Shameless Mom Brag

The violin journey with Abby hasn't always been easy. She has a strong personality, (really, no idea where she got that from...) and we've had our moments of butting heads.


But, a few months ago she decided she wanted to start entering competitions. We started the third movement to the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto in October, and she nailed her audition this past Saturday. The competition was tough, and the winner gets to solo with a symphony in May. We don't know the results yet, and probably won't for a few a few more days, but regardless, we're very proud.

As a side note, I didn't start playing the violin until I was twelve. She's eleven, and already playing violin literature that high school students use to audition for college scholarships. I am truly amazed at what she's been able to learn and accomplish.

Catching up in pictures

Well. 

My goodness, it's been a while.

Do you remember me? (Do I remember me?)

So, it was Christmas. We like Christmas.

Now it's winter, and there is much snow and cold. A week or so ago, it was -18 degree when I woke up. Yes siree, it makes getting up to teach 6:30 am violin lessons extra inviting.

 So what do you do when there's 2 feet of snow and ice all over the place and your 4 year old is bouncing off the walls? Bring his bike inside. Then curse yourself repeatedly for thinking that a bike in the kitchen was a good idea.

Then, in the approximately 2.5 minutes when there isn't snow on the roads, you take your kids out for a walk. Greet the animals and splash in the puddles, quick, because you won't see the sidewalk again for months!

So what else have we been doing?

 Sleeping through Sunday School,

 Preparing for our new lives as famous recording artists, 

 Ruining Mom's high scores on iPhone games,

 Beating each other up with swords,

Learning to ice skate,

 Baking pies, (mmmm, pies!)

 Making gigantic messes,

 Getting by with a little help from our trusty friends, 

 Making more giant messes, this time of the artistic variety,

And looking ridiculously cute in our pjs and matching curls.

Don't forget the fact that winter and spring mean lots of practicing, performing, and Abby's first big violin competition. (Gulp!)

 So Ashlynn is practicing for the piano festival,

 I'm working on perfect bow hands with my students,

 Abby's performing everywhere,

And even Max feels the need to practice. (Will someone get that boy a cello already?)

Other important happenings: 

 The boys are developing their talent in photography. 

 They're both going through a rather experimental self-portrait phase.

Max has another impossible to cure ear infection. I didn't think you wanted to see pictures of that. (You're welcome.) We're heading into February, the dreaded month of illness, and I'm crossing my fingers that this is as bad as it gets.

I even took all the kiddos to get new pictures taken, and we all still liked each other when it was over. Check out the sidebar. Pretty impressive, right?

So there you have it. 2 months, two dozen pictures, and you're up to speed.

We're busy. We're happy, we're grateful.

Sweet Success

You know those moments when  you realize that all the work, grief, tears, arguments and money have been worth it?

Abby took a handful of fiddle lessons this summer, we hired a guitarist, and had so much fun at the Wasatch County Talent Competition last night!

She came away with 3rd Prize, $50, and a huge smile on her face.

Way to go, Abby! We're so proud of you!

The big move

Well, we did it.

We moved four kids, two adults, and an unimaginable amount of crap to a new house. Then, two days later, Abby and I went to violin Institute.

Yes, we may be a little bit crazy. (A little bit?!?)

We packed multiple trucks.

We took a few over-exposed pictures of Ian running in and out of the moving truck.

We unloaded the multiple trucks.

And we ate a lot of fast food and drank much Gatorade.

I've decided there is very little in life that is more exhausting or all consuming than moving. And no matter how much you think you've accomplished, it's never quite done. Right now, the garage at our old house still has some random things that we need to move over here, including our BBQ grill, a large container of plastic utensils, (don't ask because I don't know...) and several cabinets full of various garage crap.

But here's the good news. We're here. We love it. The boxes are mostly unpacked. And those that aren't are stored in my husband's office where I don't have to look at them. That right there tells you something about our house- my husband has his own office and we no longer have to share. This makes me very happy.

