Christmas recital

Every December I hold a recital for my piano students. This year, as I am taking violin lessons, I also performed. Here are some clips of Joshua and me from the recital. Joshua has been playing for just over a year now, and I have been playing violin for 4 months. I have 14 students right now which keeps me busy, but it is so fun to see their progress and see the sense of accomplishment in their eyes after they perform at a recital. It's a pretty good gig.

Give Thanks

Thanksgiving 2008 was the ultimate Barlow extravaganza. Wednesday we headed down to Ephraim in our shiny new mini van (don't tell Mike I called it that) to join the rest of the family. Everyone was there, which is always fun. Karen's girls were into Twilight, so we went and saw the movie again. We all pitched in for the big dinner, where we had seventeen people, four dogs, and a cat. In our spare time we played football on the new Snow College feild with Tony's family and Daniel and Becky. Saturday we went to Salt Lake city together and enjoyed a lunch at Sizzler and a trip to the aquarium. We had a wonderful time! We are so thankful for a loving family that likes to be together!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

another childhood cuteness moment brought to you by Joshua Barlow...

(Joshua) Andrew, your bowl is hot pink.
(Andrew) No!!
an arguement ensues over the color of the pink bowl. Mom is doing dishes at the sink. Two minutes pass by and the argument grows more heated.
(Joshua) Andrew, the bowl is hot pink!!
(Andrew) NO!!
(Mom) Joshua, just let it go. He doesn't know his colors. You're just making a fight.
(Joshua in a whisper) Andrew, it's hot pink.
(Mom) Joshua!
(Mom) I have an idea. Lets change the subject and talk about something else. How about butterflies. Joshua, what do you know about butterflies?
(Joshua after a momentary pause) Sometimes they're hot pink!

2nd Annual Eggnog Day

Just a reminder that the 'Official' Eggnog Day is upon us (the first Monday in December). I know that many of you (Grandpa Barlow and Daniel) have already been celebrating this holiday everyday for the last month in anticipation for the actual day; but now it is finally here! So I hope all the practicing has prepared you-- Grandpa. For those of you unfamiliar with how this works, it's pretty simple. Go to your local grocery store or equivialant (Wal-mart, to those in Ephraim) and buy as much Eggnog as you dare consume without needing medical assistance. Then go home and drink it! We like to put a movie on (Christmas Story, or Christmas Vacation); this seems to help distract us from the fact that what we are doing is against current medical advice or common sense, but the rest is all up to personal peference. So, please, anyone who is interested in joining in on this very special day, don't hesitate. As always, be safe and do not drive afterwards if you can help it-- of course you probably won't be able to get your gut behind the wheel anyway after all that yummy, fat filled, yellow nector of holiday cheer.

Gingerbread part 4 - overkill

Okay, I know that the gingerbread project has totally taken over my blog, but no more after tonight....because it is finally finished! It's drying overnight and then tomorrow it will be out of my kitchen. Yeah, we can actually use the table for eating again. Anyway, for those of you who are still interested after all my obsessive posts, here are the pictures of the final project, and I swear this is the last time you will hear about it!

Gingerbread part 3

Sunday - slight detail work but mostly a nice break.

Monday - Andrea came and we started work on the grounds. We shaped hills out of floral foam, and then covered them with frosting and green sugar to make grass. The dirt is brown sugar.

Tuesday - Today I am working on landscape details. We used cream cheese mints to mold rocks. Marshmallow and pretzel trees adorn the hills. The pumpkin coach is in the works - it is also molded out of cream cheese mint paste. The horses still have me baffled - I'll figure it out by tomorrow though, because that's when we have to place it in the front window of Poco Loco on Main Street Logan. I also finished the tall gold spire of the castle today.

Gingerbread Update

Friday - Assembly day. I put my pieces together using various techniques for support as you can see from all the soup canse an baking soda boxes. Rubber bands work nicely too! The towers were a bit tricky and are leaning slightly. I'm bugged, but not enough to break them apart and restart.

Friday night I visited Andrea for a twilight girl's night out, and here's a picture of her progress.

Saturday - Today the assembly continued. I spent the morning attaching turrets to my part. When Andrea and Betsy got here we started the major work.

While Andrea finished painting her walls with pearl dust I constructed the false floor for my portion and mounted it on the castle base.

Then we built Andrea's walls and columns around it. We had a little trouble getting the pill bottles and spice bottles out that we were using for supports on the inside!

Betsy ran to Logan and, thanks to her dad, brought back a nicely shaped board for the final display. Once the castle was moved to the board, we were able to build the bridge and pour the sucker batch lake.

Gingerbread Craze

Some of you may remember my gingerbread house from last year - the yellow Victorian manor with a dark chocolate door - YUM!!
This year the gingerbread project has grown out of control. But wait, I must go back to start this story properly. For the last two years around Christmas time I have noticed that all the stores in downtown Logan have a gingerbread house in the window. I figured out it is the "parade of Gingerbread houses" and is an actual contest here in Cache Valley. I thought to myself, "gee, that would be fun..." So last year I tackled a big gingerbread project and came up with the yellow thing. I was very proud of it, but I hadn't made it early enough to get it in the contest. My friend and fellow gingerbread enthusiast, Andrea, came up with a fantastical idea. We would find out all the info about the parade, and do a team project for this year. So, one week ago I made a string of phone calls to downtown merchants trying to find someone in the know. After being directed back and forth several times I finally connected with the head of the project and officially entered Andrea and I in the parade of gingerbread houses.

So here's where it gets sketchy. Andrea has been cooking up an idea for over a year now--Cinderella's castle. Yeah. Square walls are for sissies.

Andrea's husband is a computer graphics expert, so he designed the castle to scale for us and broke it down into template pieces. I then took the draft and created proportional scaled pieces of card stock paper to use as cut outs. Andrea and I have divided the labor as follows: She is building the outside court wall and bridge. I am building the inside structure which will sit on a false floor just one inch below the top of the outside walls.

Wednesday: I baked most of my pieces. I don't quite know how to work out the roof yet, so I'm going to build the walls and turrets first and then do the roof.

Thursday: Frosting day! everything got coated with royal icing, and then bricks were traced with a spatula blade. Once the frosting was dry I dusted Wilton pearl dust on the pink pieces. The blue pieces and dark pink areas are pearl dust mixed with a little lemon juice to make a liquid paint.

It's Official

It's official - we bought a new car. The transmission on our 2000 Saturn was going out, and I could no longer put it in reverse. I had to make sure to always pull through parking stalls, and park on the street. One time I forgot and ended up pushing our car out of the driveway on Sunday morning in a skirt!

We listed the Saturn on KSL cars and were pleasantly surprised when someone offered to buy it the next morning. He brought cash and took it away, and we suddenly realized we didn't own a car.

After much stress, Internet research, test driving, and price checking, we settled on a 2006 Mazda 5. Michael really wanted some extra features, but we decided to sacrifice the fancy stuff for a phenomenally low-priced base model. Even so, it's more than we are used to! The door locks and windows are automatic, it has a 6 disk CD changer, and it has one of those super fancy keys that beeps when you push the red button...

Michael's work buddy says it looks like a dust buster, so we've affectionately named the vehicle "Buster."

Presenting the amazing Drewbini!

We have always known that Andrew has a sense of adventure greater than his sense of reason, and now I finallly have proof on video! He came up with this game on his own. Notice the smile at the end...it says it all!

Halloween 2008

We did all the traditional things required by this creepy holiday, and then we did a few more!

We carved pumpkins...one is Spongebob Squarepants.

We got into costumes...even Mom as Sarah Palin.

We ate some fun food...monster claws, eyeballs, spiders web, and witche's brew.

We trick-or-treated...Woody's noble steed being a red wagon.

And most importantly, we gorged ourselves on candy...Daddy wouldn't give the Baby Ruths to the trick or treaters.

Boy, oh boy, we can't wait for next year!

Joshua's Halloween program

Joshua's Kindergarten teacher likes to have the kids put on a Halloween program for their families. Here are a few snipets from the program. Joshua is Darth Vader, and is sitting in the middle of the back row. He's pretty easy to spot...especially when he is waving wildly to Mommy!

Joshua and his teacher, Mrs Kendrick

Yellow Door Update

We are finally wrapping up the door project. Thankyou all for voting on the color choices - here is what the final decision is. The side door was painted back to white. Two yellow doors was just too much. The front door will remain yellow for a while, accented in black. it is still very bright, but I like it more and more each day! I agree it needs some yellow accents in the yard, and next spring I will do that with some flowers.

Tons of trip pictures if you are interested

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Mesa Verde Barlow Bonanza

I'm happy to finally say that one trip finally worked out for us this year. We seemed to be cursed all year long - all plans for trips kept falling through. But this one worked wonderfully!
We left Wednesday night and stayed over at my Dad's place.
Thursday morning we dropped Jeri off at my brothers and headed to Moab where we had lunch and hooked up with Mom B, Daniel, Becky, and speedy. From there we drove to four corners. This was a side trip that everyone grumbled about a little bit, but I was adamant that we needed to see it and in the end everyone agreed that it was worth the extra two hours of driving! After four corners we drove to Durango, found our hotel, ate at the Brewery Karen suggested, swam in the hotel pool and hit the sack.
Friday was spent exploring the touristy town of Durango. We took a tour of the train yard of the old steam rail road station (we couldn't afford to actually ride it!), we ate lunch at a fabulous diner called Old Tymers, we walked around historic downtown, played down at the river, relaxed at the hotel, and had a nice italian dinner at Mama's Boy restraunt. Thanks to Karen for all the good restraunt referrals!
Saturday was Mesa Verde Day. We met Tony and Shelly and their kids at the park adn spent the day hiking and driving to pretty much everything that could possibly be seen. Cliff palace was grand, but I really liked Balcony house and Spruce Tree House. I also really enjoyed seeing the mesa top ruins - the pueblos and pit houses. You don't hear much about those, but I thought they were fascinating! Around seven we drove back to Moab where we got a hotel for the night.
Sunday was spent driving, picking up the dog, and more driving. We were all glad to be home! It was a very fun trip. Joshua loved the trains and cliff cities just as much as the adults, which made it all worth while. Andrew had fun swimming and eating to his hearts content. As for the cliff cities, he is fearless! He wanted to jump right into the kivas.
One last note - THANKYOU to Jason and Andrea for lending us their portable dvd player! What a life saver!

Oh. My. Gosh.

It's bold, it's daring, it's yellow. I have enough white paint to change it back, but I need some opinions first. So here is the question. Leave it yellow, or revert to classic white? Leave your vote in the comments!

Here is the only shot I could find of the door when it was still white.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5255567362681984258" />


Here is the door now, with our gold hardware.


Here I've added black paper to represent the black hardware I would accent with.

Portraits

I took the boys to JCPenny for their annual portraits last week. Here are some sneak peaks of the results! Andre had a better photographer, and had some really cute "extra" shots with the cowboy attire. I ordered a large print of the sepia cowboy pose and put it in their bedroom. It is soooo perfect and darling!