Cakes by Diana

One thing I like to do for my kids is decorate their birthday cakes.  The best compliment I’ve ever gotten was, "Mom, your cakes are better than the ones at my friends’ birthday parties".  I guess I’ve spoiled them.  The first one I ever decorated was for my 21 year old’s first birthday.  That was back before digital cameras, so it’s hidden away with some photographs somewhere.  Since we’ve been taking digital pictures, I have all of them in the recent years on my computer.  I thought I would share them with you.  If you’d like to see one larger, or longer, just click on the picture.

String Orchestra

It’s been a while since I talked about the string orchestra I teach.  We’ve been very busy this year.   I have a great group of kids to work with.  They (for the most part) work hard and want to do a good job.  Last month we had a concert at our local library.  There was probably about 70 in the audience.  Both groups played and did a great job.  I finally figured out how to upload videos to Youtube, so you get to hear and see us perform.

The first year orchestra has been playing since September.  We played:

Can-Can
Mozart Serenade — Mozart
French Folk Song
Theme to Master Piece Theater
Bach Musette — Bach
William Tell Overture — Rossini
Polly Wolly Doodle

Before playing, scroll down and stop the audio feed of the quartet I have playing in my right menu bar, or you’ll have 2 things playing at once.

The second year orchestra has been playing for 18 months (started last September).  They played:

Yankee Doodle — Traditional
Beauty and the Beast — Alan Menken
Trumpet Voluntary — Clarke
Classical Bash
Pomp and Circumstance — Elgar
"Finale" from the First Symphony — Brahms

Before playing, scroll down and stop the audio feed of the quartet I have playing in my right menu bar, or you’ll have 2 things playing at once.

Here are photos of the groups so you can see their shining faces. 

1st year orchestra:

2nd year orchestra: