Piano Man

Okay, well...technically, Ryan has never played an instrument in his life....except maybe the required recorder in elementary school. But recently he has taken on a very big and challenging job refinishing a piano. Of course, Im getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

Recently, the opportunity arose for us to purchase a used piano from someone in our ward. This thing has been passed down...I dont know how many times, and had been sitting in a storage unit for at least 2-3 years. For anyone who knows about pianos, you know humid conditions are not the best environment for them. Something about it messing up the tuning, or warping it...blah blah blah. Needless to say, it needed some love. It was pretty banged up, had a bare spot from a spill or a houseplant on top, and even some marker on the legs. It also has a piece of wood paneling broken off the corner on the bottom of one side, but its on the side we cant see it, so no big deal. Anyway, I think we got a pretty good deal on it. We figured we could just re-paint it or something.

Well, after doing some research, we discovered the something we needed to do to make it look the best, was to re-finish it. Also found out, under every online do it yourself instruction the difficulty level was listed as "very challenging". Hooray! After reading the warning labels on all the furniture strippers, and chickening out over the risk of poisoning myself do death, let alone the level of patience and time needed, I decided this would be the perfect project for Ryan to complete...all by himself. I thought, "How great he will feel being able to complete a project without me. The satisfaction he will feel when he looks at that piano, well it will be priceless really." Before you think badly of me, let me just say, I am usually the one who does the majority of projects around here. If you dont believe me, let me know and Ill mail you a list. And Ryan will back me up on that as well. Not because he is lazy or not helpful, just because he is so busy with other things that bless our family. And also, I did offer to help apply some finish, but at that point, he really did want the satisfaction of seeing it transform.

Anyway...I know, get on with it Heather!

So he did it. He sacrificed his precious parking spot in the garage for weeks. He spent late nights when the kids couldnt wander in and die from inhaling fumes. He wore out his biceps scrubbing the old finish off, sanding, and rubbing new finish on. He risked his own health working with toxins...(seriously, its bad stuff. Have I mentioned that?) Not to worry, he wore a nice expensive mask, and long thick gloves and only panicked once when it came in contact with his skin. The nurse said he would be fine. :) Finally, it was completed. So without my further ramblings...

Before

After

Forgot to put the book holder thing on on these picts, but it does have one.

Now, all thats left is replacing the knobs on the front (one was missing), and getting it majorly tuned. The pictures do make it look better than it actually is/was. It is a major improvement, but you cant see the little imperfections on the photos. I am super impressed at how well he did, and I think I was right (as always) about him feeling good about it. Of course, he may be questioning our decision about the purchase now that the kids and I are playing with it all the time. Im starting to feel a headache myself.

The girls are excited to be able to learn how to play (so are we!), especially Katelin. I used to play when I was growing up, thanks to my concert pianist father. But being without a piano for 13 years has definitely taken its toll on any bit of talent I might have had. Its starting to come back, little by little. Theres no way I am or ever will ever be ready to play at church...so no ideas there! I will be attempting to teach the girls myself, while I re-learn, and see how it goes, and how long it lasts. Hey I taught Ryan how to play Old MacDonald, so I think thats a dang good start for someone with zero musical background! Way to go Ryan...on doing a fabulous job re-finishing a piano, and playing your first masterpiece on it!

Turning 7

Yes, its that time again. Another birthday celebration comin at ya! Our family all has birthdays the second half of the year, with the exception of Zack. So the birthday posts are in no short supply lately.

This time its Alissa's turn to party. Seems like we just did this, only this time around she is 7. We can hardly beleive we only have 1 more year to another baptism in the family! October is crazy busy for us this year, so we had to celebrate a week early. Its her odd birth year, so no friend party this time. Instead, she chose to get crazy at Monkey Joe's. She has been dying to go here since they opened, so it was pretty exciting. For our family of five kids it costs us more than we think its worth so this was our first time. All the kids had a great time bouncing, sliding, throwing and running all over the place...except Brylee. I tried to get her to go into the toddler area right off the bat, and she was terrified. It didnt help that by the time she started to get warmed up to it, the thing deflated on us and almost trapped us inside! She quickly decided the baby merry-go-round was more her speed. Later on, we discovered the ball house, and she determined that was a good place to stay. Its a huge blow up house with a basketball hoop and football goalposts and filled with soft balls you can throw around. Later came a few little slides, but the ball area remained Brylee's favorite. Monkey Joe himself showed up briefly and scared all the kids off, except Brylee. Weird. She was the only one brave enough to go give him five. At any rate, Alissa decided Monkey Joes was awesome and was glad she picked to go there.

