Mini Jim Brickman

F truly loves piano. He picked one really easy and one really challenging piece for his spring recital this year. The challenging one, an arrangement of the Jim Brickman song Rocket to the Moon, marks the first time he hasn't had his recital piece 100% memorized,  but it's also the longest/most complicated piece he's played. 

When he chose this song we came to an agreement - he could perform it only if he put in extra practice so he would be prepared come recital day. Boy, did he ever practice. Most days it was about an hour and he only complained once  (he bargained for practice a different time of day, not to give it up altogether). It paid off! 

I want to give a very special shout out to my aunt Pam who decided F would be a good recipient for my grandma's piano. I hope you know how wonderful that made F feel and I believe that having a piano that is his very own is part of what makes music so special to him. 

Spring Piano 2014

As requested by his grandmas, FFM's Spring Recital performance.

He was thrilled to lead off the performance, and this year's recital was the best one yet. At the beginning of the year his teacher decided to leave the school where she had been teaching and a few students followed her for private instruction. Because we've done both group and solo lessons with Kelly for 2.5 years now we knew almost every other student at the recital. It's way more fun to listen to kids you know than strangers! The kids all did very well, and it was obvious they are all enjoying their music. No two kids repeated songs (unlike days of old), and the evening went by in a flash.

I missed the introduction, but here's Amazing Grace and Star Wars Main Title.
(a side note, Ms. Kelly's piano is a couple hundred years old and has a unique sound. Because a lot of these kids listen carefully when they play several of them fumbled around for a note that sounded different on her concert piano than on her practice one or the one they have at home. Normally I don't hear any of these kids stumble during a performance, it's good practice to play on all kinds of pianos!)

Piano Recital 2013

So
Far
Behind
!

FFM's piano recital from December. He was the youngest pianist at the recital and the only one that played without his sheet music. He LOVES recitals and practiced night and day (thus the no music). This recital was at a church, and while the piano wasn't the beautiful grand piano that we usually have for recitals it was a nice trade for having plenty of room for family and friends to come along to watch.

I was slow and missed the beginning of the first song, "Land of the Silver Birch." Second song, "Cossack Ride", which he fumbled a little bit trying to play faster than his little fingers will go.



Later he and the three other children in his class played a four person version of "O Tannenbaum" which was quite a feat.

Summer

It's a lot harder to post in the summer. The great outdoors beckons, FFM and I play a lot, read often, and generally poke around. We've been slowly doling out the bounty of birthday gifts he received so the fun lasts all summer. There's always a new Lego set under construction, outdoor toys to test out in the greenbelt, and new books to read. We go to the library a couple times a week, avoid the grocery store and pluck dinner from our garden instead, and we're both always up for a trip to the pool.

Last week F wrapped up a two week theater camp that gave him a little change of pace and me time to do a quick swipe over all the house to get the worse of the grime and to start (not finished yet!) a painting project.  The first week of camp they learned about stage direction, projection, and tips like to face the audience even if they are talking to the person next to them. The kids worked in small groups of about 4 and rewrote a traditional fairytale in their own words. They learned how to create and use storyboards, and at the end of the week there was a small performance.

The second week they spent more time on the BIG stage and learned more theater speak. I got a tour and was shown the house, pit, backstage, lighting tech, etc. Week two the kids broke into different small groups and wrote their OWN play from scratch. They were great! Good plots, interesting characters, and great DIY costumes. Friday brought the Final Performance. F's group performed "Good VS Evil" or as he puts it, "The Queen, The Kitty, and The Witch."

Synopsis:
The Princess falls ill and her mother, The Queen, sends off Magical Kitty Miracle to find the Magic Flower that will cure her. Kitty is intercepted by the Evil Queen who casts a spell on him, renames him Darkenss AND kidnaps the Princess! The Queen sends the Magical Dove and once the Dove saves the Kitty the two have enough power to defeat the Evil Queen and turn her to stone. In the meantime the Queen has found the magical flower, saves the Princess, and they all live happily ever after.
Guess who was the Kitty?
Video quality is poor, my phone camera struggled. I promise it's not too painful to watch, but the sound is bad.


