I Love My Dad!

by Preston

A Lazy Update about a Not So Lazy Week.

I'm calling this a lazy update because I'm sick and I don't have any creativity in my foggy brain right now to do a "cute" blog post. I know you're thinking "All that writing is not lazy!". But I'm a fast typer. Doing creative and cute posts (that are a lot shorter too) actually take a lot more time. Typing out what is in my head is easy...LOL....

Here's what's been going down in the Thomas family this past week...

So my Mom and I sort of had a stressful week with the album. Up to this point we have really enjoyed working on it together, but we had some differences of opinions on a few things and it sort of stirred up some emotions for a few days. And if you know women, you know how we can let emotions really rule us at times. And I don't usually get stressed out. But I was. I was losing sleep over it.

My mom is one of my best friends. Okay, she probably is my best friend. And disagreeing on trivial stuff just wasn't worth ruining our relationship over, yet we both stood so firm on our own opinions on certain things it was hard to see eye to eye. I guess that is what happens when two passionate people try to work together! LOL

Anyway, I just needed to find a way to resolve this.

Holy cow this is getting a lot longer and more detailed than I had ever planned on. Sorry about that. Consider this a look into my heart and brain that I don't normally allow you to see on our blog.

A week ago I had scheduled an appointment for Friday the 13th to go to Gene Juarez Salon for a re-do. Last summer I got my hair cut/colored and really did not like it, and so they gave me two gift certificates to come back whenever I was ready to have it re-done, and with two of their top stylists. I had been saving this as a treat for myself for a) losing more baby weight, and b) when my hair had finally grown out long enough to re-do.

Little did I know how much I actually would need a day of pampering.

I went to the salon, was treated like royalty (I guess they have to when they know you are a re-do LOL). I got my hair foiled (blonde and red), and then got a trim. I also got a nice head massage and read some great articles in Allure magazine. :)

Here is a photo of me late Friday night, about 8 hours after I had it done. But I didn't get the chance to take a picture of myself right afterwards. And this is me after a super long day and I'm beat!

After the salon, I went shopping and bought a few new items of clothing that I needed. And then I got home just in time to grab a quick bite to eat, kiss Preston and Will, and then leave for Seattle as I had tickets to Time Out for Women.

For those who don't know what TOFW is, it's put on by our Church and is a huge conference for women. It's spiritual, empowering, entertaining, etc. It is meant to treat women to a spiritual feast and give them a break away from being a mom and wife just for a day.

I almost didn't want to go because I had already been gone all day, and honestly all I wanted more than anything was to spend the evening with my two handsome guys. But Will encouraged me to go, since the ticket had already been bought.

I am SO glad that I went. Even though I was going alone that night, I ended up finding many other friends there that I knew. After the intermission I relocated to a seat next to some friends.

The best part about the evening was the music of Jenny Oaks Baker. I have been an admirer of hers for several years. I have been to about 4 or 5 of her concerts. Back before I ever knew I would release a cd of my own, I always wanted to be her. lol. She is such a beautiful talented girl, and she has worked so hard to get where she is as well.

She played several songs that left me in tears. I was SO moved, and it is actually not very often that I feel that inspired by a performer. As she talked about her dedication to her family through her music career (she recently retired from the National Symphony Orchestra after 7 years so that she could concentrate on being a wife and mother), I truly related to the things she said. It was as if I was meant to be there that night to hear the things she talked about. (I also just wanted to come home and practice after listening to her play!)

So Friday was a good day. :)

Saturday was the second session of TOFW and my Mom had a ticket to come with me this day. I had been looking forward to this ALL WEEK LONG. Not only to have a fun mother-daughter day together, but so we could have an opportunity to talk and be back on good ground again.

It was as if nothing ever happened. We had a lot of fun together. We laughed, we cried, and we laughed some more.

For lunch, we walked down to Pike Place Market and got some of my favorite Gyros from Mr. D's Greek Deli. Mmmmm. They were so messy, at one point my mom had sauce all over her nose, and I had sauce down the inside of the sleeve of my coat.

And of course we had to get our pictures taken in front of the famous "Public Market Center" sign.

Here's my mom:

Here's me:

But that was only after some random stranger came up and put his arm around me and tried to pose with me. Yep, I've still got it. So hot that guys are dying to get their picture taken with me. LOL I'm sooooo kidding.

Back at Benaroya Hall, we had some girly fun in the ladies room.

Anyway, the day was amazing. I came away with goals of wanting to be a better wife, a better mother, a better friend, to do more acts of charitable service, to pray more and more specifically, and to count my blessings each and every day.

(A photo of Seattle that I took while I was driving, as we were leaving to get on the freeway)

Will, thank you so much for letting me have some "me" time on Friday, and a day with my Mom on Saturday. Even though it was great and I'm so glad I did it, I did miss you and Preston a LOT. :) I love you.

Okay so onto some other updates. Preston.