The slide program I used to use, is no longer working, so I have to check around for a new one. For this time, I used Picasa, but the pictures are really small, and they dont have captions (hence the long explanation above), so Im not sure I will stick with it. At least you can get an idea of all the bouncing, sliding, throwing and running around. (: If any of you know a good slide program I can link to Blogger, let me know!

After a few hours at Monkey Joes trying to get our moneys worth, we rushed home to eat pizza and cake. And no, its not valentines day. Alissa decided she wanted a heart cake.

But before devouring the cake, she decided to open her gifts.

A plaque for her room...

fairies rolling art desk...

Tangled...

and a Princess Charm School Barbie.

At last- time for chocolate!

We all stayed up to watch Tangled afterwards.

The next weekend, on her actual birthday- Alissa got a package in the mail from her aunt. She loves the Minnie Mouse Halloween shirt!

Her birthday was pretty busy, but we squeezed some time in the evening to take her to the store to pick out one more present for herself and a quick birthday treat. She chose chocolate cookies...

and this cool hanging lantern string for her room, that she could decorate herself.

Of course, we all helped color the lanterns, and then hung it up for her to sleep under.

Im not a photographer, and dont have a fancy camera, so I couldnt get a good picture of how it really looks in the dark, but here it is hung in its semi temporary position above her head. Of course her sisters wanted to sleep with her, but she got it all to herself this time.

It seemed crazy and crammed together, but somehow we fit all that celebrating in! Now onto planning for the next one! Here we go again.... soon.

Apple Pickin'

Im a little behind on blogging...this happened a couple weeks ago, but after finally looking through the pictures I decided once again to share our fall trip to the apple orchard. One of our caravan buddies stepped out of her car to take a picture of the crazy line up to get in to this place. It must have been a couple miles long. Why such a fuss you wonder? Why, it was Honey Crisp opening day of course! If you've ever had a fresh picked honey crisp apple, you know that its totally worth driving 30 minutes, and waiting in line another 30 to get a bushel of some.

Eventually we made it to the orchard, and headed straight to the honey crisps!

Oriole Springs Orchard

Brylee was excited to get her first apple off the tree. She had to work pretty hard to pull it off, so it was a proud moment.

Alissa found her a perfect apple.

And Zack...well, he enjoyed frolicking in and out of the trees. Over an hour stuck in the car can do that to a boy.

Found another one!

Zack finally slowed down long enough to pick one. He was a little upset it came with a leaf attached. He tried to real hard to shake it off.

Thats better!

Nothing wrong with a little bite, or two...or three.

And for the moment of truth:

Ryan putting his new teeth to good use. The first time he has bitten into a whole apple since...like forever! He was a little stressed out about it, hence the face...but he did it, teeth still intact. Phew. That was mentally healing.

Zack putting his big muscles to good use to carry the giant bushel of apples!

That earned a taste.

Oh, look-theres Madi and Katelin! They were off running around with their friends pretty much the whole time, so we didnt catch them in too many pictures. Madi hates all things fruit, so she tried to steer clear from the whole picking experience.

Brylee also experienced her first time eating a whole apple. No one told her she wasnt supposed to eat the seeds. Hey, it was good!

Afterwards, we all headed next door to another orchard where they make the worlds best apple donuts and cider. Seriously. They also had a tractor for Zack to entertain himself on...even if it wasnt clear if he was supposed to. Cant keep a boy from a tractor.

And if you remember last time-our friends, the goats...

and fowl. I think Zack was having a stare down with our future Thanksgiving dinner. Dont think they trusted each other.

