October

Pictures from October:

We went to a friend's birthday party that was "Frozen" themed. Although our house has somehow avoided the Frozen obsession that has swept the world, Dallin and Connor still had fun and enjoyed the "build your own snowman" kit they got to bring home.

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Mckay is getting really creative at plating our Thai food dinners.

This one is "Turtle swimming through massaman curry."

Still trying to convince Dallin to eat rice, Mckay made Dallin's rice a pizza shape.

It wasn't very effective...

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We went to the Purdue research farm again this year to pick pumpkins.

We remembered to dressed warmly this time and I even brought a blanket to keep us warm on the tractor.

Connor was very helpful picking the pumpkins and tasting the apples.

He's also pretty helpful around the house.

Even if it was him who made the mess in the first place.

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The boys have been really into puzzles. 

They put together this 100 piece Spongebob puzzle at least 20 times in October. Connor can do the puzzle by himself! (100 pieces is impressive for a 3 year old.) And he will sit patiently working on it for a solid hour. It's marvelous.

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Dallin and Connor like to join in when Mckay does his workout at home.

Connor can do a decent pushup.

I did a lot of yoga during the last few months of pregnancy and sometimes the boys would join in with that as well.

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I spent much of October getting ready for the new baby, doing things like pulling the baby clothes out of storage and washing them.

Looking at all these baby clothes brought back a lot of memories. Maybe it's because Dallin was so tiny and he wore all these 0-3 months size clothes a long time. I attach a lot of sentimental value to my children's clothes for some reason.

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I held my annual piano recital and only took one picture the whole night.

Since the recital was in October again like last year, the kids wanted to do a minor key/Halloween theme again. Mckay talked me into learning and performing "Raindrop" by Chopin. It was more difficult than I wanted it to be but I figured I should set a good example for my students by practicing a lot and setting high expectations for myself. While my performance was not perfect, it sounded pretty darn good and I'm glad I wasn't afraid to learn a new song.

Day 26: music

I love music. I love listening to it. I love playing music myself on the piano. I love to hear other people play the piano. I'm amazed at how quickly music can affect our emotions. Happy, lively music makes us want to dance. Scary music makes us feel uncomfortable. If you ever watch a scary movie, you'll notice that it's the music you hear that clues you in on when something bad is about to happen. Take the movie Jaws for example: 

duh nuh....     duh nuh..... duh nuh.. duh nuh duh nuh DUH NUH DUH NUH DUHNUH!!!

Or think of Psycho. REE! REE! REE! 

Take the music away, and scary movies lose a lot of suspense and scariness. Although, it's still pretty scary to see someone stabbed in the shower.

I feel like I'm getting off track here.........  I love how HAPPY music can make us. I love this time of year when listening to Christmas music makes us feel nostalgic and remember how magical Christmas is.

I'm thankful that I know how to play the piano and the organ. I'm so glad that my parents had me take piano lessons and encouraged me to practice. I'm grateful for my wonderful teachers who helped me develop this talent. I love that I get to teach piano lessons now to 6 great kids. Sometimes I wonder why I do it; my life is certainly busy enough as a full-time mom and wife of a grad student. But I love seeing my students learn new things. I love hearing them stumble through a song only to come back a week later to hear it played perfectly. Practicing really does help! I love to hear them get excited about music. When they tell me, "I heard a song this week and I think it was in a minor key!", my music heart just melts.

I enjoy preparing little games/activities for my students to do that reinforce theory or terms we just learned.

I wish I could say that I come up with all of them myself, but most of my ideas come from other music bloggers or my Pinterest board.

I'm thankful that I get to teach my boys about music. I can already see their interest in it.

(This picture was taken over a year and a half ago when I first started teaching. Dallin looks so young here! Well, mostly the same size but his cheeks are less chubby now.)

I'm thankful for music, for how much it's blessed my life and allowed me to bless others.

Pumpkins and Piano Recital

Purdue has some research farms in the area. (Horticulture is a big deal around here.) The research focuses on things like weed management, soil fertility, insect management, fruit and vegetable production, etc.  At the end of the growing season, they have plenty of extra produce. They let groups (like a few local mothers and their toddler children) come and pick pumpkins and apples for free. 

They took us around the farm on a tractor wagon. 

It was a rainy day, and the first really cold day of the season, so I was very unprepared for the weather. We were all wet and freezing by the end. The boys each chose one pumpkin and promptly hopped back on the wagon before they got too soaked. I stayed out a little longer and grabbed several more cool looking pumpkins, seen in the bottom right below.

Between everyone in the group, we had a pretty good haul, despite the cold rain.

I put all my pumpkins to good use for my student piano recital the next day.

