Leaps and Bounds

I tell you, when you make a commitment to homeschool, it is just about getting the little things done every single day.  And so, we just keep moving forward.  Sometimes we crawl, but we move forward.

It has been a great blessing to have some help at the house. I realize I have not taken a picture of Mary. I will definitely do that when I get a chance again. But with her here on a consistent basis, we have been able to get a fairly steady routine going.  Yesterday, we hit the library for a change of scenery. We usually do this about once a week.  I am focusing on providing quiet areas for study and reflection.  The library is ideal for this objective and I can see good results from it.  The boys are learning lots of things on a daily basis.

They are doing really well and they are so smart.  I am a proud mama.

We also keep plugging away at violin and viola. Zach is currently still working on a Vivaldi in Book 5.  But he has also been challenged with a non-Suzuki piece called "Czardas" by Monti.  It is good stuff. Raef is wrapping up book 4, with a long concerto by Telemann.  

Zach's glasses broke about a month ago and the poor kid has been pretty blind since then.  I didn't think it was that bad. I finally got him into the doctor and sure enough, the vision has deteriorated quite a bit over the past year. Thanks to my wonderful, lovely, beautiful sister Heather, Zach is now back in the game.  She picked out a couple of pairs for him and put them in the mail.  I think they look great on my little brainiac.

And this was last Monday morning...yea, like I said. Thank goodness for Mary.

And then there are these wonderful moments.  Let me pause and reflect on these moments. It helps to boost my confidence.

And Zach has developed a new passion: cooking. He is taking a cooking class at Eagle Co-op and he loves it.  As soon as he got home from his first day, he whipped up these banana chocolate chip muffins all by himself. I really mean it. I didn't help him at all, besides testing them for delicious goodness when they were out of the oven. And believe me, the muffins were absolutely delicious.  

With every new ventured tried, you can see the confidence growing by leaps and bounds.  Right before my eyes, he is becoming a young man.

One Proud Mama!

Zach is really growing up. He now needs glasses, as he is pretty blind. I felt an urgency to get glasses for him since he is in a city orchestra with Raef. They had their first official practice yesterday. It is a great organization. There are four levels and the boys are in the ensemble, which is only string instruments. The highest level is a full orchestra of high school students and they actually get to go on a tour next year to China. Cool, huh? They do a big trip every 3 years so that every kid can have a chance to go.

They seat the kids according to how they ranked them in their audition. The auditions were tough. There was a standard piece you prepared for the audition and then when you were done with that, they had you sight-read something. Parents were not allowed into the audition room, so I had no idea how they had done on anything.

We found out yesterday. Raef was #1! He did the best on the audition for violas. There are never enough violas, but regardless, he is by far the youngest violist in the group. All the other ones look like they are middle school aged. He looks so little compared to all the other kids, but I am sure that won't last long.

Zach was also seated. In a group of about 30 violins, he was #2, first violin! He gets to sit in the front. I was really surprised because there was so much competition. But one thing about him is that he is an excellent sight-reader, so in a way I am not surprised. He just attacks it.

So here is one proud mama who had to take a minute and brag about the kiddos. Thanks for bearing with me on this.