Just Enjoying...

Being a Princess:

And Building a Castle with Daddy:

L.

Happy 4th Birthday, Miah!

It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we have now celebrated half of all of the birthdays we will have with our children before they all reach adulthood.  I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it feels significant!

Our "baby princess" isn't much of a baby anymore at age 4, but I guess she will always be the baby, to us.

We got some amazing birthday pictures, today:

Miah wanted to go to Chuck-E-Cheese, and we didn't want to deprive her or anything, since our bigger kids have always been allowed to choose this on their birthdays, but we did decide to just pkay there and eat later:

Miah chose a very eclectic mix of birthday foods:

And her cake turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself:

She made out like a bandit at present time...  It pays to have older siblings who think you are the queen of the world:

 
I love this little girl with my whole heart!  Happy birthday, Miah!  Mama loves you much... much... much...  and "that's a lot of muches!"

Unless I Make A Real Effort...

... I rarely end up in a picture that isn't either posed or a "selfie", lately!

Well, I forgot I handed my camera off to my friend, Rita, at District Finals, and I was pleasantly surprised to find this rare coaching moment from top 16, captured on film:

Ah...  District Finals.  It's always an adventure...

I can hardly believe that we have come to the end of Seth and Grace's second district quiz season already.  Time flies...

The end result is that both of them will be quizzing on the Michigan District A Team at Celebrate Life and Q, which makes me happy.  It never ceases to amaze me how stressful district finals is, regardless of who you are or where you quiz.  There were some mishaps in getting there, but they are there nevertheless... 

I am really looking forward to the years to come...

L.

Junior Festival, 2014...

What kid enters 11 events for Junior Festival?  Oh...  that would be my kid...

I always enjoy the times when we return to Indiana and get to interact with our "music family".

Grace had a ridiculously successful weekend, including Superior ratings in solo, composition, concerto, and theory and Super Superior ratings in accompaniment, patriotic & folk, improvisation, LFO solo, hymns, sightreading, and duet.

Here she is with Anna, after the accompaniment event:

And with Jonah after the duets:

Grace had her first experience playing in the district play-offs and will be playing her solo and composition at the honors recital in May!

This was Caleb's first Junior Festival.  He earned a Very Good in theory, Superior in patriotic & folk and hymns, and Super Superior in solo!  He worked really hard, and it payed off!

Here he is after his events,

waiting for Grace to finish up:

Excellent weekend...

L.

Indy Westside Tournament, 2014...

Maybe a picture really is worth 1,000 words.

This is what quizzing should look like:

 

And This:

And This:

And if there's anybody out there who thinks

I only care about winning, 

Even this, if the quizzing is good:

This stuff doesn't hurt:

 "Our Cup is Full"

2nd Place with their $250.00 scholarships:

Top 10 Individual Quizzers

Grace, 4th place with her $500.00 scholarship:

But the stuff that really matters is all wrapped up in loving God and loving people!  Thank you, so much, to those who made this a good weekend, particularly for Grace who needed a purely fun quiz to reset for the rest of this season.  Thank you, especially, to Lydia, who is graciously passing the torch.

I do not think there is a better program out there for spiritual formation, for teenagers, than Bible Quizzing. 

Carry on...

L.