Pretend this picture is better than it is and imagine that you can see my kitchen in all its spacious glory.

Our house is huge. I mean, the kids can unload the dishes while I'm cooking dinner without us running into each other. This is a whole new experience for all of us. There is a playroom in our house, folks. That right, a room devoted exclusively to toys. Which also means that we no longer have a basketball hoop as the centerpiece in our living room. It's pretty fabulous. Other wonderful things? A bedroom for the boys so they no longer have to share with us, a laundry room that's actually a room and not a closet, fantastic views, a two car garage, and a huge yard. There is so much space that we frequently lose Ian. this is not helped by the fact that he learned to open doors the day we moved. (Sigh.)

And after we moved, it was Institute week. (Note to self: if you can ever possibly avoid moving the week before you have to take two of your children for a week of extreme violining, please do. You'll thank me later.)

Abby loves violin institute.

Ian did not. Yes, I did take a picture of him tantruming on the floor of Juan Diego HS. Further proof that he's a fourth child. Had this tantrum occurred when Abby was a baby, I would have been horrified. With Ian, I bust out the camera...

Because Abby's teacher is the director of the institute, most of her teachers were handpicked. Koen Rens from Belgium was our favorite.

She fiddled.

She worked on perfect position with her masterclass teacher.

She played in orchestra.

And then we were tired. And so glad to come home to the "new house" as Max calls it. (He still asks to go home occasionally. Insisting that we are home doesn't help much.)

So far this week I've unpacked a few boxes, taught a few lessons, mowed the lawn, weeded precisely one flower bed, and enjoyed the breathing room. 

See my pretty new violin studio?

But I've decided. Institute? It's great. We'll go again next year. As for moving? I could be perfectly happy with never seeing another packing box, thank you very much.

Ch..ch..ch..changes

(Oh my poor neglected blog...)

So remember how Abby auditioned for an orchestra in conjunction with the Suzuki Association of the America's Biennual conference? Remember how I gently encouraged her to audition so I could have an excuse to go? Excitement was in the air when she found out she was accepted! We planned and scrimped and saved, and got some very goo deals, so Abby and I and Tom and the baby all packed up and headed to Minneapolis over Memorial day weekend. Why Tom and the baby, you ask? Well, the truth of it is, there's no one who loves me enough to take an 18 month old, still breastfeeding, tyrant of a toddler for a whole weekend. And that includes my husband.

Minneapolis? Fun. Fabulous. Abby loved every minute of it. She proclaimed it "The best weekend of her entire life."

Because of course, when you're in Minneapolis, where do you have to go first? 

The Mall of America. The American Girl store to be specific. Where she promptly blew a year's worth of allowance money, and then did the same for her sister. She was, quite literally, jumping up and down with excitement.

Ian was unimpressed. Or maybe he was underwhelmed due to our 6 am flight. Hard to tell. (Do you know how early you have to leave Grandma's house for a 6am flight?)

We rode rides.

Ian too. (He had fun, despite his facial expressions!)

And we ate really yummy pizza at a place called "Psycho Suzi's Motor Lounge." Don't judge. It was recommended by "Diner's, Drive ins and Dives." How can you go wrong? And just so you know, my children were, quite seriously, the most psycho ones there. Don't take two very overtired, over-stimulated children out to eat if you can help it. They'll both end up in tears. Yes, even the 10 year old.

Tom and Ian had many wonderful adventures.

Abby made some fast friends, (violin friends are the best! 

And loved hanging out with two girls that she already knows from Rocky Mountain Strings.

The orchestra she participated in was amazing. Once upon a time when I had a life, I used to do quite a bit of adjudicating. You could have put this orchestra of 10, 11, and 12 year olds against any high school string orchestra anywhere and not know a difference. I was so impressed with what the conductor was able to do with them. It was truly awe-inspiring.

As for me, I loved the sessions, the instructors, the who conference. It was fantastic to spend a weekend surrounded with teachers all of whom were passionate and wise about the Suzuki world. I reconnected with many teacher friends from Utah who were also attending the conference and we left motivated, renewed and with notebooks full of ideas to improve our teaching and change the world. I really do love my job.

