Since the beginning, Jay and Rose have gone to Rebecca Cook in Prosser for their piano lessons. We love her so much, both as a human being, friend, and extremely thorough piano teacher. We stuck with her even after we moved to Sunnyside, driving the 30 minutes to her house before school once a week. In the thick of cross country season this year, however, everything started feeling hard. Getting the kids out the door on Tuesday mornings by 7am was a massive heavy burden. After much thought and consultation, we decided to switch to a local piano teacher to ease up the burden. It was such a hard heartbreaking decision to leave our beloved Sister Cook!
Our last piano lesson with Rebecca was November 5th and the last piano activity with her as their teacher was the Ribbon Festival on Saturday, November 16th. The Ribbon Festival was at the church building. Five rooms were set up with pianos in them and the kids rotated around to each room, playing songs from a different category in each room. Rebecca had Jay and Rose each write an original composition to perform in one of the rooms at the festival. They were quite proud of their songs and played them well. It was a lengthy two hours at the church listening to all of the kids play their songs in each room, but Jay and Rose happily collected their five ribbons at the end of the day. We said goodbye to Rebecca Cook with heavy hearts.
Now we are waiting for one of the local teachers in our ward to have lesson slots open up so Jay and Rose can continue their piano education. In the meantime, I am having them each practice 15 minutes a day out of the music books we have. I hope this hiatus is not detrimental to their progress! We will hopefully be starting with a new teacher in January. Piano lessons, in my opinion, are a necessary evil. I don't love listening to my kids plunking piano practice, but it is so good to learn music! So I bear it.
We love Sister Cook!
Somehow I took a picture of Rose performing but not Jay...I did take a video of Jay though.
Collecting their ribbons.
Jay, with his composition and ribbons.
Rose with her ribbons and composition.
Jay, Rose, and Amber participated in our ward's primary program on Sunday, November 17th. They wrote their own parts about something they learned from Come Follow Me this year. Jeff and I did our best to help them remember something to say. The primary leaders encouraged the kids to memorize their parts. Jay's part was long enough that he felt best having his paper to refer to while he was up front, and I don't blame him! Rose remembered the gist of her part and said it in her own way up front during the program in her own words, just as it should be. I helped Amber get familiar with her part, but didn't push memorization because Amber doesn't respond well to drilling or pushing. Somehow Amber mostly memorized her part all the same, and could say it with only a few small hints. It was a bit too long for a five year old, but I have been out of the primary game long enough to forget the importance of brevity when I wrote Amber's part for her.
Jay, Rose, and Amber were the first kids up front after the intro. Rose helped Amber say her part in the microphone during the program and it was very cute. Amber couldn't hear Rose whispering behind her, so she kept turning around and having Rose repeat herself. The congregation chuckled. Jay and Rose delivered their lines well. The program was sweet and simple--my favorite kind.
III.
On Tuesday, (November 19th) Jay lost one of his piano books. When we had looked every likely place, Jay said "we should pray." He dropped to his knees in the middle of the family room, folded his arms, bowed his head, and was about to say a prayer when my eyes landed on the lost book, lying on the bench by the kitchen table. "I see it!" I exclaimed. Jay un-bowed his head and looked where I was pointing. "That's the fastest a prayer has ever helped me find something!" Jay joked. "I didn't even start the prayer!" He stayed in his kneeling position and immediately said "we should say a thank-you prayer." So he proceeded to bow his head again and say "Heavenly Father, thank thee for helping us find my piano book." It was the sweetest Jay moment. He is such a bright light. All of this happened in the span of about 2 minutes or less--a crystallized moment of goodness amidst the chaos of the morning.
IV.
Miscellaneous pictures to fill in the gaps:
Reluctant to clean up.
Ax-wielding bandit Jay.
The girls made a glowing treasure box one day.
Rose unloading the dishwasher.
Amber accidentally gave her beloved Wub monkey to a random kid she was playing with at the state cross country meet, and didn't realize it until bedtime that night. I crumbled and ordered her a new one because she was so sweet and sad when she said "I gave Wub to my friend at cross country!" She doesn't like the fluffy new monkey quite as well as her old mangled one, but she is still happy to have one. I had to snip off the pacifier that came attached to the new monkey!
Saturday morning cousin pillow slide down the stairs at Grampa Dan's house.
Weekend sister art projects.
Jeff and Jay went paintballing with some people from church on Nov. 11th, and Jay got hit! His bruise turned all kinds of interesting colors as it healed. He was concerned about the rainbow on his chest until I explained that was normal.
I accidentally made a double batch massive pumpkin roll last week. It was like a newborn baby, but less cute.
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