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The big girls are learning to play the piano. (Ivy is in her third year, and Charlotte is in her second year.) They love it, although it is often a lot of hard work for them. They’ve learned a tremendous amount from all the hard work, though, and both Scott and I see wonderful fruit in their lives from it.
They’ve had two recitals this Christmas season, and we’ve posted videos of them both. Watch them if you’d like. (Although they will probably be mainly enjoyed by grandparents!)
The first set of videos is from a recital hosted by CAPTA, at the arts center in Cary. It was a bit fancier (and bigger!) compared to what they are used to. (Big stage and audience!) They practiced for weeks on these songs (they had to be memorized!), and we celebrated with buying fancy new dresses for the occasion.
Click on the images to play the videos.
Charlotte:
Ivy:
Their second recital for Christmas was at their piano teacher’s lovely home. Informal and cozy…we love those kinds of recitals.
Christmas recitals are over (now we’re playing carols for fun!), school is winding down for the year, gifts are wrapped, books and curriculum are ordered for January, the tree us up, house is decorated, and the Christmas music is queued up in the cd player. Today is gray and cold, and on the list for this week: gingerbread men, sugar cookies, lots of icing and decorating, and some reading. (Scott started reading Redwall to the kids, and I am so excited. Many memories of loving these books as a child!) I am reading The Railway Children to them, and as I’ve never read it before, I can’t wait to get to the next chapter!
Some recent ones for you.
(Annie loves Daddy.)
Asher turned 5 recently. I could not seem to get to a birthday blog post, I know! Five must be a big deal for him, because he got a BB gun this year and woke up the day after his birthday asking to do chores every morning.
We had another birthday this month: a sweet girl turned 7. I am often so surprised that another birthday has come for each child, but here is another year gone.
Charlotte loves to read the dictionary. We think it’s wonderful!
She says that 7 doesn’t feel much different than 6 yet, but the jury is still out on that. We celebrated her birthday with a little “Hot Chocolate party”, and invited a few friends over.
She did most of the planning, baking and food prep for her little party. It was a lot of fun, and I can’t imagine many more fun ways to celebrate a birthday than to get dressed up and eat cake and cookies and hot chocolate with some friends and your sister.
And here are some shots of a rapidly-growing, getting-busier-and-moving-faster every day 8-month-old baby.
She’s six months now.
And she’s really delicious.
Six months brings all sorts of changes, doesn’t it? Learning to sit up (a big belly hinders that a little bit), maturing our eating habits (I think she’s close to moving to table food!), discovering toes, and learning that Mommy is our favorite person in the world and it’s really best if she never leaves our sight.
She loves to be read to, for as long as anyone is willing to sit with her,
loves to swing, sing pretty baby songs, drool, roll over, suck her thumb, give slobbery kisses, and snuggle.
We think she’s just the most lovely thing and can’t get enough of her.
Sweet Annie Beth turned 5 months yesterday.
We kind of forgot about this little milestone for her. Gee, the days are just flying by! Can you believe it’s September? Seems like just a few weeks ago I was thinking about getting the nursery all ready and preparing for delivering a baby.
She is doing just wonderfully. Really. We could not have asked for a more pleasant, delicious baby if we’d made a list ourselves.
She still loves to suck her thumb, and has learned to roll over. We think she’s having thoughts of crawling, although I’m trying to hold that off as long as possible. She still loves to be around people (especially her brother and sisters), giggles when I change her clothes, and sings pretty baby songs to us in the car.
She’s been introduced to the likes of bananas, peaches, peas, corn, and sweet potatoes. And loves them all, as you can see from the lovely chubbiness, and the fact that she’s moving into size twelve month clothes (!). She rarely cries uncontrollably, and is one of the most pleasant babies to be around.
Happy Five Months, Annie.
Enjoying the breeze in the shade out back.
With a bag of “writing things” tied to her waist.
Sounds like a pretty good afternoon to me!
The summer is moving right along. Can you believe July is over and done with?
Our good friend “Uncle” George came to visit from Texas for a few days.
Asher had a good time pickin’ away while George played us some tunes on his banjo.
And oh boy, it’s hot.
We’re only really able to go outside in the late evenings or early mornings, and even then only for a few minutes.
(a cookie, a book, and a swing. can it get any better?)
Hi pretty baby!
I’ve also discovered that Annie looks really cute in this bonnet I made for her.
I found the pattern from this Etsy store, littlebettydesigns, and it was probably one of the most well-written, easiest-to-follow patterns I have ever seen from an Etsy shop. Highly recommended.
So easy, in fact, that I made one for a friend’s baby and it turned out just as delicious.
So other than all that, we’re just hanging out around here. Trying to keep cool, and waiting for rain and something less than 100 degrees during the day.
Turning the living room into a tent, bringing out all the craft supplies, watching a few movies, and generally making a big mess of things.
I have a feeling I’ll miss these days someday.
The girls learned to use the sewing machine!
And this is what they made.
Pillowcases: fun to pick out the fabric, not a lot of thought needed for the design, and it’s nothin’ but straight stitching the whole way.
They’re using a little Singer Featherweight sewing machine, on loan from a friend’s mom (who used it to teach 4H sewing in the 1960′s).
It works just right for them: a few simple things to learn about the machine, and they’re off.
I think they did a great job, don’t you?
Annie turned three months yesterday.
I must admit, three months has gone fast. The newborn months are always kind of a hazy memory of course, but I think the addition of another person in our house and the amount of work that goes with it has helped the weeks to fly by.
Annie is a very content three-month-old. We sure are enjoying her and her sweet little self.
She loves to be around people, and is almost always smiling when her siblings are in the room. She loves her Daddy especially, but will gladly snuggle up with anyone who is holding her.
And she sucks her thumb when she sleeps, much to the delight of her brother and sisters.
She’s a delicious treat for sure.
Our friend Tracy invited us all down to Angier yesterday to fill up some buckets with berries. We’ve discovered Dr Young’s Pond Berry Farm, and we are so happy about it.
If blueberries and blackberries grow in heaven, I think it looks a lot like what this farm had for us. Minus the blackberry thorns, of course.
A couple in the bucket, a handful in the mouth. We snacked all morning on warm berries.
Then we spent the afternoon preparing and putting away. I know we’ll enjoy these come January (when summer seems a million years away), so I froze some plain berries by themselves. Then I whipped up a blueberry lemon pie (from Joy of Cooking), a blackberry pie to freeze, and one each of a blueberry and a blackberry buckle to freeze (found here, from MommyCoddle, a favorite blog).
After all this sugar, I now am thinking I’ll save some blueberries to make this delicious Chicken Blueberry Salad.
