Playing the year out

The girls were very excited when their violin teacher phoned this morning and asked if they wanted to come over for a lesson. I had called earlier in the week and she had been visiting family in town. She only got back this morning but was excited to see what the girls have been doing over the last month.

Hannah loved having time to play with Violet who is the same age as her and who she knows from Friday's Music and Movement.

Ruth got some practicing in first actually (and I did not get a photo) but eventually the teacher asked if she wanted to stop as it looked like she was getting tired. Ruth said "I just want to go and play with the play dough." So she was a very diligent little girl to play her violin for her teacher while her sisters where playing with play dough. What I want to remember though from the lesson was that the teacher tried to play a duet with her. It was so funny because after the first note Ruth just switched to playing along with the teacher. We tried a few times but she just could not do it. It's incredible that her ear just hears the other notes and she naturally just switches to play that. We will work on playing the duet though as I am sure Ruth will really enjoy it when she gets the hang of it.

Then they had some dress-up fun while Rachel had her lesson. Pretty ballerinas and Ruth just came around the corner wearing high heal shoes. :-)

It did not take long for the younger girls to move onto the next game - the trampoline.

By this time Violet's dad had returned with pizza for lunch - inviting us to join them. He also made a lovely fruit salad but only Rachel and I enjoyed the mango. I think it's the first mango I have had in over 3 years. That is one thing I miss about SA. Those lovely fruit (mango, melon, litchi and pawpaw).

I was excited about my iPod arriving in the post today. So I spent a bit of time this afternoon cleaning off the TV cabinet and moving our old hifi off. Now the big hole is even bigger as the new hifi (which is a iPod docking station, radio and cd player) is tiny. Brendon is planning on putting two draws in the top section for our DVDs - so watch this space.....

A quick update on Tiger and Jaz. He is improving every day. I have tried every day to hold him on my lap and get him used to being in the lounge with the dog outside. Up till now I have had to hold him tight the whole time. So it was really lovely this evening to have him totally relax in my arms (and even sleep before Brendon got up to fetch the camera).

As Brendon is working in the morning he went to bed at a normal hour and I started playing with my iPod. Playing being loading cds on. By midnight I had loaded 38 Albums and 650 songs. I have also learnt how to add my own artwork for each album but the pile on the right will have to have photos taken during daylight hours so I can put those on as artwork is not available on-line for them.

Again I can look back over the year and see how God has been so very faithful. I pray that He would draw us even closer to Himself through the year ahead.

Good progress

Ruth is doing so well with her violin. She is loving her book and just wants to learn new songs all the time. She diligently plays through all the songs she has already learnt and then wants to carry on. I was especially proud of her today for playing while looking at the music. She hit the wrong string a few times because of this but I think she is just doing so very well. When she looks at her bow she can get it perfectly but she knows I want her to learn to follow along with the music. She continues to amaze me how quickly she can pick tunes up. She was learning a new song the other day and after struggling to "get it" I asked her if she would like me to play it for her. I played it through twice and she immediately took the violin and played it perfectly. I am so thankful for the enjoyment she gets from practicing. She has really made such amazing progress in the last two weeks. Her teacher is going to be so surprised when she gets to listen to her play.

Other progress today was on Christmas presents. Once Hannah was off to her room for her afternoon room time Ruth and I got busy with Hannah's Christmas present (from Ruth). She got really good at working with my sewing machine. We had really tiny things to sew on and so she would push the button that makes the needle go up and down and then would lift the foot and I would shift the material as needed, she would lower the food and repeat the process. We got a really nice rhythm going and we managed to get a lot of work done on the gift. I am sure we will get it finished off tomorrow and then we can start on Rachel's one.
Rachel also made good progress on Ruth's dress this evening. She enjoys listen to A Little Princess while she sews. It helps her not to miss any evening reading time she uses to get the sewing down. The girls are so excited about their home made presents.

A good day

The girls were very excited when I brought out these pages from a Nativity Preschool Pack I downloaded.

