Brag time

Last Friday, Rachel competed in the 2013 State Fair Young Hoosiers Piano Competition. You won’t hear her talk about it (unless you ask her, and then she would just smile and nod and say it “went well”) because she is quiet and modest about these things. However, being her (less quiet and modest) mom, I have the distinct right -- nay, even the duty – to tell others about what a great job she did in the competition. :-)

This year, her instructor, Ms. Kim, suggested she perform songs in 4 different categories:  Sonata, Tchaikovsky, Bach and Classical. The Sonata was a Beethoven piece, Piano Sonata No. 10 in G major. I remember when she first heard this song, she doubted she could ever learn it. She really pushed herself to get through it, and spent many, many hours working on this one section:

Clip of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 10 in G major

Really, this short clip is indicative of how well she played each of the four songs. She was very focused and afterwards, admitted she “wasn’t really that nervous.”

We expect to find out within the next week or so whether she advances to the Finals. Each song is judged separately, so if she does advance, it may be with one piece, all pieces, or any combination. We don’t make any assumptions about whether or not she’ll advance; of course, we feel like she did very well, but the contest is very competitive and the judges have lots of criteria they judge on.

Ms. Kim has a very pragmatic approach to competitions: the goal shouldn’t be to win, but to get a piece to the point of being “competition-ready.” That is a goal we were happy and proud to watch Rachel accomplish last Friday.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above …“ James 1:17

Lord, we thank You for Your gift of music.

“The Little Blue Truck” by Alice Schertle

This is a new book that we got Grant for his birthday. As you can see, Trent is a fan. :-)  Through the years, we have accumulated lots and lots of books for young children, but we’re always on the lookout for new books when birthdays and Christmas roll around. Sometimes, I think the only good books are the ones that are at least 25 years old, but then I find a new “classic,” and my faith in modern storytelling is rekindled.

And how sweet is it that Claire was reading it Trent? Rachel found the two of them like this the other morning and I’m so glad she was able to get this picture!

Catching up a little

I wonder how many other bloggers do something like this: in the midst of some funny/interesting/amazing event, she thinks to herself “I’m definitely going to blog about that!”  She takes several pictures and vows to blog about it as soon as possible. And then a couple of days go by, and something else funny/interesting/amazing happens, more pictures are taken, more vows made, more time goes by. And eventually, it all fades into the background.

So, I have a few quiet moments this morning (have to get up pretty early around here for that to happen) and I’m browsing through the photos on the laptop from the past few months and suddenly, this seems like the perfect time for a summary-type post.

So, while this may seem quite random, there is a common thread: all these pictures are from the laptop. How’s that for a theme? And before I start to feel too smug about getting this blog post done (finally!), I remind myself that there are actually lots more pictures on the other computer. Yikes! Oh well. Gotta start somewhere!

The Worleys visit the Worleys.

Back in April, we got together at Grandma Worley’s for a cookout. It was a mild, beautiful day, which is really amazing, considering the fact that 2 weeks before, we had a lot of snow! The kids had a lot of fun running around in the woods and playing in the little pond Uncle Rick put in.

What the girls probably remember most about that day was finally getting to meet cousin Nicole’s newest little one, Zavier. Sweet little guy who was happy to be held by all.

Back in the late 1970s, Mick’s dad bought this property from his parents that is located right next to theirs. He built the house just beyond some woods that separate the two properties. I took several of the kids on a hike through the woods and climbed up a little rise to show them this:

the beautiful pond that Mick’s Grandpa Worley put in decades ago. Mick spent many happy hours fishing on and around this pond. I went with him several times (caught a really big largemouth bass once!). I’ll never forget the time we were fishing and spotted a large, black snack slithering through the water in the general direction of our little rowboat!  For a split second, I didn’t know whether to stay in the boat or jump in the water and try to make a mad dash for the shore! We have great memories of being there, not the least of which were the many, many visits with Mick’s wonderful Grandma Worley. (Mental note: need to write a blog post about Great Grandma Worley!)

There’s nothing like visiting something from your past and finding that it looks exactly as you remembered it. I think that’s pretty rare.

Two Bruce cousins come for a visit – because six girls in the house just isn’t enough.

Back in April, Heather and Ron took a rare vacation, so two of the girls stayed with us. Anna divided her time between her caregivers and Mom and Dad.

They were here from Wednesday through Sunday, which meant lots of playing, giggling, late-night chatting and even quite a bit of work on a new production: a sequel to that great classic The Secret of the Vioin.

Alix and Kate joined the fun on Saturday night, so Sunday morning getting ready for church was fun. :-)  I really wanted to get a picture of the girls getting ready, but I was too busy and didn’t make it upstairs for a picture. Rachel said it was quite a spectacle to see everybody jockeying for position in front of the mirror.  :-D

Several nights during their stay, Erica entertained the younger girls with a show featuring many of their stuffed animals. The star was an interesting stuffed dog of Ellie’s named “Diddly” whose name, for some reason, was changed to “Old Joe Crotchety” for the show :-D This all usually started pretty late at night and went on for quite some time.

She had quite a rapt audience.

  

They spent a couple of days working on the drama, and I must say, as they get older, their costumes and props are getting much more elaborate and authentic-looking.

 

The acting ability is even improved: more dramatic.

