MINI PIANO RECITAL

As many of you know, Jordan has been taking piano lessons for awhile now. She started showing an interest in all things musical at about age two, and her interest has continued to increase every year. When she turned five I started thinking that maybe we should let her try piano or violin lessons to see if her musical interest was real or just a faze. I debated between the piano and violin at first because although the violin was smaller and easier to rent, I felt that starting her on the piano would be better. Turns out, thanks to our wonderful neighbors down the street, my decision was made very easy when they offered to give us their used piano. What a blessing it was to us and we are so grateful to them, especially now eight months later with Jordan still going strong. So, we had the piano moved and tuned and Jordan started weekly lessons in late May of last year. She really seems to love it and according to her teacher she is doing extremely well. We are thrilled that she likes it, and I am so impressed with how she practices on her own finishing her assignments without any reminders. The only bad thing in all this is that Jordan's piano teacher does not do student recitals, but with this blog give me an easy way to remedy this. I can post video clips of Jordan playing the piano (mini recitals) and anyone who visits my blog can watch them. I used our camera to take the video, so I'm sure the quality is not as good as it could be and I'm trying to find a way to make them longer, but I think its enough to give you the idea. This first mini recital is dedicated to Cindy and Eric, who were generous enough to give us our first piano. Enjoy!

Mini Recital Video #1 - January 2009

LIFE OF A KIDNEY BEAN

A week and a half ago, on January 13, Carson planted a kidney bean seed in a little plastic cup at preschool. Last Tuesday, he came home and told us that a classmates seed and his teacher's seed had started to sprout, so upon arriving home we immediately had to check on his seed (which he had forgotten about up until Tuesday). The little seed in its cup had been sitting on the window sill above the sink since we brought it home. Jason and I had watered it a few times, but not being inclined to gardening I was sceptical that the seed would sprout. I knew the seed hadn't sprouted yet, and as we peered into our little cup, Jordan made the announcement that our seed wasn't growing. Knowing that some of the other seeds had sprouted I worried that we may have watered ours too much or not enough, that the window sill may have been too cold, or maybe it just wasn't a good seed. Turns out my worries were unfounded, as we discovered on Friday, when Jason looked in the cup and spotted a sprout. Jordan and Carson were really excited to see the sprout and when we looked at the bottom of the cup we could even see the roots. The sprout has made great progress in the last 3 days and we have recorded its growth in photos.

Friday - sprout discovery:

Saturday - a little bigger:

Sunday afternoon - even bigger:

Carson and his kidney bean:

POTHOLDERS GALORE

For Christmas Jordan got a weaving kit complete with instruction book, loom, and loops. The first project was to make a potholder. Once I showed her how to put the first set of loops on the loom and then weave the second set of loops between the first set she was off. By the second potholder she was even able to do some of the edge finishing after watching me do it just a few times. She started the first potholder in the evening after dinner and finished it the next morning, and that was all it took. That day she proceeded to make four more potholders for a total of five in two days. I'm thinking we'd better start on the next project before the house is overrun by potholders.

Jordan weaving away:

Four of the five potholders:

WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?

Today Corinne is 18 months old (which I can't believe) and I asked her, "Where has the time gone?" And her answer:

Every time one of the kids hits a new milestone or celebrates a birthday Jason and I look at each other in amazement and wonder where the time went. It seems to me that with the addition of our first little miracle time immediately responded by shifting into fast forward. Last month we looked at our beautiful first born and realized, to our horror, that she was six years old already! Then, what's worse, at the same time we also realized that our second born (whose first year of life is lost in a groggy sleep deprived haze) is four years old and it became clear that the fast forward speed on life increases with each child.

So, today I look at our darling last born and see an 18 month old toddler, no longer a baby, now walking and talking (mostly saying "no") and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. Some days I wish I could push life's pause button, or at the very least the slow button, and enjoy the time a little longer. I insert these last pictures as a tribute to the time before; before they were 6, 4, and 18 months; before Corinne could walk and talk; before Jordan wore glasses; before Carson had hair; and before I ever wondered where the time had gone. The pictures are mostly for me, but also for those of you who knew them before.

Jordan - 3 months

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Carson - 5 months

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Corinne - 1 month

LET IT SNOW

Although I am not a big fan of snow, my children are, so when snow appears on the ground there is the inevitable chorus of little voices asking to go outside and play. As you can probably guess, I have heard "Can we go out and play?" quite a bit in the last several days.

We had an especially good time on Friday when we went to our friend Whitney's house for some sledding on the family's backyard hill. Jordan and Whitney were all over the sled and good size hill right away, and were having a blast zooming down the hill and being stopped by the big pile of snow covered leaves at the bottom. Carson, more cautious by nature, wouldn't sled at first and instead busied himself with throwing snow. Eventually though, the fun that the girls were having was too much to bear and he had to give the sled a try. He loved it, and soon the three of them were taking turns down the hill. (During the sledding adventure Corinne was napping peacefully inside.)

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On Sunday, despite the coating of ice on top of the snow, the kids wanted to go outside and play again. Corinne, having already had her nap, made it clear that she was not going to be left out and intended to go, too. They had a good time in the backyard cracking ice and making footprints, and even followed the tracks of an unsuspecting animal (the neighbor's dog) at the end of which they found a small doggy "treasure" (and I'll leave it at that).

BLOG BEGINNINGS

So, to kick off the new 2009 year I decided to start a blog. I don't know how it will go or if I'll be able to keep up with it, but I'm hoping for the best. I never thought I'd have a blog, but I decided to try it for a couple of reasons:
1) I enjoy writing (even if I'm not that great at it)
2) I was inspired to create a blog by a friend, AK, whose blog is really good
3) I think its a great way to keep friends and family up to date
4) It seemed like fun (we'll see if I still feel this way in a few months)
So here's to my inaugural post and to the many (hopefully) to follow!