October Piano Recital

After Eric lost his job in February, we had to set aside Suzuki piano lessons. We knew it had to be done but it was a hard decision to make. We ended up having to say goodbye to our former instructor, Mrs. Palmer, when we moved here. (Mrs. Palmer, the children miss you very much and talk about you often! We thank God for our time with you!)

We were blessed to find a new piano instructor, Mrs. McKeown, shortly after moving and the children began lessons at the end of August. It had been quite a long break, so we have had to take a few steps back to re-learn some things. Patricia, Benjamin and Matthias have lessons once a week at Mrs. McKeown's piano studio. (She has a spare room where Elizabeth can take a nap while the children play. Yahoo!) Jonathan is very eager to begin lessons (he asks EVERY week if it is his turn) but we are going to wait till next year.

On October 24th, the children performed in their first piano recital. My parents were able to join us, which was a great delight for them and us! We enjoyed hearing the other students perform. Recitals are always great motivators. Eric was so inspired that he has been practicing now! I told him that I had too many children to teach already so Patricia has been teaching him. :)

Here are some pictures and videos from the recital:

The children with Mrs. McKeown:


Benjamin played "Lightly Row" with hands in unison:


Matthias played "Theme" (which is actually "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star") with his right hand. He won an award for good posture (Mrs. McKeown gives away several awards at each recital for various things)! Matthias was very happy to hang up his green ribbon in the educational room. :) Here he is playing his song (people in the audience thought he was so cute- we agree!):


Patricia graduated into book 2 just before we moved here. She is still working on the first song in that book (boy, is book 2 much harder than book 1!!!), so she played "Musette" from book 1, as well as "Allegretto" from another book that Mrs. McKeown uses for sight reading. Poor thing- she gets SO nervous!!! She completely forgot the second part of Musette, which was really sad because she had worked so hard at remembering the fermata in practices! Oh, well- it still sounded very beautiful. It brings us joy to see Patricia willing to play even though she is nervous- she desires to give God glory and make people happy even when it is difficult for her. Here is Patricia playing:


Finally, here are a few pictures taken afterward:




This is what Abigail did the whole time (she is so accustomed to hearing the piano play that it doesn't disturb her):


- Heather