Lorien's Fall Orchestra & Choir Concerts

The night of Taya's birthday was Lorien's first 2 concerts of the year.  First she had her orchestra concert where they played "Chariots of Fire" & "La Petite Dances."  As soon as I get those songs uploaded, I'll add the video links to this post.

After the orchestra concert was her choir concert.  This year Lorien is in the musical theater class which puts on a play each year (this year it's Annie & Lorien has the part of July for the play), & they also practice as a show choir type group.

They've been working on 2 songs this month.  .  .  "California Dreaming" & "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT.  I will upload those 2 songs & post the links to the videos below as well so watch for the links.

Lorien auditioned for & got one of the two solos for Season's of Love.  She did AMAZING.  It must be SO scary standing up on that stage in front of an audience & have to sing a solo, but she just does it like it's no big deal.  She makes me so proud.  :-)

Season's of Love - Lorien's Solo

California Dreamin' - Show Choir

Chariots of Fire - Advanced Orchestra

La Petite Dances

Great job Lo.  We are SO proud of you.

Taya's Birthday Breakfast & School Celebration

Happy 10th Birthday to this little ray of sunshine.  I love her so much.

For her birthday she wanted me to do her hair in the curlers Mimi had given her for her birthday.  They were SO easy to put in & I couldn't wait to see her hair all done in the morning.

For her birthday breakfast, Taya picked toaster strudels, bacon, sausage, & pears, & of course a birthday ding dong.

She was happy to have her favorite breakfast foods on her plate.

I can't believe Taya is 10 years old already.  Where does the time go?

After breakfast I took out her curlers & her hair was GORGEOUS.

I had her get dressed & then I broke up the curls a bit.  Her hair looked beautiful.

Canyon & I visited Taya in her class for a birthday celebration.  Her whole class sang to her.

And then I made chocolate suckers for her class.  Taya really wanted "photo booth" suckers so I found some molds & had a blast making lips, mouths, bow ties, glasses, & mustaches out of chocolate.  The class thought they were SO cool.

We even went outside & did a photo shoot with their chocolate suckers.

It was really really fun.

Happy Birthday Taya!

Taya's Family Birthday Celebration

We celebrated Taya's birthday as a family on Sunday (even though her actual birthday was Monday) just because we had 2 of Lorien's music concerts Monday night.

Taya was excited to open her presents a day early.  :-)

Mimi & Baba got her some really cool curlers for her hair.  Taya loves to have curly hair, but it takes FOREVER to curl it.  These curlers are super fast, she can sleep on them, & she wakes up with gorgeous spiral curls.

Opa & Oma know Taya loves to draw so they got her a really cool set of art pencils & a drawing book.  She's having a blast with them all.

And of course my friend Nancy sent her all sorts of fun clothes for her special day.

Craiger made Taya a little doll (out of a toilet paper roll).  He was pretty proud of it.  What a sweet little brother.

Trek & I got Taya a mermaid blanket.  She's been wanting one for a while now.  She was pretty happy about it.

And from her brothers & sisters she got an Uma doll.  Taya love Disney's Descendants so she was pretty excited to have the newest villian.

And then Auntie Cari & Uncle Justin sent her a Mal & Ben doll set.  Now she can REALLY play Descendants. 

For Taya's birthday dinner she chose cheeseburgers, curly fries, & carrots.  It never ceases to amaze me to see how my kids' tastes change every year.  Taya used to hate cheeseburgers.  It's crazy that it's her favorite food right now.  (& I hardly ever make them, so she REALLY wanted one).

Happy Happy Birthday my sweet girl.

Taya's 10th Birthday Party - Meteorology

When Taya told me she wanted a weather/meteorology birthday party I had NO idea what I was going to do.  How do you turn THAT into a party?  No matter how hard I tried to steer her party into another direction, she'd quickly turn it back to storms & weather.

I can't complain.  I love that my 10 year old daughter loves science & knows what she wants to do with her life.  So I made it work.  I made her invitations myself & she loved the way they were worded like an actual forecast.

And then for her cake, she begged me to make my peanut butter fudge cake instead of a storm related cake which was a HUGE relief.  I've made that cake so many times that it's easy now.

Taya was SO cute for her party.  I set up the table with batting for "snow," some of her favorite weather books, her tornado, & her water globe from Seattle.  I also found the cutest sunshine balloon.  Taya is my little sunshine.  It was perfect for her.

For her party I decided to make it as weather oriented as I could.  I decided to make weather bracelets with Sunshine charms, raindrop jewels, & snowflakes.

Then Taya mentioned wanting to make homemade snow globes which was a great idea to go along with her theme.

And of course, we HAD to do homemade tornadoes since Taya studied tornadoes for her science project last year.

But by far, the very best part of Taya's birthday party this year came from Trek.  I bought a large green plastic tablecloth & put it up on the wall & begged him to figure out how to do a green screen weather forecast for the party.  And he did.  He is amazing.  He found a 3 minute weather forecast video without a meteorologist & he played it using the green screen so that when the girls stood in front of the tablecloth, on our TV it looked like they were doing a live weather forecast.  The kids had SO MUCH FUN with this.  Even my teenage girls wanted a turn.

Taya is such a sweetheart.  We couldn't wait to get the party started.

We started with the snowglobes.  We used epoxy heavy duty permanent glue to glue the characters onto the lids of the mason jars, let them dry, then added glitter & water to the jar.

After snow globes we tackled the weather bracelets.

Taya was special & also got a lightning bolt for her bracelet.

After bracelets, Taya showed her friends how a tornado works & helped them make their own homemade tornadoes.

By the time that was done, everyone was ready to have some cake & ice cream.

Taya has such wonderful friends here.  It makes my heart happy to see such wonderful kids.

And last, but not least, we let the girls play with the green screen weather reports.  They had SO MUCH FUN.  I swear, they could have done that all day long.  It was a blast.

After the party ended, Auntie Marc, Triskin, & Tylee came down from San Francisco for some cake & ice cream.  We played all afternoon & went out to dinner for Taya's birthday.

We also played with the green screen more.  We ran away from dinosaurs, slam dunked some basketballs, & flew away in the TARDIS.  Who knew green screens could be so much fun?

Taya enjoyed her ice cream & song at the restaurant.  It was delicious.  It was really fun celebrating her & how much we love her.

Happy birthday my little sunshine.