Every year they pick their favorite tree to pose in front of. Connor chose "It's a Wonderful Life". Taylor picked one with reindeer on it. Kenzie liked one with the Nativity theme.
This coming Saturday, they'll be playing at the Country Petaller, a local arts and crafts shop that's loaded with Christmas stuff this time of year. They usually get paid a couple bucks for entertaining the shoppers with their Christmas tunes.
Saturday evening, Tyler, Kenzie, and Connor had there first piano recital of the 2006-07 school year. It was at the Festival of the Trees, which Vicki talked about briefly in her Blog the other day. I like this event because it isn't as formal as the kids' other recitals, where they usually are are in front of a larger crowd, getting judged, or being evaluated. They just sit at ground level at the side of a room full of decorated Christmas trees. The kids are just providing the background music for the folks wandering around the room, admiring all the trees. One of the reasons I really like this piano teacher (Mr. Ray) is because h
e provides so many more opportunities for the kids to perform than most piano teachers; he averages about one event per month, as opposed to just a Christmas 
performance and end-of-year recital. I think the performances have really motivated the kids to practice and learn new, more challenging songs. We've already missed a few events, but we have plenty more coming next year. Ray wants Connor to learn a pretty difficult classical piece to perform with a full orchestra in the Spring, and Connor has been playing piano only for about two and a half years.
ll, back to the recital. Tyler, as usual, was chomping at the bit to do something because he gets bored really easy. So, Ray let Ty go first. Tyler would've gone first anyway because Ray always has the kids play in order of the difficulty of their music. Tyler was very happy to go first. He played his song, and he played it almost perfectly. He started piano in January of the year, and he's already playing chords and playing both bass and treble clef simultaneously. When finished, as soon as he sat down, he turned to me and asked if we could go home now. That's my Tyler :o) We still had five more performers to go.
erfect. She stumbled a bit in the third one, but she hung in there, didn't panic, and finished the performance. She's got more guts than most adults and she's only 8. Like Tyler, she has no fear. Well, I think she does, but she hides it so well, you'd never know.
advanced in a very short time. He played two pieces. The first one (don't ask me titles, I can never remember them) was pretty hard; he worked very hard to learn it, and he did very well. He keeps saying he made mistakes, but the only thing I heard was that he played a little too fast through the easier sections and a little too slow in the hard section. And he was much more comfortable performing this year than last, when he couldn't play his second song because he was too upset and nervous.