We topped the weekend off with one of those epic restaurant trips. Ian was all done with eating out by this point, and wasn't above screaming his opinion to the whole place. Once he had expressed himself sufficiently, he proceeded to dump everything he could find on the floor. (Do they really need to put that many sugar packets on the table? Really?) The meal got even more awesome when a server accidentally dumped a full glass of root beer all over Abby and then threw a temper tantrum in front of everyone. (The server, not Abby.) The manager and another waitress then came over, apologizing profusely, letting us know that the server who dumped the root beer was going to be fired, all the while ignoring Ian who was still screaming his guts out. I wanted to curl up in a corner and melt into the floor. Sometimes being the parent is oh-so-glamorous.

And we won't talk about the flight home. It's better that way.

But the real news? We're finally (FINALLY!) moving! Yee-haw!

I can't tell you how long this has been in coming, or how excited we are to have a house larger than a treehouse. (I also can't tell you how NOT excited I am about all the box-packing that's been going on.) It's a huge house, fenced yard, giant kitchen, cute design, great floor plan, all the good stuff. And it's only about ten minutes away from here, which is even better. Two weeks to pack up everything and move is stressful, and after Ian unpacked the same box 3 times, all the while running away and laughing gleefully I was ready to tackle him and tape him up in the box, but it will be worth it. We can't wait. Even Max begs every day: "Can we go see the new house?"

The whole process of selling this house and renting another was a crazy one. There were a lot of prayers, temple trips, tears, late night discussions, and worries that went into the whole process. It certainly was a huge trial of our faith. It's easy, now that we have a lease in hand, to discount the whole process. But suffice it to say, God is watching over me and my little family. This I know for sure.

So if you don't hear from me for a while, come rescue me, ok? I'll probably be taped up in a box labeled "kitchen miscellaneous."

Payday

The unfortunate thing about motherhood is that it doesn't come with a biweekly paycheck. We don't get the reassurance of money in our bank account to validate our worth as employees. More often than not, my little tyrant-bosses reward me with sticky fingers, sleepless nights, messes of epic proportions, sassy backtalk and eye rolls, open-mouthed kisses, tight hugs around the neck and an occasional "I love you, Mommy."

But yesterday, I was fortunate to have one of those rare parenting paydays that's even more valuable than money in the bank.

I knew it was going to be a crazy weekend. Piano festival for Ashlynn on Friday night and Saturday morning. Violin Federation for Abby on Saturday afternoon. Violin Federation judging for me mid-morning, and my husband flying out in the cold and dark of Saturday morning before any of the rest of us were thinking about waking up.

But against all odds, it worked.

The best part? Abby got a superior and rave reviews at Federation, then Ashlynn got eight out of eight superiors at piano festival, and was ranked first in three categories. She even got invited to perform her duet with her friend Katelyn in the honor's recital Saturday night. She was so excited she was, quite literally, bouncing off the walls.

Doing the music thing with my kids isn't always easy. In fact, it's rarely easy. I've had lots of times where I've questioned my sanity, questioned whether or not it was worth it. Saturday made up for it, and it wasn't just about the good ratings at the competitions. The best part was watching how thrilled my girls were to be able to perform their best and see their hard work pay off. I had a smile on my face all afternoon seeing my girls beam with pride at what they were able to accomplish.

So while a weekly paycheck wouldn't be all bad, it's days like this that make the hours of practicing, the tears, the money spent, and the endless drives to and from lessons worth it for me as a parent. It's a lot of work, expense, frustration, and time for everyone involved, but seeing their smiles of satisfaction and joy at accomplishing something so worthwhile reimburses me tenfold.

