Being Thankful . . . for almost being caught up!

Last catch-up post, hooray!

November always seems to be the month where the fun little extras fall through the cracks and trying to get everything together for the holidays just seems to take over. So instead of spending much time on the details of how much shopping and house-cleaning happened (a lot), I'm going to go back and catch a couple of the little things that happened in September and October, but which ended up getting neglected in November.

For one, Cookie Fridays have been a hit this year. At the ends of weeks when the kids have responsibly done their jobs and earned points (with good grades on school assignments, helping around the house, and not fighting), they have gotten to invite friends over after school on Fridays, and Sera and I like to make cookies as a snack for everyone. I think I have loved these afternoons as much as the kids have! It's been so fun to get to know my kids' friends better, especially the ones I don't know from church or anything. We've done all kinds of cookies: oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, pumkin, gingersnaps, gingerbread people, sugar cookies that the kids can decorate, peanut butter, and holiday M&M--a feast of yum, basically. On the last Friday in October (whoops, guess I should have included this in last month's post), we had a little Halloween party for Cookie Friday, and each of the kids got to invite 2 friends instead of 1. We decorated cupcakes, had a cake-walk, ate doughnuts off strings, had a treasure hunt, played kickball (Theo's request), and started a Harry Potter movie (but didn't get very far). Other than the party, these afternoons don't take much effort on my part aside from inviting the friends (a day or two in advance, which is where I sometimes fall off the wagon), and are often some of the quietest afternoons in our house as everyone plays happily with their own special friend. Going into the new year, I need to get back on the ball at a) checking off morning and afternoon jobs, b) giving out points, and c) actually making the play-dates, so these wonderful afternoons can continue!

Another favorite of mine has been some lunch dates with the big kids. It's funny how crazy everything is for so long with little kids underfoot all the time, and then how suddenly they're all gone for six hours a day and I feel like I don't have quite enough one-on-one time with my older kids anymore. Trying to sneak them each out for a lunch date once a month has filled a bit of that gap.  They get SO excited choosing out a place to go (their choices are limited by the number of coupons I have, haha), and Sera likes getting to tag along, even though she usually just shares or gets a small side, while the child on the date can get something fancier than normal.

Back to actual November happenings, we really enjoyed a "Pie Night" activity at church.  Even though Aaron thought I was crazy, I helped each of the kids make their very own pie to be judged in the competition.  Sera made a "Pinkalicious" pie with cream cheese and raspberry jello in a graham cracker crust, Emerson made a cherry pie (using a pre-made crust and pie filling), Addy made a chocolate mint cream pie in a (pre-made) oreo crust, Theo made a coconut cream pie, and I made a sour cream apple pie.  After all that pie making, none of us won prizes (I console myself that none of our pies were labeled properly, because really, if they had counted up the votes of the little girls, Sera would have taken home top honors), but we all had a lot of fun and we all ate a lot of pie!

On Thanksgiving, we had a wonderful feast with our new friends, the Andrews, who moved in over the summer.  One of their daughters is in Theo's class at school, and their other son and daughter are each a grade off from Addy and Emerson in school, but are in their primary classes at church.  Though the food was wonderful (it's always so much more wonderful when there's someone to share the cooking with!), the highlight of the evening was the Thanksgiving play that Theo and Ani co-directed all the younger children in.  They had a script (from online) and everyone had lines to say, and it was so great to see it performed with such passion!

