Riah graduated!

My daughter just graduated from 6th grade. (She is the one with the pink rosette on her brown shirt) In our area the kids are in grade school through the 6th grade and then go on to our middle school which is housed in the same building as our high school. Her class consisted of 18 students (small school) and they are all really close so it was a fun evening. She has 2 girlfriends that she is inseparable with. I will be anxious to see if they continue this close relationship through the coming years. We started out the evening by gifting her with 3 bracelets that I had found while I was in Paducah. She loves jewelry. She will also get a graduation quilt. Her quilt is based on her talent show performance and will make a nice memory for her.

Now, on to the talent show. In no way am I making fun of my daughter. I am not writing anything down that has not been spoken about in our home. She has been gifted with many talents but singing is not one of them. Now considering one of her goals in life is to be a professional singer this is not a good thing. To compound this problem she has a little problem in recognizing that she does not have natural vocal ability. So we were a little concerned last December when she came home and told us that she was singing solos in both the talent show and the church Christmas program. The church program was to be first. We couldn’t decide if we should sit in the front pews where we couldn’t see the faces of the church members when she belted her solo out (yes, we had heard her practicing and it wasn’t pretty!) or should we sit in the back where we could hide but would have to see there faces. It was decided for us when we arrived late and the back pew was the only one available. We sat in anticipation waiting for the big moment and much to our relief either there really was a microphone malfunction or the preacher after going through rehearsal the night before had decided to help her out, we could not hear her because the microphone was not turned on. One performance down one to go! She wanted to sing a Dixie Chicks song for the talent show. Since the talent show was the 3rd week of December I suggested that she sing Madonna’s Santa Baby. It really wasn’t a song you sing, more one that you talk in a silly voice. She went for it, whew! She practiced and practiced until she had it all memorized and she added some dancing and hand gestures that fit with the song. Guess what, she went up on stage and nailed it! The kids screamed and hollered when she was done, she had the longest ovation. I was so proud of my singing daughter! I know that I have to let this moment live on forever for her and a quilt is the way to do that. I made this quilt using Bonnie’s (http://www.quiltville.com) method of sewing a double seam for a bonus ½ square triangle and having no fabric waste. I made pinwheel blocks using all my leftover bonus squares from a previous quilt. I then surrounded it with lyrics from Santa Baby. Santa Baby Hurry Down My Chimney Tonight Riah Hahn Grade 6. It is still a work in progress, I will show it again when I get the letters all stitched down and the top quilted.