Wednesday 31 March 2010

Music Recital

The kid's school held a music recital for the upper classes. This includes Abigail and Sam. All the upper classes had prepared a musical piece or two to share with parents at the recital. I went in with quite a low expectation knowing that the school does not have a 'full-time' music teacher. I also knew that Sam's class had ALL been learning the clarinet! Sam isn't too bad on the clarinet but the thought of 30 children of mixed ability all playing the clarinet together somewhat scared me! I must say I was quite impressed.

The choir, directed by our Pastor (he kind of inherited the position from me) sang 2 songs from the musical 'My Fair Lady'. He did a great job leading them and getting them to sing with 'cockney' accents for 'Wouldn't it Be Lovely'. (for some reason the video wouldn't load so you'll have to wait until I can figure out what happened)

Sam's class was amazing! Who'd of thought that 30 - 8/9 year olds could sound like this on the clarinet!! (you might want to turn your speaker volume down a tad)

The first clip is a medley of 'Oh When the Saints' there are 3 different melodies being played together and although it's not perfect, it is pretty impressive. Keeping in mind some of these children have absolutely no music teaching outside of the classroom. (Sam is the second boy on the bottom row - sitting down)


The next clip is a little bluesy number that they played.


Abigail's class did a music/rythm and poetry number that was quite interesting as well as a jazzy number on recorders.

Monday 29 March 2010

Breaking News!

There's a bunch of stuff that I could blog about, but I don't have time to do that right now. So here's the latest breaking news in our house... Levi has decided to walk!! He's been on his feet since he was about 6 months old so we thought he would be an early walker. He tricked us and has put it off until now! For the last few months he has been walking holding on to just a finger or two and refusing to let go, but on Thursday afternoon he decided enough was enough. After coming home from picking up the kids at school, I set him on his feet as we got in the front door and he took off on his own down the hallway in into the front room! Since then he's been walking everywhere! Here's a video to prove it! (Sorry I can't seem to rotate the video so you'll either have to turn your heads or you monitors!)




Also - I got my passport back on Thursday! Unfortunately it was too late to get to China for the concert that I wanted to go to, but I am now working on getting a Visa so that I can visit mom after the Easter holidays. I'll keep you all posted.

Friday 12 March 2010

10 Minute Talk

Just thought I'd take 10 MINUTES and post some of the things that we are up to/ thinking about etc.

I am still waiting on my passport (hopefull it will come in the next few days) so that I can do more paperwork in order to finalize my trip to China to visit Mom.

Abigial (actually WE) have been given a wonderful news of a GREAT offer for her to go to a PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SECONDARY SCHOOL (Thames Christian College)! We are amazed at how God has worked in this situation.

Levi is still NOT walking.

Aleah is still loving school. As she goes to bed each night she say...'In the morning, wake up, have breakfast, what are we going to do?' We respond on weekdays of course - 'go to school'. She clasps her hands and shouts 'yes'!

Sam loves playing with transformers, and legos. (either physically or on the wii)

Dean is not preaching this week! Whew!(He's preached the last 2 Sundays - due to the new arrival in our Pastor's family)

That's my 10 Minute Talk for today. Thanks for listening!

Thursday 4 March 2010

World Book Day 2010




Today was World Book Day at the children's school. I found out on Friday that they would be having a 'favourite book character' dress day. We have had a CRAZY few days - Abby broke her finger, our pastor's wife had a baby so Dean needed to preach on Sunday, funeral of a dear old friend, secondary school places announced...the list could go on, but I can't take time now.

ANYWAY, last night all the children were talking about what/who they wanted to be and I got into action!

Abigail new that she wanted to be 'Nancy Drew' - this seemed quite straight forward except that this Nancy Drew wanted to have all matching accessories etc. it took a while to convince her that she would still be Nancy Drew without EVERYTHING matching!



Sam wanted to be one of the 'Wild Things' from 'Where the Wild Things Are' but unfortunately lack of time and resources ruled that out. We finally decided on 'Billy Bonkers'.


Thankfully we have the resources of the church's playgroup dressing up box so I decided that Aleah could go as Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz'.


After a few improvises and some hot glue everybody was ready to go! The school had an assembly at the end of the day and paraded all those who participated on the stage. Many of the teachers also took part - which the children all love!