Why Piano Recitals are Carrot Cake

I used to be a music teacher. Well, I suppose I still am, because I teach piano lessons to 14 "extremely lucky-to-have-such-a-wonderful-teacher" students. I just put on my 3rd piano recital this past Friday.

I remember my piano recitals as a kid. I started taking lessons when I was in kindergarten (I think) and hated memorizing my pieces. I hated dressing up and going to that funny church and waiting my turn to pee my pants at the piano. It was horrible, awful misery. Yet, for some reason, I now make all my poor students do the same thing. That must be the essence of hypocrisy. Hm... am I a hyprocrite? Naw, I'm just a piano teacher, doing her duty as one-who-puts-on-recitals. Doing her duty as one-who-makes-sure-the-parents-know-their-kids-are-actually-learning-something. Doing her duty by proving-that-I'm-a-real-piano-teacher-because-I-make-my-students-memorize-songs-and-play-in-recitals. After all, it would decrease my validity as a teacher if I did not put on these horrible recitals.


As horrible as the recitals are for my students, they are a Piece of Cake for me. Maybe they wouldn't be a Piece of Cake for everyone, but for me, they're really a piece of carrot cake. Here's why.

When I compare my musical teaching life now to what my musical teaching life was like when I was a "music teacher" (at Freedom Academy), I'm livin' the high life. Instead of teaching 25 kids at a time, I teach one. Instead of teaching 625 students every week, I teach fourteen. Instead of communicating with 600 sets of parents, I communicate with seven (because I have sibling groups). Instead of spending my weekend preparing lessons and choir rehearsals, I spend my weekends enjoying myself. When it comes time for a performance, instead of setting up the stage and 200 chairs, I set up the Relief Society Room at our church. Instead of standing up at the front and conducting all the children while they sing, I sit at the back and let the kiddos do all the work.

Yeah, being a school music teacher was extremely rewarding, but a hecka-lotta work. Being a piano teacher is a Piece of Cake, comparatively.

But, I'm still not sure I want to do it forever.

The Sunday Funnies

Who needs the Sunday Comics when you've got an adorable baby to laugh at? Here are a few funny pictures taken in the past little while that make me laugh. Some, because they're just funny, and others because she's just freaking hilarious and makes me smile for no reason.

This picture might not look funny at first glance, but Megan has recently found her hair, and sometimes gets her fingers stuck in it. Makes me laugh every time!

I love the tongue out. She's always trying to lick her shirts, as if they're made of candy.

This is Megan singing, "Over the Rainbow." Yep, she's pretty talented. She stopped in the middle of her song to fill her diaper, and it made me laugh.

Megan likes to pray when she's in her Jumperoo.

While sitting in her car seat, a loud noise surprised her, and I snapped this picture. When I look at this picture, I laugh so hard that I snort!!

I just think her wide eyes are funny in this one...

Megan is our Drool Queen.

Hope you enjoyed your Megan Comics!

Sherri needs your help

My good friend Sherri has been in awful health lately. She has 8 kids, all of which are young and still living at home, and her husband has been unemployed for a year now. She has a chance for a surgery which should heal her, but needs to raise a lot of money within the next WEEK to pay for it. Please follow this link, read her story, and donate if you can spare any change.

http://sherrismiracle.blogspot.com/

If there is anyone deserving of a miracle, it is my friend Sherri.

Offended for no valid reason

Having a baby (or, in my case, buying a baby) is much like getting engaged.

These are both events a girl plans for, from the time she is young. What will your husband look like? Where will you meet? What will his occupation be? The real planning comes in as soon as you start dating that oh-so-amazing-and-flawless man, and start thinking about a wedding date even before you've held hands. You tell all your girlfriends he said the "L-word", and you start looking for engagement rings online. You hint to your parents that they need to save some dough for a possible Day of Joy this summer. You can't wait until you have a ring on your finger so you can show it off on campus, and flash it at every cashier and at every drive-thru. "Yes, I'm taken. I'm a hottie, and you can't have me."

So, the day of engagement-ring-receiving finally arrives. You send a picture of it to your mom. You put a picture on Facebook (well, I never did because FB wasn't around; but, I'm sure I would have). In fact, you even have a party where people give you gifts- just so you can show it off. Your ring is the first thing people want to see when they look at you. After all, you are a new woman! You wonder how much money this ring cost your fiance, and you certainly hope he spent more than he said. Because you're worth it.

After you've seen everyone, and after you've been engaged for awhile, nobody looks at that house-payment sitting on your finger. You wonder why you didn't just go for the CZ; nobody would notice now, and it would have been oodles cheaper. The novelty has worn off, and now you are just one guppy in a sea of engaged ladies. Somehow, you've become just a little less special. Yet, you still expect people to come up to you and say with excitement, "You're engaged! Oh, my! You're so lucky! Let me see that ring! Oh, it's just gorgeous!"

Instead of having the world adore your ring, you get your ring caught on your clothes and you scratch your fiance's hand with it.