Preston is such an amazing little baby. So sweet, usually so happy (when he gets good naps), and his personality is developing every day. We feel so lucky to be his parents.

The last week has been a bit rough on us both though. Maybe it has been mistakes on our own part from early on, but being new parents we only did what we could at the time to get him to sleep each night - which usually involved rocking, nursing, shushing, or walks in the stroller, etc. Now that he is 9 months old (Happy 9 months Preston!), and 22 lbs, it is getting to be a big strain on our backs to hold him or bounce him to sleep. We also hear about many other babies who are able to go to sleep on their own, and we really wish Preston would do this. :)

About a week and a half ago, we both came home from church absolutely exhausted. Neither of us had been sleeping very well because Preston wasn't sleeping very well (waking up a lot in the middle of the night, or going to bed late, or refusing to go to sleep at all and just wanting to play).

So we decided to let him cry it out. We hadn't done this in about 2 months (the last time we tried this method, which was around Christmas time, it worked. He cried it out once, and for 2 weeks after that he would fall back asleep if he woke up in the middle of the night).

Well, last week when we did this, he literally cried for an hour and a half. We went in every now and then to check on him and be sure he was comfortable in his crib, but we didn't pick him up or soothe him back to sleep. We just wanted him to eventually cry himself to sleep.

But it never happened.

Ever since that particular crying-it-out session, it is almost as if Preston is completely traumatized by his crib, or of us putting him down to go to sleep.

It has been super hard.

The past week, we have taken turns and it takes each of us about 2 solid hours to get him to sleep. And it's after many numerous attempts of first getting him to sleep in our arms, slowly setting him down in his crib and then him waking up and screaming as he saw us leaving the room. It's almost as if he can feel the grativy of us lowering him into the crib and he begins to wake up, arch his back, and, well, totally freak out.

For the last 3 days in a row, I have averaged about 4 hours of sleep a night. I've been sick with a bad cold too and so I've pretty much been feeling miserable.

Last night, I had spent the average 2 hours with Preston trying to get him down after nursing, rocking, bouncing in my arms, shushing, nursing again, putting him in bed with me, walking around, etc. I put him down and let him cry for a bit in his crib because I felt like there was nothing left I could do.

I came back and got him 10 minutes later and brought him into Will and told him that he needed to give Preston a blessing to help him sleep. I suppose I should have politely asked, but I was sort of at my wit's end and just wanted to let him know that the blessing was needed. For Preston and for myself.

Will laid his hands on Preston's head and gave him a blessing to help him sleep, and then took Preston into his nursury. I didn't hear him cry at all and about 30 min later Will came out. Preston was asleep in his crib.

Later that night, Will got to go to the airport to pick up our brother-in-law, James, as he had a layover in Seattle. Preston had woken up for one of his usual night feedings, and I happened to of been right there next to his crib watching him sleep and thanking Heavenly Father for him in my life. So I was glad to be there for him to see first thing as he awoke.

I took him and we sat down in the rocker and he drifted back into dreamland and I just stared at him in amazement at what a wonderful baby he was. I realized that all he really wanted was to be held, to fall asleep in our arms, and to wake up and have us still there.

So for the next two hours, as I was waiting for Will and James to come back from the airport, I sat out on the couch and snuggled with Preston. The house was quiet, and it was just really special.

We're still trying to work on getting him to sleep better, but it was moments like last night where I am reminded that even though I might be sleep deprived, I really am so glad to be a mother and Preston is such an amazing little boy.

Here's a photo of Will and Preston from last week (by the way Preston's head only looks that big because Will is quite a ways back behind him making his head appear a lot smaller):

Will still hasn't had much luck on the job front, but we have been so blessed in soooo many ways. That is an entirely different blog for a different day though.

He has been keeping me entertained with his random funny-ness too. Will is usually a pretty smart guy but every now and then he has his blonde moments. He just got this fancy watch in the mail that he is testing out for a company and then he is going to write a review on it. It has an altimeter, heart rate monitor, pedometer...you name it. Well he was reading the manual, all excited like a kid on Christmas morning, when he says to me, "Hey Jenni! You could totally wear this to the gym and we could see how high you climb on the stairmaster."

I stopped, tried to keep a straight face, and reminded him that you don't actually climb anywhere on a stairmaster. He then couldn't believe he just said that.

We will be celebrating our 4th wedding anniversary next week and to celebrate, we are heading up to Whistler B.C. to go skiing with a group of friends.

Will has been running several races and I'm sure one of these days he will get around to doing a race blog (Eh hem, Will?). :)

Anyway, sorry this was so long but I just wanted to write this all down to read again someday. If you even made it this far - congrats.

That's all folks!

Thank You

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who stopped by to give us your thoughts and your opinion regarding the album.

It was interesting to hear all of your thoughts. Most younger adults (moms with little ones) voted for the Solo Piano album because they felt it would be more calming at bedtime. However, most older adults (with teenagers or empty-nesters) voted for the orchestral album. And a really good number said they would enjoy both.