 

The Bruce girls will be staying with us again towards the end of July, so hopefully they’ll be able to finish this elaborate production then. Filming delays are common in the industry, of course. I’m sure the final product will attract lots of attention and accolades at area film festivals.

Mother’s Day.

One of the fun things about this Mother’s Day was that all six girls sang together for the first time at Grandma Worley’s church. They sang “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” and did a wonderful job! Grandma was beyond thrilled and made us promise not to buy her any more Mother’s Day gifts. “The girls singing was my gift!”

One of these days, I want to go back through our pictures (yes, even the print photos <gasp>) and put together a collage of Mother’s Day pictures with Lois. We’ve been going to church on Mother’s Day with Grandma Worley since the girls were very young; I can’t even remember when we started doing it. I think it would make a fun collage.

And then it was on to Mom and Dad’s. I’m sure we were laughing at the kids in this picture.  :-D

That’s all for now. More to random, picture-filled posts to come!

“Little Miss Spider at Sunnypatch School” by David Kirk

Many years ago, this was a well-loved bedtime story at our house. Sadly, it went the way of so many books these days: the binding quickly wore away, separating the book into several parts and we eventually had to throw it out. Sometimes, I can make adequate repairs to a book’s binding with packing tape, but often, it’s a lost cause. Modern-day book binding is one of those topics that I occasionally rant about. Like so many other products in today’s marketplace, it is very cheaply done with no concerns about how long the product will last. I think about how many great family books have been lovingly passed down through generations and I worry about this and future generations. What will be left to pass down? We have some very old books which have been graciously given to us or bought at antique shops and their bindings are almost always in very good shape. But many of the books we’ve bought new since we’ve started our family usually last just a year or two before the binding starts to fall apart. Frustrating!

Back to this happy picture and the book Sarah is reading. We found this copy at the library the other day. The illustrations in the book are very unusual – to the point of being distracting -- but if you look closely at them, they are actually quite clever and detailed. Trent probably just likes the fact that the story is about a spider. He likes bugs!

Thanks, I think.

I came across this text analyzing tool today and thought I’d try it out. I used 2 of the paragraphs from my latest blog post (the big one and the one that follows it) as samples. The results are in …

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

Surely there must be a bug in the analyzer software; I thought I was a shoo-in for Jane Austen! Looks like I might actually have to read my copy of Dubliners to see how I feel about this.

Tales from the Toddler Frontline

Look at this sweetie. Seriously, it looks like he was posed by a photographer. But no. The other day, while I was making lunch, I looked over and Trent was sitting like this. Patiently waiting for his lunch. So patient. So adorable.

My mom often tells people that we kids were so cute … and it was a good thing, because sometimes, that was the only thing that saved us.  :-D  I get that now. 

Last night, I had a toe-to-toe standoff with this little guy in the Burger King parking lot. He had been temporarily released from the strict confines of his car seat and he would not – would not – get back in. I tried all the tricks I knew – yes, I was shamelessly bargaining, bribing, nearly begging. In other words, totally throwing out all the strict parenting convictions I made before I had kids. Of course there were extenuating circumstances that parents with a little more experience know to take into consideration. It was late (past 10:00 – oops, don’t read this. Tee hee.), he had just spent 1.5 hours sitting pretty quietly on my lap at Rachel’s piano recital, another hour of driving back and dropping off cousins and a friend, and now he was just done with it all. I felt for him, but in the end, he had to get back into that seat for the 10-minute ride home. So, of course I had to end up manhandling him back into his carseat with him kicking and screaming all the while. He might have bested me if Rachel hadn’t been there to help hold his legs down. Strong little bugger! (Mick had driven separately and had already left, or else this probably would’ve been over in about 2.5 minutes.)  It was quite a lovely scene – straight out of Little House on the Prairie. ::eye roll::

What followed was several minutes of very loud protesting (read: shrieking and flailing) while I drove home as fast as I could, with many of the others plugging their ears. Suddenly, someone from the back of the van started singing “Happy Birthday to You.” Whoever that was deserves Sister/Daughter/Citizen of the Year awards. The others joined in immediately. This had an amazingly magical, gloriously quieting effect and there was an almost instant calm over the van. The girls sang all three verses and then jumped right into other toddler favorites. Peace was restored and everyone began relaxing … until Grant started crying because “Trent’s screaming scared me.” <sigh>

And then, I look back up at that sweet little face, and I’m in my happy place again.  :-)

"All Creatures Great and Small" by James Herriot

Wow. «««««!  I just loved this book! So much that I would rank it in my top 5. Some of the chapters were laugh-out-loud funny (e.g., the calving in Chapter 1 with "Uncle" giving his 2 cents, the Bramleys and their kittens in Chapter 58), and others were incredibly poignant (chapter 45 about John Skipton and his beloved retired work horses really got me). I re-read many sections of this out loud to, well, whoever happened to be nearby when I read something I especially liked.

It's interesting, when I browse through the comments for this book on Goodreads, I frequently see sentiments like this "If you like animals, this is a good book for you," but I really think Herriot's stories show us his warm feelings toward the unique people who owned the animals, rather than the animals themselves.

This was a library book, but it definitely deserves a permanent spot in our personal library. So incredibly wonderful.