We ❤️ Pi Day!

Oh how we love Pi Day in Princeton!
As it is also Einstein's birthday, and Einstein lived in and taught at Princeton, the town goes all out with celebrations!

The boys were so excited for the Einstein look alike contest. They looked spectacular! We thought we had the $314.15 prize in the bag, but the panel of kid judges picked a cute little 4 year old (seated to the left of David) whose answers to the judges questions were quite gregarious and cute. So, next year we'll have to up our game, not only for the looks, but also the stage presence!

Lewis entered he Pi recitation contest after just beginning to memorize this morning. He had about 30 digits of Pi down. We were so proud! He did superbly! The winner had been studying for 6 months and got 540 digits of Pi! Wow! The judges included last year's winner at 800 (ish), the worldwide female champion at 5000, the first person to ever break 10,000, and the current North American Champion at 15,000!!! Amazing!

Best day of Lewis' life!

Lewis had the most amazing day of his life the other week! 

The man who founded the music program I teach with, Ken, and wrote most of the music for it still composes new music for the program. When he's releasing a new piece, he brings in singers and instrumentalists to record the song. The director of the Princeton center, where I work, knows Lewis and saw him perform with the American Boy Choir last year when he sang with them. So, she recommended him to be one of the child voices on the recording. 

To say he was excited about doing this would be a gross understatement. He came out of school that day jumping up and down, absolutely thrilled!

It was SUCH a fun experience to watch him work with Ken. He was so happy and confident and just had a blast. The man who runs the recording studio was so nice to Lewis as well and let him see how all the equipment works and showed him some funny effects he could do with Lewis' voice once recorded. 

The child part on this song was really simple. Just three harmonies for a background line. 

Oh, and for all this fun, he got paid $50!

I put it in context for him and figured out that if he did 12 chores in an hour, he could earn $6 from us. Not bad for a 9 year old!!!

Here's Lewis recording each one of the tracks, and then a super quick video of him right afterwards. 

Track 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBV-ZWscX8M

Track 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuG1EWVsUTE

Track 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioD3b0foKnM

Afterwards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybHHQuL7RJ8

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!!!

Chinese New Year Celebration

We celebrated Chinese New Year with some of our dear friends from Singapore who now live close by.

We did the prosperity toss with the Lo Hei salad. They even performed a lion dance. And lots of fun and chatting and playing was had.

David and some memorable moments

Here's David dressed up for "Beach Day" at school. It's my favorite little tradition at our pre-school. Dress in swim wear at the end of February, get Hawaiian leis, and play with sand. Who doesn't love that?!?

Then David playing with his friend, Maggie, playing in the snow after music class.

And my whole crew at the Colgate-Lehigh lacrosse game, there to cheer on Hilary's son, Gareth. They had fun!

David sledding with Dad

A quick video of David sledding in the snow we had a couple weeks ago. He loves it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zViGQBm-eWw

Lewis’ recital pieces

We were so proud of how hard Lewis worked on these. He really kept on and on practicing a couple bits that were difficult for him. And, it paid off!

That's what I love about music. You can't cram for it. It's about consistency and perseverance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kB5wT8Jzig

Beau’s piano recital pieces

He was so excited for this!
And such careful articulation in his little part. We were very proud of him!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8lfqkpZKgg