A Post About Liv

Just a little update on our Livie-loo.  She has become quite the musician.  I think this picture summarizes all her many budding talents well.  

We had a little neighborhood music recital with Ander Thorsted and the Pasketts and this was her walking there with violin, voice music, and her piano composition.

Olivia is still loving participating with her Vocal Company.  They are putting on a Rock Around the Clock medley show.  Her solo was It's My Party and I'll Cry if I want to.


She had the whole theater cracking up with her teeny confident little self singing about how Johnny was holding Judy's hand but he's supposed to be hers as a cute little girl and boy walked across stage hand in hand in front of her.  She's quite the performer that one and wants to participate in the vocal company again next year.  They announced the shows they are doing next year--Annie and Les Mis and a tour to Disneyland; she's super excited about all of it.

She is getting better and better by the day at the violin and working through Suzuki book 1.  And it sounds like her teacher expects that by the fall she will be able to play with the group in the group lessons.

We went to see a play at the Hale Center Orem the other day and they announced their voice lessons before the show.  She then  begged me to let her take voice lessons, so we have now added voice lessons to her already busy schedule.  We have only had a few, but her instructor is awesome and she has been practicing her songs non-stop.  Once a month they do a master's class which is basically just performing one musical theater song with you best acting skills infused into it in front of a group and watching each of them sing too.  She is also taking a combo dance class this summer and for the first time ever she actually seems to be enjoying dance!

We have sort of backed off of piano just a little over the summer to not overwhelm her too much.  But she did have a little piano camp the first week of summer as a little refresher of what she learned in Let's Play Music thus far, and will have another week long camp at the end of the summer before starting the bridge program next year.

Her favorite favorite thing still seems to be all the musical theater stuff. And I love that she shares this love with me.  She and I went to Center Stage's production of Footloose and loved it.  We have plans to see so many shows this summer.  In a couple weeks we start a month long stent of a show a week this summer including: Oklahoma, Aladdin, Bye Bye Birdie, and Newsies.  And we just decided that we are going to spend her birthday this year in St. George with her BFF Hallie seeing both Matilda and Cinderella at the Tuacahn.

She is registered for three different theater camps this summer.  The first one was at the Hale Center Theater in Orem.  It was every day for a week and at the end they put on a mini Seussical the Musical production.  She was amazing to watch as always.  Her dance moves were crisp, her lines were nice and loud so everyone could hear, and most of all she absolutely loved it (couldn't wait to go every day and was sad when it was over). 

After it was over she begged me to register her for their second summer camp in which they are doing a mini performance of Annie.  She will be auditioning for a full length play of Annie in the Fall, so I thought maybe we'd skip that one so she doesn't get burned out on Annie.  She told me, "but Mom...I love Annie!"  And she really does love everything theater and never seems to tire of it, and Derek told me that if she loves it that much I should just sign her up for it, so I did.  Next month, she is registered for a theater camp at Center Stage.  Same deal every day for a week and then a mini performance of the Little Mermaid at the end of the week.  This is one busy girl this summer with all her music classes and camps.

Liv begged me last summer to let her do a book club with her friends like I do with mine, but I wasn't sure how to do that with beginning readers.  However, over the last year her reading skills have really taken off.  She is now quite comfortable reading chapter books.  So she invited 4 little first graders to participate in a little summer book club.  She chose the first book--Judy Moody was in a Mood.  The girls got together last week to discuss it and it was the most adorable thing ever.  I asked each of them their favorite character and why, favorite part of the book and why, and if there was anything in the book that reminded them of something that has happened in their life.  I was super impressed with their answers.  It took all of 10 minutes to have the discussion and then we had cake!  Liv told me we should make a cake because in the book Frank has a birthday party with cake and Frank eats paste after a dare, so we made a cake that said Happy B-Day Frank with a picture of glue on it.  The girls all got a kick out of it and then just spent some time playing.

Liv has been the absolute best about her chores and music practice this summer.  She gets up and does it all first thing without usually any complaints. The other day I snapped this picture of her walking down the street with her sunnies that she couldn't leave the house without, and found myself thinking how grown up she is getting.

She is turning 8 this year, and is excitedly awaiting her baptismal date in October.  Thinking that she is old enough to be be baptized really makes her seem entirely too grown up for me.  But, every once and a while she will still dresses up or plays like the little girl I hope she still is.

Nonetheless, and please no one call child protective services on us, but Derek and I have started leaving her in charge of babysitting on occasion while we take 15 min walks around the block with the dog.  We put on a movie and charge the kids to avoid all fighting, and to keep the door locked.  They can call on Alexa if needed.  We came back from one such walk to find Liv directing a play of Aladdin as they watched the movie.  I loved the way they taped a bowl upside down on Camden's head to make the Aladdin costume.