COLD, COLD, COLD!

In the five and a half years that I've lived in Alberta, it's never been this cold! Just so all of you know, this is NOT normal for us! We may have long, cold, snowy winters, but this is WAY below seasonal temps! Around 4 p.m. yesterday, I just had to take a picture of my thermometer. This was the HIGH! (The Fahrenheit temps are on the inside circle for those of you who need it.) I didn't go outside to take the picture, either - I took it through my kitchen window!! There was a wind chill warning of -49 C when Joshua went to work yesterday. Thanks to our great, new garage, his truck had no problems starting in the morning. But, while he was at work, he and everyone else, had to go out about every 3 hours to start their cars to try and keep them somewhat warmed up. He said that one time, his truck barely turned over. Today is just as cold, so it will be the same drill. The kids and I haven't been anywhere since Sunday afternoon. We're enjoying our cozy, warm house along with lots of hot chocolate and tea! Yesterday we didn't do anything terribly exciting. Just normal stuff and probably too much T.V.!

Sara is hard at work preparing for her very first piano recital, which is on Sunday afternoon. Her piano teacher really wasn't thinking when she scheduled the recital right on top of the Super Bowl! Oh well! We enrolled Sara in this music class in September. It's a program called Music For Young Children and we love it so far! Sara is in Sunbeams I and goes every Saturday morning for an hour long lesson. There are about 6 kids in the class and a parent stays with each child and does everything with them. Joshua is the one who goes with Sara and then does about 80% of her practice time with her. The class covers pretty much everything related to music, so it's not just piano. Sara is really good the with rhythm - it's really quite amazing! The kids are even in the midst of learning how to compose their own songs! Now, I'm sure you're wondering why Joshua just doesn't teach Sara, because he certainly is qualified. Basically, Joshua just didn't feel like the battle of wills was worth it! Having an outside teacher and the class experience has been perfect for Sara. The method of teaching is exactly her learning style too. She has loved everything about it and is picking up things really well. For the recital, she is playing one song on the piano by herself. Then, the class, as a group are singing a song together, and also playing instruments to a rhythm beat. It's going to be pretty cute! Sky started in a music class this month as well, and he's so proud to be having lessons just like Sara! The level he's in right now just covers rhythm and singing, so it's pretty simple stuff for him. He was a bit disappointed that he wasn't playing piano, but this is a good start for him. I've done a bit with him on the piano just at home and he likes that. His class is right before Sara's, so I go with Sky and then Joshua comes with Sara right after we're done. It makes for busy Saturday mornings!

(The piano key picture above was taken by Sara with the Little Tikes digital camera she got for Christmas!)