This was my second recital and this year we did a bit of a Halloween theme. I found several "scary" sounding classical music pieces for the kids to learn. 

Some of the pieces include: Toccata in D Minor by Bach (this is the one I played), Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Hungarian Dance by Brahms, Funeral March by Chopin, and In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg. Since I have mostly younger students, the selections were simplified, but still sounded really cool.

Not only did they get to learn about some really well known pieces and composers, but it was a nice little introduction for many of them about major and minor keys, and how emotion and mood can be expressed through music.

All six of my students did a great job. I feel so proud watching all of them perform, knowing how hard they have worked.

There were refreshments after the recital. I used our recently picked apples to make a dessert. I've already done plenty with apples this year, so I had to try a new apple dessert.

Mini apple pies!

I used the same crust dough and mini muffin pan that I use to make the mini Pecan Tarts, and filled them with small diced apple pie filling instead. I used my regular old apple pie recipe and it tasted great. All the great taste of an apple pie in one little bite.

Angry Birds

One of my piano students recently tried out for his elementary school talent show. His mom mentioned it would be coming up and thought it would be nice for me to find him a new, special song to play for the talent show. I though for a good long while about his song choice. I wanted it to be something "cool" that the other kids at school would really appreciate. And then it hit me: the Angry Birds theme song!

 This boy LOVES angry birds. And so does every other kid. And many adults. I'm not sure why... Anyway, I found free sheet music for an arrangement of Angry Birds for piano (link here), but this was a little advanced for my student. So I just arranged a easier version for him! (No big deal...) It actually wasn't too difficult to do. I mostly used the music I had already found, but I changed the key, simplified even more and shortened the song. Ok, so I changed a lot of it. Here it is:




And here's a link to the actual sheet music. (I was actually hoping to have a picture of the sheet music displayed above but I can't figure out how to do that exactly. It is pretty cool that you can hear and "see" the music though.)

I found this cool website called Noteflight that allows you to compose your own music online and print it. The music editor is a little tedious, but this is the first program like this that I've ever used so I don't know how it compares to others. And it's free (up to 10 compositions) so I figured I'd give it a try.

I'm pretty proud of this song, probably because it's the first arrangement of anything I've ever done. Oh, and my student passed auditions and will be in his talent show! I'm not sure how competitive this talent show audition was, but I am very proud of all his hard work in practicing.

Easter

 

 The day before Easter, we went to an egg hunt at a friend's house. This was Connor's first time so we had to teach him how to do it.

This is the only picture that proves my mom was actually here for Easter weekend. And the only picture of me (in the background, without a head).

 

He eventually figured it out and slowly wandered the yard looking for eggs.

 The problem was there were several kids who were older and faster than him. As soon as he had his eyes set on an egg, another child would reach it before he could.

 

So he started gathering rocks and chunks of dirt.

 

And somehow at the end he still didn't have much in his basket. I wonder how that happened?

Maybe if he could keep his basket upright.

 

 Dallin found lots of eggs and collected a basketful of candy he won't eat.

But he enjoyed the social aspect of opening his eggs and admiring the candy with the other kids anyway.

 

Easter Sunday is always very busy for us. Our ward at church always does a big musical Easter program and we are part of the choir (Mckay sings, I play the piano) and I'm one of the only people in our ward who will play the piano. (Notice I said WILL play. A few people

do play a little, but don't feel comfortable playing in front of others. Like I'm this outgoing extrovert that loves performing in front of others?! ...but this is a topic for another day...) So we had to get to church early Sunday morning to practice with the choir before performing.

 

AND there was a stake musical Easter program that night that I was also involved in. (Maybe I should start saying no the people.) Between the 2 musical programs, I learned and semi-perfected 9 new songs in a matter of weeks. (Not to mention the wedding I played for one week before Easter with a few new songs to learn for that.) AND did I mention I played a piano solo as part of the Easter program? I spent A LOT of time at the piano the weeks before Easter, practicing and marking notes on the music; so much time that Connor began to mimic me and make marks of his own on my music.

 

So, after morning church and a delicious ham dinner, we did a small egg hunt of our own. It was a rainy day, so we hid the eggs inside in our living room.

The boys, waiting at the starting line, thought their baskets should go on their heads.

 

 Having already hunted for eggs the day before, the boys were warmed up and ready to go! We did have to help them find a few of the harder eggs.

This picture makes me laugh. We told Dallin there was one by the window. He kept looking outside the window and couldn't see the two eggs 6 inches from his head.

 

 Several times he pointed to the decorative Easter tree and said "Egg!"

