how I keep these binary girls straight.

Which Way Should She Go?

Band, Orchestra, or Choir?

The 6th graders must take one of these in order to fulfill their International Baccalaureate (IB) Fine Arts requirement. The band and orchestra both offer an Instrument Try-Out where every instrument is available for the students to try. So cool! The students are rated from 1-5, with 5 being ideal, on each instrument. Essentially, if they score a 4 or 5, they are allowed to play that instrument. Madden tried out the flute (4), clarinet (4.5), trumpet (3), euphonium (4), trombone (4), saxophone (3), percussion intruments (5), violin, viola, and cello (no ratings on orchestra instruments).




So what did she choose? (Drumroll please....)



PERCUSSION!!!


Yes, I now have a drummer in my house to go along with the guitar, piano and endless singing. We've got our own family band. Help me! I'll have no choice but to go shopping during band practice. (I know Uncle Glennie must be so proud to have someone carrying on his legacy!)

Science Fair 101

Thanks to (almost) Uncle Jeff for volunteering to help Madden with her Science Fair project to determine which roof type and house color will keep your house coolest in the oppressive Texas heat. He purchased supplies and spent many hours readying the bird houses for their tests. The brownie points he earned with his future sister-in-law for these acts of kindness are NUMEROUS.

In case curiosity has the best of you, the winning combination of roofs/colors was the metal roof with the black paint. Which led Madden to the conclusion that paint color doesn't matter much, but metal roofs reflect lots of sunlight.

Lake Tahoe

We extended our Christmas vacation an extra week and headed to Nevada/California with my mom and dad. We were lucky that Aunt Wendy and Tosha and Anna and Dell were also able to join us! How fun that the girls got to ski with both Granna and Grammie on this trip! Dad didn't ski, but held court at the Blackjack tables at Harrah's! He and Dell took a casino road trip which I'm told involved peppermint schnapps and fresh snow. We skied the majority of our days at Kirkwood - fabulous mountain, tons of snow, empty! We also spent a day at Heavenly which, not surprising, has the most heavenly views of the lake.