Buried and Kate's Violin "recital"

I am fighting a sinus infection or cold that I cannot kick and mountains of paperwork.  See last year I had it easy.  I only had 2 schools amongst the 3 peanuts and only Kate had a new school.  Now, I am buried under applications.  Harry is in his last year at his school so we are applying to various middle schools.  And Will is about to start high school so we are applying to those schools too. We are VERY lucky to live in a city with some AMAZING public schools.  The beauty of it is that we have these great magnet schools and schools for gifted and talented kiddos that are all application only.  The bad news is that there is a unique and complicated application process for each school.  We are also applying to some all boy Catholic high schools. So, between 2 applicants and lots of options I am going crazy with forms, test dates, teacher recommendations, releases and transcripts.  I am copying papers, filling out applications, writing essays (yes parents have to write an essay on why we think the school is a good fit!).  Finally, I am hand delivering them to each school to be assured they are processed on time with all the documents.  After all this work, I would hate for an application to be missing something and considered void.  So, I might be missing around here for a few days.  Luckily,  I am seeing the light at the end of tunnel and hopefully the boys will have some good options to choose from.

{Note to self--- in 3 short years, Harry will be applying to high school and Will will be getting ready to apply to college...be more organized then!}

In September, Kate joined the strings program at her school.  It is not ideal as they have a very large group lesson for about 45 minutes two times per week.  I think they spend 20 minutes just getting the group in the right places and holding their equipment but nonetheless, it is good exposure. Also, the lessons take place during the school day so I don't have to drive her anywhere!!!  And honestly, we totally drop the ball on practicing.  I am so distracted by homework, daily swim team practice, judo, soccer and ballet that I never remember to tell Kate to practice.  So, in sum, we are kind of shocked that Kate learned any violin this past semester.  

In December, there was a little concert.  It was very cute.  There were two kind of hyper boys in front of Kate so it was nearly impossible to get a decent shot of her playing....

We videod Kate the day before her concert which was a good thing as we would never have been able to video at the recital...

VERY funny little story.  At the end of the group performance, the teacher asked Kate to stand up for her "solo." Dave and I looked at each other in complete panic.  We were not aware Kate would play alone.  We would have made her practice more (see above!).  Anyway, after a few scary moments (for us, not Kate), the teacher realized it was the other Chinese girl (who is NOT named Kate) that was supposed to have the solo.  I do think it was funny that she confused the two Chinese girls.  There is a lot more I can say about this but I won't.

And in case you were wondering where she gets all this musical talent (he he) from....

P.S. Dave has never played the violin but he plays the guitar and piano. He does help Kate though on the rare occasion she does practice. He might kill me for posting this.