GPS lady

I'm on vacation! Yay! Kristel and I are taking a break from life, shopping a lot, laughing a lot and attending Time Out For Women this weekend. At one point in our search for awesome stores today we got all turned around but luckily Kristel's GPS on her phone came to our rescue and led us the right way without us going too far out of our way. That GPS lady sure is smart. She knows exactly the right way to go! 

I am also super grateful for all the people back home that are making this vacation happen for me, particularly Chris and also my Mom for her help with the boys. And of course for Kristel for being the kind of friend that I can do something like this with. 

And now I must sleep so I have lots of energy for tomorrow :)

Students

Today I taught 7 of my 13 students with 5 of them all in a row because I am going out of town tomorrow morning and had to shuffle things around a bit.  Five in a row is a lot for my kids to handle and even lot for me as I start to feel brain fatigue, but today was really not bad.  Luckily I have an awesome student who trades her lessons for taking care of the kids while I am teaching other students.  I don't know what I would do without her! In the last 6 months I have almost doubled the amount of students I had and it has been largely due to this girl that I have been able to do it. 

I really do enjoy teaching and even though it can be stressful and exhausting sometimes, it is also really rewarding.  Today one of my violin students played a song entirely in tune with relatively good hand position which is something we have been working on pretty much exclusively since she started with me at the beginning of the school year. I can't even express how pleased and proud that made me!

And another one of my students who is really talented but also has a really hard time focusing and not playing sloppily had a good lesson where he concentrated on what I was asking him to do and showed a lot of improvement.


I was also able to work with one of my students on the new practicing system and I know she is the type to do what I ask her to do so I really hope she has good success with it.  She is going to be kind of my guinea pig and so I'm excited to see where that goes. 

This picture is really blurry which is super irritating, (I didn't properly explain how to use my camera before I handed it to my dad...my bad!) but I wanted to put it up anyway.  My students were all so cute and did such a good job when we had our Halloween recital in October, and I am grateful for the opportunity to teach them and to continually try to improve as a teacher.

Isaac's journal

I started helping Isaac keep a journal which he loves! He asks me to write in it quite often and he always says things that make me laugh and I make sure to write them exactly as he tells them to me. He really likes to recount his dreams, so a lot of it is a dream journal and he often talks about parties he is going to have and who he is going to invite.  Here are a few of my favorites (although it really is hard to chose):

Oct. 15, 2013

I had a dream that I had flowers in my bed growing while I was sleeping and I was watering the plant. I had a dream about I was sleeping in a vase. I'm having a party.  I was awake in my bed dreaming that I was eating bread and eating some corn.  I have a plant growing but it died.  I am so unhappy.  I wish they wouldn't die.  I have balloons for my party.  They are on my brick tree where I am selling bricks.

Oct. 28, 2013

The funniest thing I ever dreamed: I dreamed that I was in November 15 when I had the 3rd birthday that I was turning ten.  I had a dream that all the people were naked in the store but one was a ghost that had a blanket over it and it was a dementor.  Well it was a person but it was dressed up as a dementor.

I am going to be Woody for Halloween and I am going to bring my gun.  It was fun going to the Trunk-or-Treat and getting all that candy.  It was also fun eating the soup and I also ate a roll.

William showed me how to play Harry Potter on the piano.

Oct. 28, 2013 (two in one day :))

I cooked stuff in a pretend pan for my friends that are almonds.  I am learning so much of one of my friend's songs.  It's called "Sew your shirt together because it ripped."

Oct. 29, 2013

Ummmmmm I love so much....I love Paige. Well she is my best friend well sometimes she doesn't play with me because I am gone, but she usually comes to the Ammon Pool with me.  Also when I had this crazy dream, one of the stores was made out of ghosts.  Then it built up with wood.  But then it turned into a GREAT BIG GHOST! And everyone was sucked up except for one who went to a bad, bad ghost and a bad, bad guy.


This kids imagination is wild! But he is always good for a laugh. I hope he'll continue to write in his journal because it's fun to get a little glimpse of what is going on in his 4-year-old head.

I sure love this face

He ALWAYS has a stick. And they are all his favorite sticks so we must bring them all home.

A happy helper

Today I asked my sweet William to spend some time cleaning up his bedroom while I was teaching lessons.  While I was teaching I could hear that he had turned on an audio book, and since he usually just sits at the computer and listens I figured he hadn't done what I asked. After I finished teaching and was about to go downstairs he ran up and told me he had a surprise and I needed to close my eyes.  He held my hand as we went down the stairs and then said, "OPEN".