Not really this particular one, but isnt he the most perfect Thanksgiving Turkey you've ever seen!? Well, for me he was.

"Eat Chicken!"

So after stuffing apples, donuts and cider in our faces, we had to head home to make it to soccer games. More on that part of our lives to come...after we slow down from it.

We love Wisconsin in the Fall!

Another Birthday

This year marks an even birthday for Madi, which means she got to have a party. She says there wasnt a theme to the party, but I would feel safe calling it a Minute to Win it Party. If you've never seen the show "Minute to Win it", its a game show where contestants get one minute to complete random challenges increasing in difficulty. Heres a link to the list of games they do if you want to watch the video instructions. It explains them a lot better than I do. http://au.tv.yahoo.com/minute-to-win-it/games/

Madi chose about 5 of the games off their website to play. But Im getting ahead of myself. First of all, the decorations. I was busy preparing all day while they were at school. This is what she came home to...

And the paper mache disco ball we worked together to create. If were were mechanical, we would have figured out a way to actually make it spin. It was fun to make though.

When the guests arrived, we had this little craft for them to do. Its a jean pocket that they decorated and attached magnets to the back of to hang up in their new locker at school.

Here is Madi's finished product.

Then the games began. First was one called Candy Elevator. They had to pull two strings with pencils attached to them, over their ears up to their mouth and eat the candy off of them. It was pretty hard.

Side note: Its really sad when Madi's friends start getting as tall as I am! No fair!

Then we did one called Dizzy Mummy, where you have to spin around with a roll of toilet paper until it is all unrolled around you like a mummy. This was just fun.

After the 12 rolls of toilet paper are unrolled, what else would you think to do with it besides bury your friend in it?

This was one I got from our friend. They have a shoe box filled with marshmallows tied around their waist and they have to shake their booty to get all the marshmallows to fall out.

This one is Face the Cookie. They have to put an oreo on their forehead and use nothing but facial movements to get it down into their mouth. This was hard too, but fun! There is a video of it at the end, so as always, mute the music before playing it. Here it just looks like a weird type of meditation with a cookie on your head, so you have to watch it to get the idea. Although, if I was going to meditate, I would love to do it with a cookie.

This is the best part...watching everyone make weird faces and stick out their tongue to try to move the cookie!

There were a couple more games, like a puzzle one (breakfast scramble), and a soda can stacking one as well...cant remember the name, upside down something or other. The girls were all very loud and hyper during the games, so I think that means they were having fun, right?

Then we moved on to the presents. Here is a picture frame from Katelin and Brylee.

Then some matching peace mirrors for her wall from Alissa and Zack.

I think this was Madi's favorite...a giant ice cream sandwich pillow from her friend. After opening it, she said "Im gonna drool a whole lot in my sleep tonight!"

I guess when you get to a certain age, your friends just start buying you gift cards. She got like 75 dollars in gift cards after that, along with some mani/pedi stuff, a game, and a spinning art thingy.

I was pretty frustrated with the cake this year. I went all home made instead of buying the boxed stuff, and it turned out being so moist, and it stuck to the pan, so it just fell apart. It still tasted delish, but didnt look very pretty. Anyway, its a family favorite: Chocolate Reses Peanut Butter Cup cake.

Did I forget to mention that it was a slumber party? Well, maybe its because Im still exhausted! Some of the girls went home, but the 6 that stayed were up chatting and giggling until 1:30 in the morning! I had no idea the kind of boy talk that started this early.

Later the next night after everyone had a chance to wake up, we presented Madi with a new set of scriptures. After all, she is in Young Womens now.

A few days prior, she also got her own cell phone for babysitting for us so much (we have been taking full advantage of our new found independance). That about made us the best parents ever. But she is always willing to stay and watch the kids for us. She has also babysat for other people a couple times and she loves that (I think she loves earning her own money along with it!). We are thankful she is so responsible and trustworthy, and just an all around great kid! I can still say kid right? At least until she turns into a TEEN next year!

Heres the face the Cookie Vid: