Author: Stephen and Jodi

Lily participated in her first fall piano festival. She had spent many hours refining and perfecting her pieces and it paid off! Her nice ritardandos, good rythmn and wonderful dynamics were spot on and best of all she had fun. The judge gave her a 99. She played "Mr. Jazz Man" and "Dance of the Marionettes".  She was also able to play the grand piano in the foyer of the BYU-I Snow Building, something (I think) she has wanted to do. Her recital was the following night. Her new piano teacher is Holly Miller – Lily and I both love her!

I was lucky enough to get to help out at Lily's Class Party this Halloween. Her party was on my anniversary and Lily asked if I should wear a dress and look fancy since it was my anniversary. I said I'd pass. 🙂 She was also concerned with the fact that I had lost my voice. On Tuesday I woke up hoarse and unable to use my full voice. When she came home from school and we looked at different options for the party she asked several times, "do you think you'll get your voice back before Thursday?" I think she was worried I'd get sick and not be able to come OR maybe she was worried about being embarrassed. Either way, we were covered because I got my semi-normal voice back Thursday.

She decided we should do a spooky & gross game because the boys would think it was cool. We decided on the Ghoulish Guess game. Students had to put their hand into a hole in a box and feel random items and decide what it was – I gave them 2 choices to help the game go more quickly. It helped. It was soo funny to watch their faces and see their reactions when I told them the different choices and they touched it. Lily got some gross objects to feel – Dracula's Heart & Eyeballs…. It seemed to be a hit even though it was scary for a few – I don't think I scarred anybody for life.

Mostly I loved being there with Lily. Life is going by quickly and she is doing such great things in life. She is a fabulous student and very concerned with following the rules. The teacher she has is perfect for her….she comes home to play school with Olivia and I see the things she is being taught. She teaches Olivia all that she knows – book smarts and street smarts. Olivia is a luck girl to learn from Lily.

Lily was very disappointed that her school didn't participate in any sort of spirit days during homecoming week. She was confused each morning when Mason and Lexi came dressed up in their designated attire to soak in the school pride, yet she was given no direction. She asked more than once, "WHY NOT OUR SCHOOL?"

Well her time has now come. The scholastic book fair has made its way to Central Elementary and with it a list of things to do each day to go along with their "Hero" theme. Today was Grandparent's Day and she dressed up as one of her Grandparents. The instructions given to parents were "simple costumes with no help from parents." Since I haven't been feeling too great I wasn't very on top of things to remind her to dress up last night. I shouldn't have been surprised (because Lily is very particular and responsible) to see her dressed up in a white shirt and tie this morning at breakfast. She proclaimed that she was, "Grandpa Baldwin – a school teacher." She wanted to tuck a hand crafted pen that he made her in her pocket but I had to draw the line, we couldn't risk something like that getting lost! (Somehow she didn't put seminary teacher (Grandpa Parker) and school teacher in the same pot – even after we mentioned it?) She communicated to me at breakfast how she felt disappointed that she could only be one grandparent and rationalized that she could be a missionary too, because ALL of her grandparents were missionaries (lucky girl!). It was a bonus and extra special treat to have both Grandpa & Grandma Parker show up at school for lunch with pizza. It was the highlight of her day. Grandparents have a lot of work keeping up with all of their grand kids – we feel grateful for all of the sacrifices made to make the little people in all of our families feel special.