We have decided to make a dual album (2 discs in one jewel case) containing both versions. Outside views aside, when we look at what we personally want for this album, we both feel that the two cds belong together as a companionship.

It has nothing to do with the financial aspect, because truth be told we would make more money off of selling the albums seperately. However, in the end, it is not so much about the money but about being true to ourselves as artists and this is simply the way we feel we want the album to be presented. It is so great that we now know that both versions will be accepted in the end.

Thanks for all your wonderful comments and for the vote of confidence regarding our hard work. We will be wrapping up the recording over the next couple of weeks. About half of our songs are mixed/mastered. (I'm the one behind, my mother's songs are almost complete...but I still have some work to do to finish up recording).

You are all wonderful. Thank you.

Additional Clips

I have posted two orchestral versions on my MySpace page. It does help to hear an entire song verses a clip.

www.myspace.com/jenniferthomasmusic

The songs are:

Goodnight My Angel (Billy Joel)
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

I am curious what your thoughts are after hearing an entire song with the orchestration if solo piano is still prefered.

Cast Your Vote

Update: I have posted a new version of the solo piano clip because we felt the two could be compared more fairly if they were showing the exact same songs on each clip. So please re-listen if you already stopped by earlier and listened to the old clip.

I am in need of your valued opinion.

We are in the final weeks of producing my Mother and I's upcoming Lullaby Album. And...well, to make a long story short, our simple-quick-economical album has turned into a full fledged top-notch expensive production.

We have composed and arranged 13 absolutely beautiful lullabies. Along the way, we started orchestrating the album little by little...and now, we have several artists on board who have contributed their talents to the album both in vocals, orchestration, and production. A few of the songs on the album have some very stunning orchestration by Emmy award winning composer Jace Vek, there are also some unique instruments such as the Uillean pipe, penny whistle, to name a few...We also have a talented vocalist, Jillian Goldin, on board who is a Grand prize winner on Ourstage.com for her music. And our engineer on the album is Grammy Award nominated producer Paul Speer.

So like I said...the project sort of got magnified. In a very good way, but...here's where I need your honest opinion:

The idea has been presented lately, within the last week actually, that while the orchestration is stunning, there might be many who would enjoy this album in its simplist form - just solo piano. That was sort of the idea from the get-go before it turned into a full production.

For the last couple of days we have been talking about producing two different versions of the album - one orchestrated version, and one solo piano version. Both in their own seperate jewel case. We have talked about "What if we do a double-cd set?" or "Let's do one jewel case and one jacket case". But now, like I said, we are considering doing two full jewel cases (one for each version). The reason for this is because if we did a dual-case, we would have to charge more for the album and it might deter some away who might otherwise boughten the album and only because it was more pricey.

My question is: If you personally were going to purchase this album, would you:

a) Buy the orchestrated version
b) Buy the solo piano version
c) Buy both (for a discounted price)

or

d) I would rather have a double-cd album (2 discs in one jewel case).

That last option is new, and I can't add it to the poll since the poll has already been started.

Also, if the album did, say, come in a double-pack ONLY (2 cds in 1 jewel case) for $19.99, would that steer you away from purchasing it because of the cost? Whereas if we manufactured them seperately, you would at least then have the choice of buying only one (or both at a discount)?

To do this new idea of the two seperate jewel cases, it basically doubles our production cost and so we really would love to get some feedback on which versions would be the most appealing to our audiences before we ahead with this. I wanted to pose the question here, because you guys (our family and friends) are the opinions that matter to us. I really mean that.

Also, just to give a few more reasons for this whole 2 Cd thing, is because the intent of the album is to be something you can stick in the cd player in your children's rooms and play to lull them off to sleep. But the songs are written in a way that both adults and children will love to listen. However....we think maybe the orchestrated version might be more applealing to adults, but the solo version might be better for putting babies to sleep (because it is more toned down and simple).

I put two clips below - one orchestrated the other solo piano, so you can listen. I am also going to put a poll over on the sidebar so you can cast your vote, but please leave me comments as well because I want to hear what your opinions are as well besides just casting a vote.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to give me your opinion. I really really appreciate it.

- J

Audio Clip #1 - Orchestrated Version Sampler

This sampler has 5 (or 6? I can't remember) of the orchestrated songs. Remember, pretty much all the songs are orchestrated so in all there are 13. But for the sampler I only included a short few examples. (sorry the ending gets cut off because of the length and blogger only allows certain time on videos)

Audio Clip #2 - Solo Piano Sampler below

Because we felt it would help the music be judged more fairly,I have uploaded a new version of the solo piano clip. This version has the exact same songs as the orchestrated version so you can compare better. Please take a listen. Go back and forth if you need to. We really value your thoughts.

Thank you!

P.S. The songs on the samplers are:

All the Pretty Horses

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

I Am a Child of God

Dream Weaver

Brahms Lullaby