Rising star?

I can hear the interview now:

Interviewer:  “Grant Worley, violin virtuoso, when did you begin learning the violin?”

Grant:  “I was just a boy of about 3…”

Music Notes

So, Rachel made it to the Finals of the 2011 Young Hoosiers Piano Competition.  Yippee!  That sums part of what has been going on around here lately.  It’s been all about the piano lately.  :-)  The competition was up in West Lafayette.  Mom and Dad drove here and we all rode together up to the competition.  I think it helped calm Rachel’s nerves and gave her something to focus on besides the competition.  We made it there about 45 minutes early (surely a record for us) so she would have time to practice.  We were supposed to be in the competition room 15 minutes before her scheduled time (4:25), so we heard a few of other competitors, who were very good.  Rachel did very well with “Bethena” and did not look or sound nervous at all.  We were very proud of her!

The next day began her first day of Butler Piano Camp.  She was mostly looking forward to it, but was a little nervous about the prospect of being somewhere new and big from 9:00 – 5:30 Monday through Friday.  It ended up being a great experience for her!  She made some new friends and learned a tremendous amount about music.  In addition to the workshops and practicing, she had a daily private lesson with a professor (Ms. Kim) who helped her fine tune “Bethena”.  (She wished she could’ve had those lessons before the competition!)

The recital was on Friday.  Mick came home around 11:00 and we headed off to Butler.  We left about 10 minutes earlier than we needed to be sure we could get there in time for the 1:00 pictures of the group.  Unfortunately, U.S. 421 was down to one lane and what should’ve been a 45-minute trip turned into a 75- minute trip!!  So frustrating!  But thankfully, we did get there in time for the recital to begin.  The group performed together in Lilly Hall, then we all walked over to the Recital Hall for the solo recitals.  The Mozingos caught up with us there.  Rachel’s “Bethena”, the final performance, was wonderful!  We told her they saved the best for last.  ;-)

Ms. Kim told Rachel she is ready for some Beethoven, Bach and Chopin, among others, so lately we have been browsing YouTube, trying to find the next piece to work on.  This is one of the first ones we really liked:  Chopin Nocturne Op.9 No.2.  Beautiful!  We’ve already found the sheet music and downloaded it last night.  Rachel is also attacking the Alfred piano instruction series books to make sure she keeps learning the basics. 

We don’t know God’s plans for her gift, but it’s fun, exciting and humbling to watch it begin to unfold!

Sparkling Shoes

Isn’t it amazing how sparkly white these running shoes are?  Who would’ve thought that when Mick and I bought these ten days ago, we could keep them so clean and white for so long!  It’s possible we may have to break down and get them dirty tonight, but there is a good chance of strong storms.  We’ll just have to see…  ;-)

Fun-loving Fathers

How I love, love, love to watch kids play with their daddies.  Through the years, our girls have all enjoyed the physical, raucous way their daddy plays with them.  Sometimes it hasn’t all been rosy.  Like the time Mick was sitting in the middle of the living room tossing 3yo Rachel up onto the couch.  He’d toss her up and over to the couch, she’d bounce off the couch and come running back, laughing and begging him to do it again.  You can probably guess what happened next.  Yep, he made a slight miscalculation on how hard he needed to throw her to get her to the couch and she landed right in front of it on the floor!  Ouch! 

There were also the times when the tickling went on a little too long (except with Claire – I don’t think that girl will ever get tired of being tickled), or they didn’t appreciate having the living daylights scared out of them.  Speaking of scaring:  why is it that boys love to scare girls so much?  I’ve told our girls about how Daddy, early in our marriage, even enjoyed hiding behind corners and scaring me!  :-D  Or how their Uncle Glenn once hid at the end of a dark hallway and surprised Aunt Kelly by taking her picture (it’s a hysterical picture, by the way – pure shock on her face!)  Or how Uncle Glenn delighted in hiding a rubber snake in various places around the house when he and Aunt Kelly were living with us. 

