Spring Orchestra Concert - Taya - Viola

Taya also had her spring orchestra concert in March.  She is really starting to feel the weight of graduation.  She loves orchestra more than any other class & as the year is winding down, she's realizing her time on viola is short.  I still remember her fighting me to practice when she first started with her private teacher in France.  But she found a love for it & now all she wants to do is practice & play.  Orchestra here in Utah has been her life & she has loved every minute of it.

This concert was no exception.  She played her heart out & loved every minute of it.

They played 4 pieces, although only 3 were listed on the program.

Golden Grove:

Serenade for Strings (4 movements):

Celtic Force:

Surprise Encore Piece:

I'm so proud of you Taya.  You've done an amazing job over the years developing your skills on the viola.  You've become such an incredible musician.  I'm so very very proud of you.

 

Spring Band Concert - Craiger - French Horn

 

This has been a tough year for Craiger when it comes to music.  All 6 of my kids have been doing music since they were 3 years old when I started them on piano.  Music is my thing & they've all loved it.  They all play piano & sing beautifully, & then they've all mastered one or more additional instruments. 

 Craiger's been playing french horn for 4 years now, & I've finally had to accept the fact that music isn't Craiger's passion.  As a mom, that was a hard pill for me to swallow being a music teacher & music lover, but it's true & it's totally OK.  Not all my kids are going to love band/orchestra.  Craiger has found his passion in ballroom dance.  He's become fit, strong, & incredible because of it.  It's his "thing" & I'm SO proud of him for finding his "thing" & giving it all he has.

I'm also proud of him for having the courage to talk to me about quitting band next year so he can focus more on ballroom.  I will admit, it cut me to the core, but that's me, not him,  & he deserves to do what he loves most.  He was worried about hurting my feelings or making me upset by asking to do extra ballroom classes instead of band his sophomore year, & we talked it out & he realized that just because music was my thing, it didn't have to be his.  He is THRILLED.  And since we've had that conversation & made that decision, he's been giving band his ALL these last 2 quarters.  I am grateful to him for that.

He plays french horn beautifully & does such a great job.  I'm loving every minute of these last few concerts I'll have with him until next year.

He played 3 songs:

Liberty Bell March:

Yorkshire Ballad:

Atlas:

For some reason my video didn't record for this song, so I didn't get it.  But they did a great job.

They did a great job.  I'm going to miss band concerts (I'll only have percussion, orchestra, & choir from here on out), but I'm proud of him for dedicating 4 years to french horn.  He's amazing.

Spring Percussion Concert - Bladen

 

Bladen had his 3rd advanced percussion concert of the year in March & he did amazing.  I love seeing him branch out to new instruments, learn new timings & styles, & learn to play with new technic.  He's had an amazing year as a member of the advanced percussion ensemble.

"Spiraling Light" - Bass Drum x2
This one was tough for Bladen.  It was his first time doing bass drum in a song, which really isn't that difficult, but he had 2 bass drums with 2 different mallets & he was switching back & forth between the 2 so fast that it was hard to keep up.  He did amazing.

"Tetracurrent" - Vibraphone

This was Bladen's favorite piece from this concert.  His forte is definitely keyboards.  This time he was on Vibraphone & he rocked it.  This song was SO INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT to play.  I was so proud of him.

"Undisclosed" - Cymbals.  

This was a small group ensemble piece.  Bladen has never been invited to be part of one of the advanced small ensembles so he was really excited about this one.

Awesome job Bladen.  You ROCK.

St. Patrick's Day - 2026

 

You all know that St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my very favorite holidays.  I love putting together my rainbow/leprechaun scavenger hunt with clues using ciphers & codes.  My kids love it & it has progressively gotten more & more difficult as the kids get older.  It's harder finding codes & ciphers they can't break.  They once again did amazing at their sleuthing & the whole day was a ton of fun.

The first clue was on the Lucky Charms. I used an arrow cipher with the words "Start at top left" on it.  They had to figure out what things in the house could be used to hide something using arrows. . . 

⬇️⬇️⬇️➡️⬆️⬆️⬅️⬇️➡️⬇️⬇️⬅️⬆️⬆️➡️⬆️⬆️

It was my dresser in my room.  They started at the top left drawer & followed the cipher to my sock drawer where they found the orange piece & their next clue.