Immediately after Thanksgiving, we had a visit from Aaron's dad, our first since he stopped through Utah the year after we were married!  Our kids went nuts with excitement showing off for him, and he took it all in stride, pulling them in to show them some of the artworks-in-progress he brought along to work on.  One thing that was great about having him around was that he has really jumped on the health-train, and had tons of great tips to help us make healthier meals and add more movement into our days.  He slipped out for a walk or run through our beautiful neighborhood at least once a day, a reminder to us to do the same more often, even after the weather gets cooler, and he had lots of great ideas for salads to keep in the refrigerator.  Aaron had also gotten tickets for all of us to go see the Nutcracker in a nearby town (there's a production here in the city as well, but this was a chance to see something new), and we packed up and drove about an hour in our still-newish van, cranking up the family videos that we have decided will be our primary trip-media.  It was so fun watching/listening to our Christmas preparations from three years ago as we prepared for this holiday season!  The only sad part about his visit was that Aaron had to work quite a lot during it, but the payoff for that came when Grandpa Jerry got to come with us to see Aaron's holiday concert at IPFW, a really fun and entertaining concert that was broadcast live on our local PBS station.

The end of November involved lots of cybershopping by Aaron.  More on that next month!

Fabulous Fall

October in Indiana is gorgeous. Okay, maybe not quite as gorgeous as in Connecticut, which is our default awesome autumn, but still really gorgeous. Certainly it beats out Saskatchewan--we spent some serious laugh time just remembering the cold fall morning in Regina (in like, September) when we watched a tree with barely-yellowed leaves just sort of drop all its leaves at once without so much as a breeze--not quite the beauty pageant we get here, anyway. We have been loving the drives to and from Aaron's university, the YMCA, dance classes, Joy School, and church this month.

Earlier this month we had the chance to attend parent-teacher conferences for the kids (the only ones held all year at our school, for some reason), and things are going well! We were especially proud of Asher, who brought home straight A's for which we know he worked hard. Of course, his teacher did mention that he's going to need to step up his game in the organizational department if he wants to keep his grades up, because she has actually pulled stray papers from his desk when he has forgotten to turn them in, and there are occasionally students who stay after class or stay in from recess and organize his desk for him. Oi! Addy's teacher pretty much raved about her, telling us that she is a good friend and a good leader and a hard worker. And also that she needs to work on forming good test-study habits. Emerson also got some raves, and I think may be in the best first-grade class ever. His whole class seems to be full of wonderful helpers and the most enthusiastic learners (for which I'm sure his teacher must deserve a big hunk of the credit)! He really is loving school so much this year. Joy School for Sera is still going swimmingly, and despite the fact that it's a lot of work with just three moms, I'm so glad I didn't bail on my last child and just send her off to preschool.

The piano classes have settled in, and despite all the hard work it took to get them started, I'm so glad I have the opportunity to teach them! I'm not sure there are many things as fulfilling as starting with a group of kids who may or may not be able to match pitch, and to watch them blossom over the weeks into little musicians who understand this foreign language of music, and who can churn out one song after another. It really is the most fun!

In other musical news, our church primary classes just performed their annual children's program. As the music director for the primary, I was so proud to see the work they've done over the year come together! Our congregation is quite small (though it's kid-heavy), and I remember last year visiting Cincinnati and hearing their much larger primary perform the week before ours did, and feeling a little let-down after hearing our much smaller program. Though I've been nowhere near an ideal music director (Printed up flip-charts left at home? Check! Flip charts never even printed in the first place? Check! Organized list of monthly songs given to pianist on the last week before the month is over? Check! Improvised actions to about half the songs? Check! I . . . probably shouldn't go on, because I'm a little embarrassed about how many times I've shown up to fulfill my calling only halfway prepared), I do care a lot about teaching the children, I do love each and every child very much, and I do happen to know the words to all the songs really well, which allows me to go around the room and find children who aren't singing and sing right in front of them, looking them in the eye, until they finally feel obligated to join in. After a full year, there are only about three kids left who consistently avoid singing if I'm not looking directly at them (I stand in front of them a lot), and the rest are pretty darn good little singers! My favorites are the junior primary (ages 4-7), who absolutely sing their little hearts out for me. I feel like it's so important to get them to love singing before the "too cool" factor hits, because once you really get them, you can keep them for life. They did such a beautiful job singing this year, and there were even some lovely small-group songs that added a lot to the program and gave some of the children a chance to really let their voices shine.

