Christmas Piano Recital 12.17.10

Awards Ceremony 11.20.10

Doesn't she look mini?  I love this girl.

Kate's First Piano Competition 11.19.10

Sweet Kate performed in her first piano competition.  The age range for the competition was all the way through sixth grade.  And our little second grader played well enough to earn an Honorable Mention!  She was fine about playing, but thrilled to get her traditional end-of-performance chocolate cookie-dough shake at Arctic Circle.  Nice to know she has her priorities in place.

Our Poor Kate 11.4.10

Our poor Kate has been complaining about her stomach and throat since before school started in August.  We've been to the doctor, back to the doctor, back to the doctor, and back to the doctor, looking for clues.  Finally we were sent up to Primary Children's for tests.  Kate did not like having her blood drawn.  She babied her arm for the next day or so.

Verdict?  Possibly mono.  The scary tests all came back fine, so that was good.  And the recheck we did last week was clear.  We're moving on to figuring out if diet has something to do with her constant yuckiness.  After Christmas we'll start keeping a food journal and pulling different things out of her diet.

And to that, I have to say BLEH.  My one child who eats almost everything now has to STOP eating things?  Just my luck!

Halloween and Kate's Recital 10-23-10

Our neighbors threw a Halloween party for some of the younger kids in the neighborhood.  Actually, it was more a Halloween extravaganza.  Kate and Ben had way too much fun.

After the Halloween party, Kate got ready for her concerto recital.  It's been so long that I don't know why Sophie play in the concerto recital.  She played a concerto in Federation the next weekend, too, so I can't quite figure it out.  It's pretty sad that my brain is so non-functional.

She rocked the house on her concerto (Lynn Freeman Olsen, Celebration, Mvt. 1) and I was super proud.  I love this girl of mine!

Reading Time 9.12.10

I love watching my children interact with each other.

Hmmm.

Let me rephrase that:  I love watching my children interact POSITIVELY with each other.

I especially love when Kate and Ben have reading time together.  Ben listens intently, Kate uses her best dramatic reading voice, and I feel like something is going right in our home, at least for a short, fleeting moment.

Glasses 7.15.10

Kate's getting glasses. She's very excited. And very cute.

Two Front Teeth 7.9.10

I kept putting off taking pictures of Kate's missing front teeth until the new ones were already coming in. She's growing up more every week. Seriously cute, isn't she?

Things to Come 6.25.10

KATE'S eyes have been getting worse. She finally tried Sophie's glasses to see if they helped. Yup. Guess we'll have two girls with glasses soon.

Insta-Recital 5.21.10

Bridget's spring recital is always lovely and I look forward to hearing her talented and well-prepared students..

Kate's been learning Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's Allegro since Federation and was finally ready to perform. It was a big jump ahead in her performance level, so she had to work extra hard. Sophie is back with Bridget (hooray!) and has been working on a concerto for a while. It didn't seem quite ready for the spring recital, so we didn't plan for her to play.

We had lessons from 4:30-5:30 on Friday. The recital was at 6:30, so I brought Kate's performance clothes along for the ride.

At Sophie's lesson, she played her concerto beautifully. SO beautifully that Bridget decided she should play in the recital that night. The main problem? She was in jeans and a t-shirt.

So we left Bridget's at 5:35 and ran off to find performance clothes.

Second store = Success.

6:27. Made it to the recital hall. Pulled the tags off of Sophie's new clothes. Ran into the hall.

Sophie was relaxed and confident like I've never seen her pre-performance. Kate was excited.

They both played beautifully. I was so thrilled. Kate really worked on her piece and nailed even the chords that were tripping her up earlier in the day. Sophie hasn't always felt like she wanted to play piano (but has never decided to quit when given the option) but after this performance, she felt totally inspired to continue.

It was a lovely night.

Toothless Wonder 5.18.10

Love this girl and the now ENORMOUS gap in her smile.

Thursday around the GreenHouse 5.6.10

Girls playing school. Love it.


Boys going running. Love it times four.

Josh has decided he doesn't have enough endurance on the soccer field, and his morning runs are getting more regular. He decided to start running with David a couple of evenings a week. So fun. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful habit.

Kate is Seven 4.12.10

Kate changed from six to seven in the blink of an eye.

Seven is a wonderful age. I love seven-year-olds. Still...does it have to keep going so FAST? Six is a wonderful age, too, and I would have loved six to have continued on for another couple of years at least.

At six, Kate moved from the beginning stages of learning to the intermediate stages. She has continued to be a fantastic student at school and in piano, a voracious reader, a sweet friend, and a happy happy girl. She continues to be the sunshine girl that she has been since birth. She just came happy into the world. I wish I could bottle her personality.