The clue was "The cards, the cards, the cards will tell!"

Inside the bag was a deck of playing cards & a blacklight.

I had taken all the clubs in the deck of cards, put them in numerical order, & wrote on each one in invisible ink (only seen with a black light) "Mom Desk Drawer."  This one took them a while.  They were shining the black light on the actual face of the cards rather than the back.  Canyon finally saw a glimmer of a letter by accident & then told them to turn them over.  They shined the light until they picked out all the cards with letters on them, then realized they were all clubs & put them in order to decipher the code.

They ran to my craft desk & found the yellow piece.  But they couldn't read the next clue until after school & work.

This bag had "Taste the Rainbow" game inside so the kids got to roll die trying to get doubles.  If they got doubles, they had to put on some oven mitts & use 2 butter knives to try to open up & eat starburst candies.  It was hilarious.  Craiger kept getting lucky just as others would finally get the starburst unwrapped.  It never failed, he'd all of a sudden roll a double & get to eat their candy.

I used the tap code to leaden to our next clue. . . 
34-51-15-33 = The Oven

Before we got too much into our next clue & game, we had our "Green Dinner" which the kids always look forward to.

Taya got home from work & was able to join us for the next game. . . her favorite: "Don't Eat Pete!"

They all played that until the sour skittles felt like they were burning through their tongues, then they deciphered the next clue. . . 

It was written in the Runic Alphabet & led to the antique writing desk in the hallway.

This contained the rainbow dice game I got last year & all the kids enjoyed rolling their rainbows.

The next clue was hard.  It was a QR code that lead them to an audio of morse code that I made.  It led to the word "Curtain."  I was super surprised at how quickly Craiger could pull apart each letter of morse code.  To me, they all blend together & sound the same, but he could hear it VERY well.

They found the rainbow piece & the clue which instructed us to make some shamrock shakes.

The last clue included a complex, multi-step math equation that all 4 kids worked together on.  The answer was the number #230.  They found a diary inside the bag that had a combination of #230 & when they opened up the diary, I used the dice code in invisible ink to lead them to underneath Craiger's bed where the treasure was.

It was a super fun day.

It's always SO rewarding to know that something you did as a mom stuck with your kids.  Lorien sent me a series of pictures throughout the day of the St. Patrick's Day rainbow treasure hunt she put together for Elijah for their first St. Patrick's Day as a married couple.

She had the hidden rainbow pieces, clues in code, shamrock shakes, & more.  She was SO excited.  I love these kids of mine.  Aren't they so cute?

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!

Pi Day 2026

 

Happy Pi Day (March 14) from the Potter house.  Because we're a family of math lovers, we always celebrate with a Chicken Pot Pie, Key Lime Pie, & then of course have a competition on who can recite the most digits of pi from memory.

Canyon surprised us all with 110 numerals of pi beating out Craiger this year by 10 digits.  This was the first year Canyon has tried learning pi so I was excited to have another contender in the house.

All 3 boys did AMAZING.

PAS - Day of Percussion 2026 - Bladen

 

In March, the high school's advanced percussion group performed at the PAS Day of Percussion at Riverton High School.  Bladen did amazing as always.  I love watching him perform.

Dance Co Concert - Craiger - Jive

 

Now that we are nearing the end of the school year, all the "end of year" concerts are happening.  Dance Co asked the ballroom team to come perform at their final concert so Craiger got to perform the jive in front of a huge audience.  It was great.

Prom 2026 - Taya

Every girl dreams of going to their senior prom.  Taya is so blessed to have such good friends in her life.  Xander asked her to prom with this beautiful "night fury" & "light fury" poster he made.

The boys picked the girls up in their big suburban.

And I loved spending a few hours with Taya & her friends as I helped them do their hair & make-up for prom.  I'm realizing this is it for me when it comes to "getting girls ready" for things like this.  She's the last of my girls & this is her last dance before graduating.

She looked like a princess in her beautiful blue dress.

Xander got her the most beautiful corsage I've ever seen.  He went with oranges to compliment the blues of her dress & it was SO BEAUTIFUL.

They had a great time.  I'm so glad Taya had such a wonderful group of friends this year.  Prom was a dream come true for her.