In less exciting news, whether I wanted to or not, I got another year older this month. And I'm afraid I have in fact reached the age where the years pass too fast. I'm afraid I didn't meet as many of the goals I set for myself this year as I had hoped to, which makes me feel, well, kind of old. Luckily, my birthday this year started just the way I like it. Even though I am usually the first person up (not at the crack of dawn or anything--usually around 7:30 or so), after I had gotten the kids up (and I had showered and gotten dressed), Aaron talked me into laying back down in bed so that he could lead all the kids into our bedroom to sing our special Happy Birthday song for me. Addy had led a card-making campaign (I love her so so so much for this, because it really does matter to me, and I don't have to ask the kids for it--she gets them all together and tells them what's what), and presented me with a wonderful folder full of their pictures and sweet words. That perfect start to the day, coupled with Aaron whipping up an amazing omelette and some English muffins for breakfast for me (his omelettes, seriously, they make every day into a birthday . . . or Christmas . . . or whatever) put a smile on my face all day long.

Halloween this year was both laid-back and fun. I'm writing this so long after the actual day that it's a little hard to remember the details, but we had a were-wolf, Fancy Nancy, Buzz Lightyear, and a lovely little Princess Sera. The years when we use on-hand costumes are always a little more relaxed than the years when we go all theme-y, so it was just dress up and trick-or-treat this year. We meant to attend the church "trunk-or-treat" party, but we ended up spending most of the day in Cleveland, where we picked up Esmerelda. Esmerelda, you ask? Well, she's the new(-er), very fancy minivan Aaron upgraded us to this month. Spencer Murdoch, our sidekick for the last six and a half years, has nearly 200K miles on him, and we meant to switch him out at some point during our stay in Canada, but between foreign car prices and import costs and such, and then with another move piled on top of all that . . . it got postponed until now. Our kids forgave us a little bit for making them miss the party when they got their first taste of watching a movie on a flip-down screen while driving. To be honest, it's a pretty sweet gig, and Aaron spent a few minutes trying to figure out if there was a way to get a monitor up front for the driver until I convinced him (mostly convinced him) that aside from being illegal, that would be a terrible idea. For now, we've decided that the best car movies are our own home movies, which we rarely get around to watching, but which are excellent for bonding--we've laughed and laughed over 1-year-old Sera and 3-year-old Emerson tromping around the living room with Santa hats, singing Ho! Ho! Ho!

Back to Halloween though, Aaron and I clung to this (probably) last year of going out trick-or-treating with all our own kids. Aaron masterminded a high-school choral festival with the King's Singers while they were in town for a concert, and because of scheduling, it could only be held on Halloween. It ended just as trick-or-treating began, so we started without him, then met him on a street corner and followed the kids (who are all independent and stuff now) around as they traipsed from door to door. We didn't take enough pictures, but we wound up with exactly the right amount of candy--it lasted about a month. As for the King's Singers, we were able to take the whole family to the (free!) concert they gave at the Presbyterian church downtown the next night, and even though it veered more to the sacred than the hilarious (appropriate for the choice of venue, I suppose, though we had hoped the kids would get to see more of their funny songs), we all really enjoyed a wonderful night of music.

Well, that's about all my memory is willing to give me for October. If I can trudge through November's post quickly enough, there's a chance that I will be able to get the whole "home networking" thing working well enough to go back and post pictures for the last six months or whatever it has been. Looking forward, I think maybe the monthly blogposts should make the New Year's resolution list for next year.

October Snapshot

More and more, our family fun times are on Saturdays.  I actually love this, because there was a time when Saturday was the day I most dreaded in the week--when it didn't mean a day of leisure, but a day of extra work and trying to keep little people quiet while littler people slept.  Now though, the days of napping schedules are behind us (unless you count Aaron), and Saturdays are the ones we love spending together.  I've been trying to make us take a slightly longer road trip (1-3 hours) once a month, to see some of the fun sites that surround us.  The other weeks, we enjoy the activities right here in town.