With Grant, for the first time we get to watch a little boy’s reaction to his daddy’s special style of play – and it is delightful.  He gets such a charge out of being tickled, tossed on beds, rolled on the floor, thrown in the air … you name it – he likes it!  It’s just so different from how his sisters or I interact with him and he responds to it all in such a big way.  This evening was like many others:  Mick gets home from work and soon thereafter, Grant plows into him and the fun starts.  :-)  While I watched them tonight, I thought about how many kids don’t have their dads living at home with them, and what they’re missing out on.  It’s so sad.  I wonder if this type of rambunctious, physical interaction between dads and their kids – especially sons – is much more important than we can appreciate and understand.  I don’t know if it can be quantified in any way, but I just think it matters a lot.

 

Barns, baby kitties and ballet pictures

Whew.  I’m not sure how long I can keep up this pressure to come up with a clever blog title.  OK, this one wasn’t too clever, but it sums up my topics this time. 

We spent Saturday down at Mom & Dad’s while the guys helped put up a barn.  It was pretty warm and very humid, but they did well and got the whole thing done by nightfall.  And it only took 2 trips to Lowe’s!  We also had fun celebrating the June birthdays with a pinata. 

Work is fascinating … we could watch it for hours.  ;-)

Dad, giving his best impersonation of a supervisor.  He’s so silly!  :-D

The happy birthday girls posing in front of their cake.  Unfortunately for us, Benjamin couldn’t be there.  Happily for him, he was at the Zoo with Monica’s parents. 

Once the kids were done with the piñata, it was time to use the rope for a new game: Human Piñata!  Thankfully, Rachel didn’t let her go any higher than that.  Still made me nervous … no more broken bones, please! 

Sunday brought an unexpected adventure.  A friend needed to give away his 5-week-old kittens, due to the fact that their mother was hit by a car that morning.  One look at a picture of one of them was all it took.  The girls ended up picking out Bentley and Violet.  They’re quite cute and, we’re hoping, very resilient!

Bentley

Violet

I’ll end with the ballet pictures (yay, I remembered my camera this time!!).  We are really liking the classes with Ms. Hume.  The girls are all listening well and look beautiful.  I will restrain myself and just publish some of my favorite pictures. 

(ouch.)

Claire entertained herself with 2 dolls during the big girls’ class.

Grant had a car for entertainment (anything with wheels will do for him).

And, well, Trent was just entertaining.  ♥

Trent … I apologize …

Truly, I am sorry.  But I couldn’t help it:  You see, there was the spirit of birthday celebration in the air.  The pink lemonade was flowing.  There were squeals of delight, shouts of joy and a carefree, throw-caution-to-the-wind feeling abounding.  And you just looked soooo funny.  Please forgive me.  I’m sure when the other high school football players tease you about this picture, you’ll be able to take ‘em.  Something about your fat thighs reassures me of this.

June 10 – Happy 5th Birthday, Claire!

Through the years, our girls have developed a fun birthday tradition.  About an hour or so before Grandma and Grandpa arrive, I (or more recently, Rachel) spend time preparing the birthday girl’s hair and dress for a grand entrance.  Once Grandma and Grandpa are here, the birthday girl descends the stairs in all her glory, while the rest of the family claps, whoops & hollers over the lovely birthday girl.  It’s a fun tradition that we all look forward to and it always makes for some great pictures.  Here, Claire is obviously enjoying the attention from Grandma and Grandpa, who are admiring her lovely hairdo, courtesy of Rachel. 



I’ve always said I think every child should have at least one doting grandparent, or at least an older adult who fawns over them like a grandparent. 

Claire requested Calzones, green beans and pink lemonade, so we added Doritos and fresh strawberries to the menu.  The table looked great in all its pinkness.



For her birthday cake, she requested Pumpkin Cake.  Her favorite?  Well, not necessarily.  I don’t think she’d ever even tried Pumpkin Cake, but that was her repeated request.  (It turned out really good; I used this recipe.)

Before we started lighting the candles, Mom and Dad spotted Grant making his move on some glaze that had dripped down onto the cake server.  They got the biggest kick out of that and had me grab the camera.  Why didn’t they think things like that were funny when I did them as a child???

Then it was on to the gifts and boy, was Claire excited (as was her compadre)!

I mean, really excited!



Did I mention she was excited?