She loves to play with friends, to read out loud to us at bedtime or whenever we'll listen, to be outside, and she can still be caught playing with my hair when we're snuggling, one of the last remnants of her babyhood.

I love the little gap between her teeth. I love watching her eyes light up when some concept becomes crystal clear that was opaque just a minute before. I love her single dimple. I love that she sings very loudly when she plays pieces with words. I love that she still loves puzzles and enjoys doing them with Ben. I love to listen to her practice, going over and over her assigned sections almost always without complaint. (This is remarkable, really.) I love her green eyes and her freckles and her curly hair. I love that she's excited to pick up the mail and that she'll hold my hand when we walk down the street. I love watching her determined face while she practices rollerblading.

I do love that she is seven. But I also hate it. Where is the Life Pause button? I need it RIGHT NOW.

I mean, look at this little person:


And now look at this big person! Can you stand it?

Aminal Preschool 3.23.10

Kate and Ben made a preschool for their aminals. They read them stories, had them take naps, and fed them noodles for snack.

I hope their childhoods can last a little bit longer. Time is speeding by so quickly. So so quickly. I just want afternoons with aminals to hang around for a few more years, and I want to pay attention when they happen.

And they'd better not start calling them "animals" anytime soon or I'll be crying in bed.

My Little Reader 3.2.10

Kate has become a voracious reader. She reads in bed, she reads in the car, she reads in her room, she reads to Ben, she reads to David while they snuggle up in the beanbag. And she always reads out loud. I've mentioned it before, but I don't ever want to forget the way she reads out loud, with so much inflection and emotion. She is truly darling.

Recital 2.26.10

Daily, there is the battle to fit in the practicing.

Weekly, there is the 25 minute trip to lessons.

Monthly, there is the payment for piano lessons.

And every so often there is the pay off. The recital. Oh, blessed night when the stars align and the preparation comes together for a good performance...

And even when the stars don't align, and the performance is not perfect, recitals are still pretty special.

This one was even more special because it was Sophie's first recital with Bridget as her teacher. Sophie and Josh took lessons from Bridget this summer, but once school started and the move was imminent, I decided to continue teaching them myself.

This was not a good idea.

Then I was kicked out of the SL chapter of Federation because I had the audacity to move to another county. How dare I? Bridget was kind enough to take on Josh and Sophie as temporary students in the month of February so they could enter with her studio. Bless you, Bridget.

I hate to admit it, but it REALLY was a bad idea to teach my own kids piano. It baffles me that I can say "Watch that phrasing." "Practice that in sections, slow to fast with metronome." "That's a quarter, not an eighth." and they don't believe a word of it. But if Bridget says the same things (and she does), suddenly they listen.

Sigh.

The recital was fun. The shakes after the recital were yummy (or so I'm told). And I'm so so proud of my sweet girls (and so so grateful for Bridget's wonderful teaching.)

Picture of the Day 2.3.10

It's early out all week for the elementary school, and Sophie and her friend decided to try walking home to our house...a mile and a half uphill. Hooray for a lovely warm-ish day, and for two sweet girls willing to let Kate tag along. I met them along the way to take backpacks and give them my cell phone. They enjoyed the walk enough that they're planning a repeat. We all agree that we really REALLY miss walking to school, but the thirty minutes it took them to get home yesterday is just a little longer than the 3 minutes it took at our old house.

Picture of the Day 1.25.10

Family Home Evening does not always lead to family love and good feelings. Tonight, however, I looked over at my girls while we were attempting to sing "I am a Child of God" for the fourth time (certain family members were boycotting) and saw their sweet little intertwined legs. Does a mom's heart good.

Picture of the Day 1.23.10

Reading in bed. Seriously one of life's great pleasures. And I just love how Kate sticks out her tongue whenever she's really concentrating.

My Sweet Girls

This morning I walked in from a run to sounds of screaming and yelling from the general direction of my girls' room. This is not how I like to walk into my house. I would prefer to walk into a house full of happy, smiling children who are fully dressed with their teeth brushed and hair combed, preparing breakfast and setting the table (since I'm apparently living in dreamland, maybe they would also have finished their practicing and cleaned their rooms.) Has this ever happened? Of course not, but that doesn't stop me from fantasizing.

The girls were at that almost-fever pitch where they're not entirely sure why they're so mad, but they're just bugging each other more and more and spiraling nearly out of control. I let them know that they would be doing many extra jobs if they didn't quit it immediately. They didn't quit it immediately (why do I think they will?) and Kate will now be putting away laundry after school.

But three minutes later, Kate had made Sophie's bed, and Sophie was hugging her and saying thank you, and they were all of a sudden those happy, smiling children I would always love to have.

Life with these children is never boring. And sometimes it's so sweet.

(And sometimes it makes me want to hide somewhere dark and quiet for a few hours.)