When I opened my eyes I saw that not only had he cleaned his room like I asked, but had also cleaned up the rest of the basement.  He has started doing things like this lately and it has been so nice! It really makes me happy (duh) and I can tell it makes him really happy to do.  Like I said a while ago, he once went around and offered to take everyone's plates off of the table which he has done again since then.  He also often responds to things I ask him to do with, "Sure! I'd love to!" He is generally happy to help with Elijah and really is a sweet older brother.  Several times I have seen Elijah lay his head in William's lap and William rub Elijah's back, or Elijah giving him a big hug.  It is very sweet.

Of course William can still be quite whiny and has a lot of times where he doesn't really want to be helpful, but more and more I am seeing this considerate, thoughtful, mature little boy show through and it is really fun to see.

Classic William face

Just tying flies and wearing dragon wings...like a boss! I love this picture.

Stake Conference

I am really grateful for my kids today! I took them to Stake Conference by myself which I've been dreading for days and they were SOOOO good! I couldn't believe it. Elijah was really good for the first hour, but then was pretty done, but the other boys were so good sitting there quietly coloring and playing with legos that I was able to take him out and let him wander the halls for a while which helped a lot.  Isaac started disintegrating about the last 10 minutes but he had been so good the rest of the time that I was able to deal with that without getting frustrated.  It seemed like a miracle and also made me realize how much my boys are growing up.  

A new day with no mistakes

Today was sort of one-of-those-days.  Not that my kids were extra naughty or anything really bad happened (other than slamming my finger in the door-ouch!), I just wasn't feeling it today you know? And although I'm pretty ready for today to be over (but at the same time dreading tomorrow which consists of me taking the kids to stake conference by myself) there are a few things that I did enjoy about today.

1-I spent some time coloring with Isaac.  He is such a funny kid and can drive me up the wall sometimes, but his imagination and ideas are endless and it is so fun when I get a chance to just sit down and enjoy some time with him.  He is always the director, whether we are playing blocks or coloring or whatever, he tells exactly how it is all supposed to be done. And I am happy to be his assistant and do whatever he tells me to do.  I figure he gets bossed around enough I better let him have a chance to be the boss when I can.

2-Isaac got sent to bed a little before William, and I put Elijah down at the same time, which left me time to read to William all by himself which is rare.  It was nice to just snuggle with him and read, even though after a little while Elijah started screaming in the background.  I really love how much William loves books.  He is really getting the hang of reading himself now and is trying to read just about everything, so I'm sure it won't be long before he is reading books to himself.  I hope he'll continue to like having me read to him though.

3-Elijah head banging.  Hilarious.

4-I was asked to play the violin at a funeral for a gentleman in our ward this morning.  It was really nice to be asked and I felt honored to be a part of it. I also love it when I have an excuse and a chance to practice.

5-When I'm having an off day I can take comfort in the words of Anne Shirley.  "Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes [or grumpiness] in it."

BTW I cannot believe I have written 16 days in a row.  Miracles never cease. 

Continuing Education

I am a member of the Music Club here, and every month or so they hold a workshop addressing different aspects of teaching with guest instructors.  I try to attend these whenever I can, but all too often it is a time that is hard, or I don't have babysitting.

Today there was a workshop that I really wanted to go to, and my mom was free (or as free as she ever is) so she agreed to watch the kids and pick up William from school so I could go.  And I was so grateful because it was a great workshop!

The presenter was one of the newer piano professors at BYU-I and he taught how to teach students to practice.  I loved the presentation because he gave such a systematic approach to teaching your students and I could see how helpful it will be if I can teach my students to practice this way.  He gave measurable goals, and really broke the music down in a way that if the student follows the plan success is virtually guaranteed.

It was interesting because although I feel like I teach many of the same practice techniques and use the same way to solve problems in my teaching that he taught, I could see how having a step by step plan for the students to follow makes so much sense and could put together the things I had been teaching them more haphazardly into something simple and clear for them to follow. 

His plan addresses every issue from the notes and the rhythms, hand position, technique, dynamics, phrasing, articulation...everything! All in one plan that I can make a chart of.  I decided that I am going to go through one of my books of shorter classical pieces and teach them to myself using this plan and see how it goes for me at the same time that I am going to start teaching it to my students. 

One thing he said that stood out to me as a new way of thinking is that the musicality of a piece of music cannot be done just by intuition.  Although some people have really good intuition, it is still never going to be exactly what it should be unless you decided deliberately and specifically exactly what you want to do with each phrase, and build up the muscle memory to be able to do it.  I knew this before on some level of course, but the way he explained it, and the way he explained how to practice it was really kind of a revelation to me. 

Anyway, it really made me happy that I was able to attend that workshop today and I hope that I will be able to use the things I learned to improve my skills as a teacher and as a performer.  Although I really miss the learning environment at college, I am glad to be able to continue my studies through workshops and through reading and simply by trial and error in my own teaching.