An open letter to my teenage Suzuki Violin students

"Talent is no accident of birth. In today’s society a good many people seem to have the idea that if one is born without talent, there is nothing he can do about it; they simply resign themselves to what they consider to be their fate.”
Shinichi Suzuki

Dear Students:

Did you know I love my job? I feel so fortunate to be able to interact with each of you every week and to be a part of your lives. It's so gratifying to watch you grow and develop, not just musically, but personally as well. One of my favorite parts about my job is to getting to know the personalities of each of my students, and I feel it is a gift each time a student shares a piece of who they are with me.

As a group, you are amazing. You run cross country, travel with the soccer team, star in plays, sing, dance, play basketball, teach piano lessons, take multiple AP classes, play football and take trips with the debate squad. You work so hard at so many things.

And the violin? It's hard too. So hard. I know you might see me as just another adult who bugs you about something you should be doing, but I promise you, I've shed my share of tears over my stupid violin.  Here's the thing: I didn't start playing violin until I was twelve. My parents got me violin lessons from the closest teacher they could find, who charged a whopping $32 a month, and told me that if I practiced all summer I'd be good enough to start in the advanced orchestra in seventh grade. My parents frequently made me practice outside on the patio so they didn't have to hear me, (true story!) and my violin teacher gave me more of an education in female anatomy and reproductive problems than she did on the violin. (At one point, she was telling my 12 year old self various horror stories from the gynecologist, and warned me, "You'll remember me when you are sitting in the stirrups for your first pap smear." Unfortunately, she was right.) I still chuckle remembering my first lesson in vibrato from her: "Just put your finger on the string and wiggle it back and forth. That's all there is to it." You, as my students, should all get a good laugh out of that.

I was never a Suzuki whiz-kid. I spent my high school and college years comparing myself to those that started violin much, much younger than I did, and wishing that I would have had the opportunities that they did. Instead of playing Mozart Concertos at the age of 12, I was learning my open string notes, making the neighbors' dogs howl in the process. 

I want you to know that the violin didn't come easy for me. Every time I started a new orchestra, whether in junior high, high school or even college, I shed more than a few tears because I didn't feel good enough. After my first orchestra rehearsal in college, I went back to my dorm overwhelmed and cried for a good long time, because I was sure that I picked the wrong major and I'd never make it as a violinist. One year in college I had a particularly difficult teacher, and I routinely set aside time to sit in my car after violin lessons and sob for a while before I drove home. 

This instrument we play is hard. There's no doubt about it. I'm sure you've all had times where you've wanted to smash your violin against the wall in frustration; trust me, I have too. But, you should all be proud of the progress you've made. By the time you get through Book 4, you've mastered some of the hardest things the violin can dish out. You've been able to play in recitals, in church, and probably have gotten a lot of recognition for your playing.  But one thing I can't emphasize to you enough as a teacher is that there's life after Suzuki Book 4!

As you get further along in your violin studies, things are only going to get harder. But here's the thing: they also get better. More exciting, more beautiful. Your abilities will increase and you'll enjoy playing more. The problem is, the work you'll have to put in will have to increase if you want to get there.  We're in the business of training muscles, and while our brains might be smart, our muscles are dumb. It takes many, many, many repetitions for our muscles to get the message on how to play a passage exactly the way we want them to. 

Unfortunately, playing the violin isn't like cramming for a math test. you can't practice 90 minutes the day of a lesson or the night before the recital and expect to have great results. The best results come from consistent, diligent practice. The famous violinist Jascha Heifetz is quoted as saying "If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it." I've found that to be true in so many ways. I can practice fabulously and make great progress one day, but if I wait three more days before practicing again, not only is all the progress I made three days before lost, but I'm worse off than when I started.  The detail work takes time, lots of it. Focused, consistent time.

I want you to be successful, and I recognize that successful means different things to different people. I don't expect everyone to be a concert violinist. If your goal is to be able to play in church and have people enjoy your performance, I'll help you with that. If you want to be able to play in a community orchestra and maybe teach someday, I'll help you with that. If your goal is get a college scholarship someday, then that's what we'll work towards. The only thing that I ask is that you're continually working to achieve your goals, whatever they are, and putting in the time necessary to help you along that path. I know you're busy, trust me. But if soccer, basketball, drama and everything else always takes priority over your violin, then your progress will be very slow. There's no way around that.

