School is Back in Session!

Last week school started for Micah and Caleb. This year we actually got a pretty decent 1st day of school picture! They didn't look like it was the end of the world. Jewelia didn't actually start for a week, but she wanted to pose along with the boys:

This year Caleb will be in 3rd grade, Jewelia will be starting Kindergarten, and Micah will be starting 6th grade! Yikes!

We all walked to school together, and while Caleb went running to find his class (so I didn't get any good pictures), Micah went to where the 6th graders met. Yikes! Were these 6th graders?! They were HUGE!

I suppose it was going to be different this year. Micah was in 4th grade last year with little 9 year old girls and boys, and now he had skipped to be in 6th grade this year with 12 year old young women and young men!

I thought this was a funny picture below that I took as the bell rang. Micah is the one turned around backward with the green backpack on. The other boy is looking at him questioning, "hey, aren't you supposed to come with me to the younger grades?" As you can see, all the giant kids on the left are the 6th graders.

I tried to get a picture of Micah standing in line, but he was a head or two shorter than the rest of the kids, so I only got his shoes. He is 2 people ahead of the blond boy bouncing the basket ball, but you would never know it---you can see his leg and shoe sticking out.

I'm sure Micah will do fine this year. He is very smart. The kids will soon see he is the one to keep up with. A lot of people have given us their opinions on skipping Micah a grade, but it was partly his decision. School was just too easy and boring for him. He's already passed 5th grade math, reading, and history. Why have him do 5th grade again?

A week later Micah seems to be enjoying school. He tells me of 6th graders who he hangs out with at recess, so I think he'll be OK. We walked by the school one day during recess time and saw him with 2 other boys. I will call them "Giant 1" and "Giant 2"---I joke with Micah. He says there is one other boy who is short that the kids call "Munchkin" and that they said maybe they would call him "Midget". I told him it isn't the same because that kid is just short, but he is just younger. He's average height for a 10 year old. He'll catch up eventually.

Jewelia starts Kindergarten today. She is so excited! We are doing afternoon Kindergarten so our mornings aren't so crazy.

Here she is all ready to go with her hair done and new outfit:

Poor little Macey wanted to be in on a picture too:

All the big kids are going to school and it will just be me and Macey in the afternoons. I'm hoping for a nice nap for Macey and some me time! Woohoo!

Caleb Wins His Piano Competition!!!

This weekend Caleb got to compete in the University of Utah's SummerArts Piano Competition. It is a piano competition held at the U for kids and adults school age up until college. The main contest is a performance competition, but then there are various other "skills tests" you can take as well to win prizes.
Caleb competed in the performance category and then took 2 skills tests; Sight Reading and Theory. He would have to compete with all kids age 10 and younger, so it was going to be difficult to go up against kids 3 years older.

He played 2 songs for his performance, and then had to play a few lines from some music he'd never seen before, and then he had to take a Pre College Theory Entry Exam.

Here he is waiting to go into his Performance competition to see the judges:


He had to go in alone to all these events, so I'm not sure how he did. I could kind of hear from behind a door sometimes. For the Theory Test it was a standard test for all ages up to college age, so when he went in the room of mostly teenagers and above they all laughed to see such a small little boy. Poor kid!

We knew Caleb was a pretty good sight reader, so we hoped he could at least place, and we figured not too many kids in his age group would attempt the theory test, so we hoped he would win something there, but we didn't think he would place in performance because of all the kids competing and mostly they were all older and more experienced.

Well, the results came in and we were super surprised that Caleb won 4 awards! He won 2nd place in Sight Reading, 1st place in Theory, but then 1st place in Performance! I couldn't believe it! There were at least 30 kids competing and I saw them and could hear them behind the door and they were good! This was Caleb's first time at this and he is so young and he won?

And--on top of everything, Caleb won the top prize for his age division, The Iron Man award which is for the best all around competitor who had the most points. This was also incredible because usually the Iron Man award goes to the one who entered the most events, and there were 5 events and he only entered 3. So his points must have been pretty high.

On Saturday we were invited to go to an awards ceremony at the U to see him receive his awards. Out of about 20 something or so kids, there were only 14 who placed, and as you can see from this picture, Caleb was just this little boy on the end:

It was so neat to see all these kids bigger and older than he was and yet they kept on announcing "Caleb Spjute" as the winner. Here is a little video kind of cut and pasted together of each time he was announced:

We were so very proud of him! And, on top of all that, they also announced that they had picked Caleb to play in a special solo performance winners concert at the University of Utah at the end of August. Wow! What a night!

Caleb won some cash prizes and gift certificates, but he was most excited for his award certificates. Here he is with them all lined after the ceremony:

Caleb loves getting piano certificates. Up until now he has only received "participation certificates" but now he has real winning ones. He couldn't wait to get home so we could frame them and put them up on his wall:

Very nice indeed!

Well, if you are interested in what he performed for competition, they had a sort of "Practice Competition" Recital the week before and here is a video of his practice performance:



We think he is awesome! Way to go Caleb!!!

Let's All Go To The Ball Game

Troy's work had a summer work party where they decided to all go to a Bee's baseball game.

Now if anyone knows us they know that we are not a big sports family. Our boys do not particularly like sports, to watch or to play. Many dad's would be horrified to not have any sports fans in their family, but we make do with other entertainment.

Anyway, we tried to make it a fun event for the kids, and we tried to show them what a baseball game was all about.

Well, they were not too excited about it. We went, we ate, and then we left. The kids were all pretty bored. Too bad.

Myself, I enjoyed getting a frozen yogurt in one of those little helmet bowls. Those are great! I had Caleb pose in it after we left the stadium:

I suppose baseball is pretty boring to watch. I mean, really, why won't they just pitch that ball and hit it already. Why must they all stand around and discuss it for a half hour? Just throw it! Come on already!!! What are they talking about? Why must they practice their swinging and pitching for another 15 minutes? Isn't that what practice is for?!

Ok, well, maybe another time.

Micah's 1st Guitar Recital

Saturday was Micah's first guitar recital. He has been taking guitar lessons for 3 months now. He had his recital up at the University of Utah.

We have never been to a guitar recital, so we weren't sure how it was going to go. It turned out that you could sing and play if you wanted, you could play acoustic, or you could play with a band.

It was kind of interesting, but many kids sang themselves, or some played and their teacher sang. Some played with a live band. It will be neat to see what Micah chooses to do for his next recital.

For Micah's first live performance he chose to play Paul McCartney's "Blackbird". We took a little video at home for your benefit. We think he is just awesome!



His teacher calls him a natural.

I tried to dress him up cool, yet still somewhat classy. How did I do?

We can't wait until his next recital. Good job Micah!