Yes, it was quite entertaining and gratifying to watch Claire open each gift.  She literally got that excited about everything – from pencils to sidewalk chalk to coloring books.  Soo cute!

Probably the biggest hit overall was the Rapunzel wig we got her.

Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful, effervescent girl of ours!

Mom & Dad ended up leaving around 10:00 and the kids didn’t calm down and go to bed until 10:30 or so.  Tomorrow, we head down to Mom & Dad’s for the June birthday celebration.  While we’re there, Glenn & Mick are going to be helping Dad put together a new shed.  Glenn wants to get an early start to beat the heat.  And now I wonder:  what is the likelihood of a family of 10 getting out of the house by 7:30 am?  That’s what I thought.  Stay tuned …

Thursday, June 9–Lunch at LePeep’s

Thursday gave us another productive morning, then on down to 71st & 465 to meet Andrea & Abbie, just back from Togo, West Africa, where the family spent the last 10 years as missionaries.  They’re stateside for 9 months, then back to Africa, but this time they’re moving to Rwanda. 

The four of us had a nice, leisurely visit, eating, chatting, nursing (well, Trent was the only one who nursed, but he nursed enough for the group.). 

Abby and Courtney, cousins a few times removed.



Trent would not stop staring at a nearby customer, so we took this picture from an angle to try to look more natural.  :-D

 

We really had an enjoyable time.  Between homeschooling, mothering and great book recommendations, Andrea and I had no shortage of topics to discuss.  In the 14 or so years that they have been married, I really haven’t had many opportunities to visit with Andrea, but I feel like she’s a friend, as well as a relation.  Of course, once you realize you’re talking to another Jane Austen fan, there’s an instant connection.  :-)

After lunch, Courtney and I went to Wal-Mart to finish up Claire’s birthday shopping.  While on the way home, I got a worried call from Rachel, who spotted a helicopter landing on our road!  A year or so ago, we saw a police helicopter nearby when a couple of car thieves were hiding out a few miles from our house.  She was concerned it might be police, but I told her it would probably be marked as such.  I really didn’t have an explanation for it. While we were talking, it lifted up, then a truck pulled up where it had landed and the helicopter landed on the truck!  So strange, and I felt bad that I couldn’t do anything to calm her since I had no idea why there was a helicopter sitting on a truck just at the edge of our property.

I continued talking to her while we were driving home and she eventually realized the helicopter was spraying the fields.  Ahh!  Now it all made sense.  I do remember last year seeing a helicopter spraying distant fields.  The fields immediately surrounding our house have always been sprayed by a traditional airplane crop-duster, but I guess they’re using a helicopter this year.  Since I had the camera with me for our restaurant picture, Courtney was able to get some pretty good pictures of the picture as we were coming up on the house.





Here’s the helicopter landed and, I suspect, getting reloaded with chemicals.  Comforting thought.





I don’t think I can overstate how captivated Grant was the whole time. 



How cute is he, with his hands on his hips?  :-D

Wednesday, June 8 – Furniture Makeovers, and Pastor Mark comes a-callin’

Wednesday was back to normal … ahhhhh.  Well, almost.  Once a year, our shepherding elder makes a house call to talk one-on-one with each of his “shepherded” families (I guess that’s what we’re called?).  This time, Kim came with Pastor Mark.  We made a gallant effort of school in the morning, but by lunchtime, there was a smell of chocolate chip cookies in the air.  (I have miles to go in the area of hospitality, but I can make a mean chocolate chip cookie.)

To add to the excitement, the afternoon also brought a much-anticipated UPS truck by the house.  Last week, I bit the bullet and ordered a new slipcover for a couch we recently got from Heather & Ron, who got it from Grandma, who bought it new.  The couch is a nice addition to our piano room, but I wasn’t crazy about the upholstery.  Kelly (my own personal Martha Stewart) told me about a website she bought slipcovers from. So, I went ahead and ordered some.
 
In our excitement to put on the slipcovers, we did have the presence of mind to take some before pictures.

And here are the afters ………. <drum roll please>

Not too bad, eh?  Actually, we love it!  Now we’re eyeing more candidates for slipcovers … like the giant chair-and-a-half in the piano room.