We love the Botanical Gardens in town, and the wonderful events they host.  On this afternoon, we enjoyed a pumpkin festival complete with sampling some pretty gourmet pumkin soups that I hope I can recreate.  One was a curried pumpkin soup with coconut milk, while the other (the one the kids loved) was pumpkin apple soup with a bit of maple in it.  Yum!

I think this one is actually from September, when we visited the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.  It's considered by many to be the best in the country, and we enjoyed the chance to explore all four levels of wonder, from the ginormous talking transformer "Bumblebee" in the front foyer, to the archaeology exhibit featuring ancient China and ancient Egypt, to the Barbie exhibit that taught me way more than I ever wanted to know about my least favorite toy (oh whatever, they're kind of cool once you get to know them).

Joy School Halloween party!  Love these little cuties and all their pizazz!!

Next, the Halloween party at our house!  We kept it pretty simple--how can you lose with donuts on a string?

And the second round!

A little Ghosts in the Graveyard . . .

And we finished up our Halloween celebrations by trick-or-treating together.  I'm afraid Theo wasn't amused that we didn't let him go on his own or with friends, but we let him walk ahead of us!  We have Buzz Lightyear on the left, a sprouting werewolf, a sweatered-up princess with a furry hat under her crown, and a Fancy Nancy.  I have better pictures of the kids, but this is the only one outside with the pumpkins in back, so.

Up and Down and All Around

September felt a little stressful. There were plenty of fun things going on, and I got lots of little projects around the house taken care of in the time the kids were at school, but gearing up to start my KinderKeys piano classes had me walking through everything with a little gray Eeyore cloud hanging over my head. Starting a business is stressful! I ended up very glad that I had taken care of the keyboard and headphone purchases last year for the mini-class I taught--that class was sort of like my running start for this year and I can't imagine trying to start from scratch this year as I had contemplated doing. But making up fliers and sending emails and talking up all sorts of random people to generate interest . . . somehow I didn't calculate that into my hourly wage when I was thinking about what a good use of my work efforts starting this studio would be! But ultimately I knew I was offering a good product for a good price and that even if I wasn't me I would have been interested in the classes, so that gave me the courage and chutzpah to keep at it until I filled three of the four classes I had hoped to teach! I'm going to go ahead and count that as success. I'm teaching the carry-over class from last year (even though one of the children moved and the other lives the next town over and didn't feel up to continuing piano on top of starting full-day kindergarten, leaving the class a bit off-balance but still fun), a class for 6-8 year olds, and a preschool class for 4-6 year olds.

Honestly, now that we're into the swing of things it is so fun. The school-age class is cruising along fast. Those kids pick up skills like they've been doing this for years, and there's a great energy in the class. But I think my favorite thing each week is my preschool class (it helps that it doesn't come immediately before or after another class). I sincerely believe that early exposure to learning music actually changes a child's brain, making it more receptive to sound and musical expression. Most people won't start a child on piano until age 7 or 8--"when they can read" is the guideline many piano teachers give. But I am convinced that starting them younger, as long as it is in a truly preschool friendly environment (often not the case with private lessons), gives them a gift that will be with them their whole lives. Sera is such a case study for this. I started her in the pilot class last February, just after her 4th birthday. It is now a little over six months later, and within the last few days she has sat down at the piano and played through not only several of her songs from class, but also picked out the melodies of Beethoven's ninth symphony, a theme from the Nutcracker (have I mentioned how much she loves the Nutcracker?), and "Where is Thumbkin" (a Frere Jaques variation we used in Joy School a couple of weeks ago). Certainly these things can take place at the later ages as well, but when children start young, I think they develop an awareness of pitch and rhythm that they lose the ability to get later on. I consider Theo's ability to pick up French pronounciation as well as he did when he was six to be another example of the same thing. So anyway, all that is to say that I am loving these little preschoolers of mine (two of them have possibly the tiniest hands I have ever seen on a piano keyboard). The classes are 30 minutes each, and we usually spend about ten minutes of that in some sort of movement/rhythm game, with the rest at the keyboards, learning up and down and rhythms and keyboard topography. Even though they're chugging through the books at about half the speed of my older class, when I think about them playing in a couple of years, it sort of makes my heart sing!