As I said above, having a new baby is much the same. At first there is so much excitement, and you can't wait to tell everyone you know. Everyone congratulates you and wants pictures and wants to come over to see her. She is so precious and tiny and new, and, golly, so beautiful. Everywhere you go, you show her off. Every chance you get, you tell someone that you have a beautiful new baby. Then, slowly, the novelty wears off. Everyone already knows you have a little one. Everyone has seen her pictures, and everyone knows she is beautiful.

Yet, you still expect people to come up to you and say "Oh, my! What a beautiful baby! How old is she?" But, sadly, they don't do that any more. And here's where my offensive-ness (is that a word?) comes in. I still look at my little Megan and think she's just so beautiful. I have to look at her every second. I want to show her off everywhere I go, as if she's more special than the next baby (which, of course, she is!).

Anyway, I am almost offended when people just walk past me with their grocery cart. Shouldn't they stop to adore my baby? I am offended when I'm at the Post Office and people don't comment on her beauty. I am offended when I talk to my mom on the phone and she doesn't drop whatever she's doing to hop on a plane to come see Megan. I am offended when I go.... anywhere.... and people don't make a big deal out of her. There is obviously something wrong with all of these people!

For some reason, I think she should still be the center of attention to the whole world. But, I guess I'll have to just face the fact that she's only the center of attention in my world. I can still adore her, I can still comment on her beauty, and I can still look at her pictures.

I know, it's silly. I'm just crazy about her, and I think everyone else should be, too.

Hide and Seek

Megan has a favorite game. You guessed it: Hide-and-seek. Sometimes, when she's with her daddy, Megan tells him to put her in funny places and have mommy find her. Over Christmas, it was under the Tree. Yesterday, she hid in the closet (but she sneezed and gave it away).

This morning, Megan had me laughing my pants off (don't take that literally, please) because of the place she was hiding. Here's where dad put her this time, except the lid was closed when I found her:

Silly Megan! (or, should I say, silly Daddy!)

Roberts clan

Over the Christmas holiday all of Jared's family came to Orem. We only get to do this every 2 years, so it was definitely a party! When I first joined the family 6 years ago, there were 12 people (including myself). As I reviewed the family pictures this season, I noticed that numbers have doubled to 24 this year!

My sis-in-law Andrea looked around for days to find someone to take family pictures for us. Anyone who said they'd do it wanted to charge us a House Payment to take the pictures. Instead, we ended up using my sis-in-law Ann Marie (it's a hobby of hers), and she did a fabulous job!! And she only charged us $1.

Here are the 24 of us:
Here we are again:
All the Roberts cousins (notice that NONE of them are looking at the camera): Megan by herself (she looked so cute when we sat her on the couch, she got her own photo shoot!):
And, a few pictures of the 3 of us:

Thanks for the pictures, Ann Marie!

Happy Holidays to Me(gan)

Hi everyone, Megan here. Mom thinks she's all blog-savvy, but I was born knowing how to rock the computer world. It's a known fact that all babies born in 2009 came with knowledge of how to play computer games and use the Wii.

My mommy thinks I'm too tiny to do anything. Just because she feeds me and changes my diaper and moves me around the house all day, she thinks I'm pretty helpless. Little does she know, I tiptoed down to the computer tonight while she was sleeping. I disabled her password and created a new one- for me. I'm a Born Blogger.

This blog post is really just payback for all the ridiculous things my parents did to me over the Holidays. I'm gonna tell you everything they did to me, and then you're not gonna want to be their friends any more.

So, mom put this big red thing on my head that kept falling down over my eyes. I don't know why I let her do it. I think I was too busy filling my diaper at the time.

Then, later that day, mom undresses me and puts on these horribly uncomfotable things she calls "tights" and this itchy red dress. She puts me in a box under the Christmas Tree and expects me to SMILE. I don't think so. But, I am stinkin' adorable.

As if that weren't enough, dad actually put me under the tree without a box. He "hid" me there when mommy came downstairs, and mommy just started laughing like crazy. What's up with my parents anyway?

Next, on Christmas morning (at 6-freaking-30), everyone else is opening presents, except for me. Mom & dad claim Santa brought me some thing called a Jumperoo, but they claim "Santa got lost" and that's why it's not here yet. Lame, mom & dad. Lame. What do you think I am? A baby? You think I don't get your tricks? So, anyway, instead of getting me presents, they just stuck me on top of all the trash. What the heck! I'm not trash!

Oh, and then, for Christmas, my cousins got these long things that you stretch to make a loud noise. But, my dad apparently thought they were pieces of clothing for me. He made me a "necklace" and a "belt." I thought the pictures were done, but then he decided I needed a "halo", too. Dad, I need some dignity here!

I was sure all the ridiculous pictures were overwith-- until New Year's Eve came along. Apparently it's some weird tradition to stay up late and then kiss people. Gross! Mommy & daddy kept me up all... night.... long.... and I was really tired. When I was at the peak of my tiredness, they stuck this weird crown thing on my head and snapped a picture. Ugh.

I did, however, think of something to get them back with. I found a marker and I wrote all over my face. "That'll get 'em," I thought. "They'll be so mad at me, they'll never take pictures of me again!" But I was wrong. They took a picture of my marked-up face and laughed the entire time.

And you're not going to believe what else they did.... Oh, shoot, mommy's coming down the stairs and she sounds angry, uh-oh, I'm in troub---