Mom and I just nodded. "Yes we know there are eggs on the tree." We didn't see the plastic egg that Mckay hid in the branches. Dallin is a pretty good egg finder.

Piano Recital

I had a piano recital for my students last week. This was the first recital I've ever held, and it turned out surprisingly well. They played a mixture of "regular" songs and Christmas songs. Since I only have 5 students right now, everyone got to play 3 songs and the program was still under 30 minutes.

 All the students practiced hard and did a great job on their songs.

I had sisters play a duet. It reminded me of playing duets with my sister. 

There was a mother daughter duet too.

Both my boy students took it very seriously. They memorized a song, they had great form while playing and bowed very precisely when finished.  I loved it.

I'm glad we had a lot of people in the audience so the students had someone to perform for, and there was always a big applause.  Afterwards, we had some cookies and punch, which was a big hit with all the young children spectators.

Dallin and his friend from preschool snuck away from the refreshment room to play in their own recital.

I think we have 2 potential piano players here:

I'm really proud of all my students and how hard they've worked this year.

Piano Lessons

I've started teaching piano lessons. I always had it in the back of my mind that I would teach lessons someday to earn a little extra money. I figured it would be years from now though because my kids are still very young. But a few months ago, my friend asked me if I would teach her son. And I realized that I could! I have a piano and space in my house for lessons. People teach piano lessons with young kids all the time, and mine are fairly well behaved. So I said yes. And now I'm a piano teacher.

I'm taking it easy and starting out kind of slow. I have 3 students and it seems like a good amount for now. I'm pretty busy with the rest of my life, so I don't want to get too booked up with lessons. But I'm really enjoying it. It's fun to get back to the basics of music. It reminds me of how much I loved taking lessons as a kid. And it's nice to have something that I do for myself, with out my kids being involved. (Although, I'm often holding one of them on my lap while teaching.)

Dallin likes that people are coming over to our house, even if they're not coming to see him. He likes to watch during lessons, and after the students leave, he hops up on the bench and starts playing.

He has pretty good form and he's very gentle on the keys. He plays very deliberately, one note at a time, all ten fingers on the keys. I think he watches how the students act and hold their hands during lessons and then mimics that. It's pretty cute.

Since I teach all my students on Tuesday afternoon/evening, it doesn't leave me much time to make dinner, and by the time the last lesson is over, we're pretty hungry. So I've made Tuesday night my Crockpot/freezer meal day. Last night we had Crockpot Chicken Tikka Masala.

I've haven't made a lot of Indian food before or thought to make it in the crockpot, but this stuff was delicious! The spices were amazing, the chicken was so tender, and it's a pretty economical meal. I'd recommend it. The naan was purchased pre-made from a store. The perks of living in a college town with lots of international students: international food stores!

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken Tikka:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp cumin
1/4-1 tsp cayenne (depending on how spicy you like it)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt

6-8 chicken thighs (skin on, bone-in)

Stir all ingredients except chicken into the bottom of a large plastic container. Add the chicken and coat the chicken completely with the marinade, cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.

Masala:
1 can 28 oz. diced tomatoes
1 can 5.5 oz tomato paste
2 inches fresh ginger, grated (store your ginger in the freezer and it will be super easy to grate)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, diced
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp tikka paste (could use mild curry paste instead, but then also add about a tbsp of lemon juice)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried coriander


1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Salt
1 cup cream
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped


Turn your oven to broil. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a rack over top. Take the chicken out of the marinade (discard the marinade) and place on the baking rack. Place under the broiler about 6-10 inches from the heating element and broil on each side about 10 minutes. You could also do this on the BBQ.  You don't have to worry about cooking the meat all the way through, you are just looking for a nice browned color.

While the chicken is broiling, in a pan over medium high heat, add about a tsp or two of oil. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes to soften. Add the garlic and ginger and saute for a few more minutes until the mixture is nice and fragrant. Place the mixture into your crockpot. To that, add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, garam masala, tikka paste, cumin, chili powder and coriander. Stir together. When the chicken is done broiling, add them straight to the slow cooker and stir into the masala (sauce). I have cooked and experimented with this dish quite a few times, and it by far tastes the best when the chicken is first broiled and then slow cooks in the masala sauce. It gives the sauce a real richness of flavor. Slow cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low 6-8 hours.

Before serving stir in 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp garam masala and salt if it needs it. I find this just brightens up the spice flavors a bit. Then stir in the cream and fresh cilantro. Serve a chicken thigh and lots of sauce over basmati rice or Yellow Basmati Rice: 2 cups basmati, 4 cups water, salt, and 1/2 tbsp of turmeric. Stir together and prepare as you normally would. When the rice is done, stir in 1/2 cup frozen peas.