Anyway, despite all my pre-teaching anxiety (the classes started on Sept. 20), the first half of the month was pretty fun as well. Darling Addy celebrated her eighth birthday! We had such a fun "Around the World" party for her, and I made "cake balls" for the first time after seeing a bunch of oohing and ahhing over them around the internet. They worked out great as mini-globes, but were awfully sweet. Though only three of her friends made it over for her party, it wound up being pretty awesome--one of my favorites, I think. She and her guests dressed up with a bit of international flair (we had a Parisian, a Bahamian, and a Guatemalan, while Addy went Hawaiian), and together we traveled the world from China (origami and fortune cookies) to India (Bollywood dancing with ankle bracelets) to Africa (face painting) to Egypt (pyramid building) to France (pedicures) to Italy (making pizzas) to Mexico (pinata). Seriously so fun!

September is also Johnny Appleseed month in Indiana, so we got to go to the Johnny Appleseed Festival, which is quite possibly the best festival ever in the world. We enjoyed time-traveling back to the 1800s where we ran into Abe Lincoln and Mr. Appleseed himself, as well as a ventriloquist puppeteer and medicine man, and several fun bluegrassy music groups. Of course the big draw was all the fun food, from the popped-in-an-enormous-black-cauldron kettle corn to fresh-pressed-in-front-of-your-eyes apple cider to homemade rootbeer to cooked-in-a-ginormous-pot-all-day soup to "sweet tater delite" to organic-right-down-to-the-sugar caramel apples. Oh, it was a happy day. This year we gave each kid $3-5 (what's not to love about a free festival where a few bucks will actually buy some things) and let them decide which things they wanted, so they took extra time deciding on everything and did lots of sharing to make their dollars last a little longer. We checked out the civil war cannons and stopped by some war camps full of weary soldiers before plunking ourselves down on the hillside to just enjoy the smells and sounds of a time long ago. I don't think I would really have done well as a 19th century woman in the long term (we saw a bit of their medical practices and . . . I don't think they would have worked out for me, not to mention the housework load!), but I don't think I would mind moving back in time for a few weeks a year or so. The sounds and the smells and the sweet harmony with nature--well, in some areas we've regressed more than progressed in the last hundred some-odd years.

Other fun activities for the month included a Saturday of apple-picking, another of bowling, plenty of time outdoors in the gorgeous autumn sunlight, me putting up little things around the house that make it that much more of a home (our bedroom is finally the lovely retreat we've been looking forward to!), and trying to squeeze in some volunteering days at school (I'm not really awesome at this, but I'm trying to get in a couple of times a month). I've started picking one of the kids up for lunch every now and then, and it's led to some great conversations about school--by the time school is over, the kids don't really feel like rehashing anything (or if they do, it's usually just recess), but over a lunch they'll tell me about something funny their teacher did, or about the assignments they worked on--stuff I rarely get after they get home. I've become more and more grateful for this wonderful school my kids have to go to, and the great skills they're learning there, from respect (which they tend to need some reminders on) to computer skills to pushing beyond their comfort levels in reading and math, to art and music (oh I could go on about their fabulous music teacher). They have really good friends. I appreciate that so much. Theo especially has a couple of good friends who keep him in line by not talking to him when he wants to motormouth off in class, but who also appreciate his cleverness and sense of humor.

All around us, the leaves have begun changing color, and the corn fields we drive past every Sunday on the way to church have turned from green to brown. We're looking forward to some beautiful pictures and some of that cold crisp fall air as we launch toward October. Fall has always been my favorite season wherever we've lived, but I have to say that autumn in Indiana is really something special. We're drinking in every moment of it!