P.S. I had no idea the magic bird was a dove until she told me. I was fully under the impression she was a magical crow.

King of the Ice

As much as is reasonable we let F pick his own activities. Sometimes there's a veto if it's not age appropriate or budget and schedule friendly, but overall he gets to do the extracurricular stuff he wants to do.

Back in preschool F's class went ice skating once a month. He. Loved. It. I checked out ice skating classes at the time and we had a schedule conflict. This fall there was a new schedule and since he's a little older he qualifies for more classes ergo more available time slots. He started in November and is now into his first full session of skating lessons.

F's a hoot on ice. From my perch outside the rink it appears his two favorite things are skating backwards and running into the boards. Perhaps he'll opt for hockey soon.

This afternoon we got a flier from school for the local youth baseball and volleyball leagues. F's expressed interest in playing these sports so I offered him up a choice. Skating, baseball, OR volleyball. After trying to talk me into letting him do them all, then "...maybe just two of them, Mommy?" he quickly opted for skating. I was a bit surprised, the pull of baseball has been strong.

After lessons I let him free skate for a while and that kiddo boogied around the ice chock full of confidence. He may choose alternative sports and activities, but dang it he's having a really good time.

Winter Piano Recital

FFM's class finished their assigned music book early this semester. The parents voted to wrap up the year with some Christmas music. This recital was a bit different, instead of it being only students of our teacher it was several different teachers. Including violin. That part was painful. The rest, pretty good.

We bring you a joyful performance - Ode to Joy (in two different keys) and Joy to the World.

Flipper

FFM is perfecting the flip turn. He used to twist first then try to flip.  He's getting it down, but is so excited when he does it right that he stops to hear the praise. Maybe next week he'll swim on and on...

Busy Boy

Before school started Travis and I had some lengthy dicussions about the volume of activities FFM wanted to do. This child would be happy if he were in some organized group activity every day. However, we parents opt for at least a couple days off.

Swimming is going well.  After seeing the swimmers at the Olympics this summer FFM 'borrowed' my swim cap and now wears it for every lesson. He's refining his strokes and hopes to be on a summer league swim team next summer.

Piano is where he really excels. I'm constantly stunned at his skill and persistence for practice. He gets frustrated when he can't learn a piece in a couple of reads; this semester of piano he's been challenged by longer and more complicated pieces and he's learning to keep going instead of just quitting if it's too hard the first time. This fall FFM inherited my grandma's piano and it was barely in the door when he started playing it.

Somewhere FFM learned about choir and Sunday School so we've become pretty regular church goers. He sings at least once a month in service-our church is very musical with several choirs, bells, 3 piece combos, orchestra, and more. This weekend he sang in the angel choir for the Annual Advent Pageant. He loves choir and manages to be in the front row AND wear a tie for every performance. Notice he is surrounded by girls...perhaps one reason he likes choir so much?

Right before Thanksgiving FFM started 6 weeks of ice skating lessons. I really like this activity because it's on Saturday morning and Travis gets to take him. I tag along occasionally and try to stay warm while we watch him master basic skills like gliding, going backwards, and making tiny jumps. Soon we'll trade ice skating for ski school, just as soon as some snow arrives.

Even after all this FFM wants to go to more.  The school sends home fliers for after school activites every couple of weeks and the latest one was for a ceramics class. FFM asked to do it, and after even more discussion we said OK. Last Tuesday was the first day of class and as I stood in front of the school at 5pm waiting to pick him up I thought about how strange it was to be at school in the dark. When we got all loaded into the car FFM admitted, "Mom, I had a really great day today but it was LONG!" I was concerned it was too long a day but he was adamant about continuing. Mr. Social Butterfly had a grand time and can't wait to go back.