I was impressed with how diligent Hannah was. Once she had done the page she let me rub it out and she did it again with a different colour. Then again with a different colour. And she got better every time.

It's not uncommon to see my cup at the kettle/jug. I get my coffee ready, put the jug on and get busy with something else while it boils. And that's right after breakfast.

I generally only get to actually make the cup of coffee by morning tea time though. Not a bad thing - one less cup in the day and it means we have had a good productive morning too. :-)

While I am busy with some work on the computer Hannah will often join me upstairs and play happily on her own. Lately she has been sitting "reading". Today she read to Tiger.

Ruth had a really good practice session with me this morning. This is the first song from her new book. It's great that she is starting to relate her playing to reading music. For the video she watched her bow so that she could make sure it stayed on one string at a time. She is however able to play it quite well while looking at the music which is a great accomplishment for her.

Snap

I love the way the girls enjoy dressing the
same. Even down to the cat's on their tops.

Such sweet memories.

And then Rachel got some individual time with the teacher
and the younger two were kept busy on keyboards.

3 Violins and a hat

Rachel getting some individual lesson time.
She was given Silent Night to work on this week.

All three of the girls being accompanied by the teacher on piano.
Hannah borrowing the teacher's daughter's violin. So special.

Rachel runs off to her Ballet lesson for her solo and Ruth
gets a new song to learn for this week - 3 blind mice (just 3 notes).

A nice surprise today. Rachel on the front cover. :-)
She was disappointed that the photo did not win as
she had hoped Dad could join us for movies in Dec.

My three precious girls

The girls enjoyed some painting outside this morning. It was a little windy but the stones kept everything down well enough.
I will definitely take my camera along to violin practice next week as it was just so special watching all three of my precious girls playing along with the teacher. Amanda had brought along her daughter's little violin (just a bit smaller than Ruth's) and she was thrilled at how well Hannah held it and the bow. She got some lovely sounds out of it too. Then they all practiced their 4 counts on each string and she accompanied them on the piano. Hannah was just playing whatever she wanted but the other two played so nicely and it was wonderful music they created with her.
She was very impressed with the bigger violin that Rachel has been lent. She got them all tuned and played a little. She plays so beautifully. She even played a little of the South African National Anthem. She says it is her favourite anthem. And it sure was beautiful hearing it played on the violin.

Violins

Rachel could not wait to try the violin this morning. Ruth was excited about playing together with Rachel. Rachel was all smiles when Dad had a go.

Our friends have given us the two smaller violins they have (probably a 1/2 and 3/4 size) so that the teacher can see which will be a better size for Rachel. So Rachel got on the smaller one, Dad on the bigger one and they played together. Hannah also had a turn once Ruth was done and she does very well.



Just so that you can see how tiny
Ruth's violin is.

 

Once everyone was dressed they played together.

We don't have an extra violin for Hannah but she was more than happy to improvise. :-)

Reflection

More snow fell on Sunday night and it was just so beautiful watching the sunrise reflect off the snow this morning.

Ruth also had her first violin lesson today. To check out a video have a look at her blog.

Cloud, computer, swim and violin

What a delicate start to the day.

So peaceful and pretty.

We had a very busy day in town and I was disappointed that I did not have my camera with. Here are the things I should have taken photos of:

This morning Rachel attended JOTI / JOTA which is Jamboree over the Internet / Airways. So a number of Scots, Cubs, Guides and Brownies spent time over this weekend "chatting" to other Scouts and Guides from all over the world.

After church we had been invited to lunch and after the meal the children all had a "swim" in the spa pool. Hannah was really nervous at first but they all ended up having such a fun time.

And the absolute highlight for Ruth..... fetching her violin. She has been so looking forward to this. We got home late but made sure she could at least take it out of it's case and get to hold it. What a happy little girl.

Loads of love

This morning Ruth decided she would help Hannah with that frustrating fringe that keeps getting in her eyes. She just cut it off! All of it!!

And although she got a telling off and knows to never do that again, I am also aware of the fact that she was only showing love to her sister. It's one of those things that upsets you but also makes you smile every time you thing about it.

