It’s been a crazy last month or so and I haven’t blogged at all.  One of the crazy things going on was getting ready for our Christmas party this year.  We invited Jon Schmidt to come play for us.  He’s one of my favorites.  We’ve seen his big show at Thanksgiving Point before, but also had a chance to see him in a small concert where there were maybe a hundred of us and everyone had a great view.  His big show was fabulous, but it couldn’t compare to the smaller group show where he interacts with you, takes requests, and answers questions.

I heard last year that Jon does these in-home concerts for a nominal fee at Christmas time.  So this year I kept it in the back of my mind that I wanted to get him in our home for an evening.  It all came together and he came on Saturday.  Julie and I had spent a couple days making food and had a bunch of hors d’oeuvres and goodies.  We moved the piano into the family room next to the Christmas tree and moved the couches out of the family room into the guest room.  We lined the floor with chairs and I think everyone had a pretty good view.

We had about 45 family members and friends in our home.  Jon arrived about a half hour or so after we started.  He had some food and then we all sat down to enjoy the show.  We don’t have a grand piano so one of the funniest parts of the night was after a few songs when Jon decided he wanted to take the front sound board off the piano to get every last bit of sound he could from it.  I told him he could saw the piano in half if it would make it sound better.  It was an awesome show.  He played a bunch of Christmas songs and a lot of his other stuff too.  He played for a good hour and a half and answered questions and took requests.  One of the highlights was a jazz version of Rudolph upside down with his head under the keyboard.  He finished with one of his classics, Tribute, and then a beautiful version of Silent Night where we all joined in to sing.

Everything turned out about as perfect as it could be.  The “scenery” was perfect as we had all the lights off except the Christmas lights and the fire (at least until it got too hot) and of course there was the great view out our windows to add to the scenery.  After the show Jon got a standing ovation and then brought in CDs and piano books to sell.  He ended up staying until about 11:00pm and I think everyone had a great time.  We’re definitely planning it again for next year.  We may have to invite a different crowd though because we had so many people who wanted to come to this.  Here’s a couple photos.  I’ll post some video a bit later.

Jon Schmidt In-home Concert from Derek Williams on Vimeo.

I really should have done this a long time ago.  Julie and I have both written some funny things down in multiple places that the kids have said, but I need to find those lists and get them all consolidated in one place, here on this blog.   So this will serve as my collection place for funny sayings and I’ll just add to this post as new funny things are said.  So here are a few starter kid quotes.  If any of you have any funny things the kids have said to you, please add it here in a comment and I’ll merge it in with these sayings.

Eden, December 2008 – Logan was getting a little mouthy with Julie one day.  Eden ran up and said “You need to respect Mom, Logan.”  Except it sounded more like “You need to wespet Mom, Logan.”  He walked off and Eden looks up at Julie and says “Seriously, Mom, he needs to wespet you.”

Logan, November 2008 – Logan was having a talk with Grammy and Gramps who were visiting from Texas. Grammy said something Logan didn’t believe.  Grammy told him “Ask your dad”, to which Logan replied “OK I will – wait – he lies a LOT!” Hmm – he thinks he’s figured me out.  I don’t really LIE.  I just like to have fun with the answers.  I subscribe to the “Calvin’s Dad School of Question Answering”.  You can find some awesome examples here and here.

Soren, November 2008 – We were playing Scattergories and the letter was P.  One item was Summer Activity.  As we’re all working on our list, he suddenly says “ahh man, I wish the letter was S.  Then for Summer Activity I could put Sacrificing Chickens.”  We were rolling and could barely finish.  When we finally finished and were reading our lists, when it came to Summer Activity, he proudly said “PERSECUTING chickens!” Don’t ask me. I have NO IDEA where he pulled that from.

Logan, October 2008 – Just sitting at the bar eating breakfast and matter of factly said “Hey Mom…I want you to change my birthday, OK?”

Eden, January 2008 – Upon seeing Julie in some pants she’d not been able to wear while pregnant with the twins.  “Wow!  New pants, Mom!”

Peyton, November 2004 – While we sat in an IHOP in Anaheim having breakfast waiting for Disneyland to open.  Our waiter was speaking to us in his thick Mexican accent.  Peyton, stared at him intently while he was talking to us, then suddenly said “Uhh, we speak English!”

Soren, more than once, random bathrooms, usually in a restaurant, when someone in a stall is having a “rough” time. “Dad, what’s that noise?  Is that a monster, dad?  Dad, I think there’s a monster in here.  Ooh, dad, what’s that smell?  It’s making my tummy sick dad.”