 I would do you a great disservice if I wasn't honest with you in lessons. If we're still putting notes and bowings together six weeks before a major recital and we've been working on this same piece for six months, I'm going to tell you that you're not practicing enough. I'm going to respect you enough to encourage you to step up your practicing and be more diligent about preparing. I'm going to do everything I can to motivate you, but once you reach teenager-hood, you're the only one who can decide when, how much, and how well you're going to practice. What I want you to remember is this: just because I tell you the way it is, and maybe telling you that you're not practicing enough, it doesn't mean that I love you any less. On the contrary, I'm pushing you because I know you can do better, and I want you to succeed.

Trust me, I know it's easy to look at those kids who look like they're barely old enough to be potty trained that are playing pieces you can only dream about, and decide that they're just naturally talented and that you'll never get there. But here's the thing I've learned after years of practicing, performing and teaching: talent matters very little. There are a ton of naturally talented violinists out there that never made it anywhere because they depended on their talent to carry them. There's no shortcut on the violin unfortunately. Hard work is where it's at. Everyone has to work at the violin, no matter how "naturally talented" they may be. The very first course Suzuki Teachers take, before any instrument specific training is called "Every Child Can," a course that drills into our heads over and over that talent isn't inborn, talent is developed through discipline, hard work, and a nurturing environment. Don't discount the value of consistent, focused practicing. Just like being good on the soccer field requires more than showing up for games, playing well in a recital is going to require hour, days, weeks months, and years of preparation that no one sees. Repetition, scales and drills aren't nearly as glamorous as standing on the stage performing, but you won't get there if you're not willing to put in the effort, the time, the sweat, and yes, the tears.

I'm so glad we're in this together. There is nothing more satisfying as a teacher than to see a student's progress and watch them succeed. I'm going to do everything in my power to help you in your journey.The only thing that I ask is that you're willing to put in the work to get yourself there. It'll be worth it, I promise.

Well, Since You Asked...

"Hey," I hear you asking, "I haven't heard from Stacy lately. I wonder what's she's been up to."

Well, well, I'm glad you asked.

We've been homeschooling. (Forgive the crappy picture- I believe that Max was the photographer here.)

 Max has been eating the Base-10 blocks that Ashlynn was using to learn multiplication,

And then scattering them all over the house.

We've been field-tripping on Fridays, where we river-walked,

fed the ducks,

and let them nibble on Ian's toes.

We watched General Conference and bottled lots and lots and lots of pears.

We did a little bit of laundry, (Ian is forever after in charge of the laundry. I'm all about training him young and all that. After all, it's about time he started pulling his weight around this place!)

We've been sleeping. Here and there. Ok, maybe they've been sleeping.

We've been chasing after Ian who is walking, and running, shredding toilet paper, squirting toothpaste all over the carpet, and all those other things toddlers do. And talking. (Did I mention he's only ten months old? I don't think he realizes that he's a baby.) He has a vocabulary or two words: "Ma!" which he yells at me approximately 257 times a day, and "Plop!" He has long thought this was the funniest word in the English language, and now amuses us all when he says is repeatedly to anyone who will listen.

We've gotten haircuts,

We've instituted a new excercise regimen,

And we've done a whole lot of practicing. A lot. As in, the whole family can now sing the Fiocco Allegro for memory. Abby is audtioning for the Suzuki Youth Orchestra of America, held in Minneapolis in conjunction with the SAA Conference. If she gets accepted, she'll play in an orchestra of 9 and 10 year olds from all over the Americas at the SAA convention over Memorial Day Weekend in 2012. We recorded this video yesterday.

And yesterday, as an added bonus, I looked around my kitchen to find that all four of my children were crying simultaneously. That takes some serious parenting skills my friends.

So we've been busy. Happy. Tired. Wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe I'll take the crying kids one at a time.