The other love item of today was the package that arrived in the post from Nana. The girls were so excited. There were gifts for each of them individually and then general gifts for them all as well. Thank you so much Nana.

One of the favorites of the pack was this DVD. It was so amazing that Nana would include this DVD when she packed this up weeks ago. God obviously had His hand in it all as it has gotten Ruth SUPA excited about picking up very own violin. And even Hannah will ask to "watch violin".

There was another surprise in the post today. I sent this photo in a month ago and have been looking in every paper to see if it would do well. I had started wondering if perhaps there were no longer any photo competitions happening and then today I got my free tickets. When we got home I opened the paper and saw my photo had won. I am so pleased. I had been thinking for a while about what photo could possibly stand out and win because I would like to take Rachel to see a 3D movie. If I have free tickets we only have to pay in the difference which is not much. So she was also very excited that within the next 5 or 6 months we will get to do that. Now to start looking at what 3D movies are on and when we can get through to town to watch.

Hare on left and Smokey on right.

And on a totally different topic we had fun watching Smokey this morning. She spotted this hare on the drive and slowly made her way across the lawn. When she got onto the drive the hare spotted her and so she went flat. The hare actually took a step or two towards her but then Smokey got too tired of waiting and moved. With that the hare was off and there was no way Smokey would catch it. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the hare had tried to go past Smokey. It's so much bigger than her.

Helpers and Dancers

Firstly I wanted to tell you about my little helper. Hannah insists on getting the bowls out for breakfast every morning and will count them to make sure she has the right amount. She still has to reach way up to get them on the counter but don't you dare try and help her. She so enjoys helping and doing things on her own.

And Rachel is still too short to reach the break on the ride on. Brendon allows her to ride it from it's parking space at the sheds to our lawn but then he has to hit the break to get her to stop. She is so looking forward to being tall enough to cut the grass herself. It's a far nicer job than raking. And unfortunately it's not designed to have a catcher on it. It was such a great bargain when we bought it that we accepted the raking as part of cutting the grass. It sure beats using a push mower when you have enough lawn for 3 tennis courts.

And then it was the highlight of the week for the girls. A barn dance. The girls have been talking about the party that we would be going to tonight and have been looking forward to the dancing. It was so nice to have the little ones included too. Everyone was very patient and I think were surprised at how well the young children did. There were a couple of Israeli dances at the beginning (the one Israeli dance was Rachel's favorite of the night) and then the barn dance. On the first song Hannah even went off on her own. She got quite a way around the circle but eventually found the swinging around from some of the boys was just a bit too much and so she stayed in arms most of the time from then. Rachel and Ruth really enjoyed themselves though and were off dancing away. I got quite a bit of dancing in myself (I have such fond memories of barn dances when I was a child) and so it's thanks to Brendon that we have a photo and video clip.

Unfortunately I had not told him before about taking only short video clips. And he also just missed the really fun dancing part with the girls. But it's a good reminded of the fun that we had. I am sure it will be remembered for many years to come.

It was a special 50th birthday celebration and my friend (who has 8 children) had organized for herself and husband and a couple of the children to do a few music pieces. I was so surprised when she pulled out her violin. It was so special for Ruth to see her playing a violin as Ruth is very excited about us picking up her violin within the next week or two.

Practice and pajamas

I am constantly amazed at God's wonderful provision which goes far about even our "needs". His latest provision is a small violin for Ruth - for FREE. We will get it within the next week or two but just talking about it has motivated Rachel to get back to her music practice. So she has started practicing her piano, recorder and ukulele. We had a lovely time together with her on her ukulele and me on my guitar. She got to realize how different the strumming is for a 3/4 or a 2/4 beat song.

Ruth decided she would like a nap this afternoon but Hannah did NOT need one today and kept Ruth awake. It was not long before I found Hannah in Ruth's bed with her. Also notice the pink pajamas she has on. She regularly find some to put on over her clothes. Such a funny little girl. But I do need to work out what we are going to do with Ruth. She is still needing the extra sleep.