Sunday, May 31, 2009

Busy Days

Things have been pretty crazy around here and I don’t imagine it’s going to calm down in the next 8 days. My folks are gone taking care of Josh, (& the rest of the family) and so I’m teaching for my mom. It’s pretty fun, but with half my girls still too young for school, I’m very thankful I have the privilege of just being their mom every day. It makes my afternoons and evenings very busy when I haven’t been home for half the day! We’re also in the midst of preparing for company – Ed’s brother and his wife and family are coming next week and so there is much to do to get ready for that. I’m still hoping to paint the bathroom (yes, a new color has been chosen – watch for it in future posts) and the living room, in addition to doing all the end-of-the-school-year things, plus meal planning and shopping for our guests. I’m really not quite sure how it’s all going to get done. Maybe I should stop blogging… ;)

We’ve also been having gorgeous weather which means I have blooming flower photos to share, as well as pics of the kids swimming in the neighbor’s pool this afternoon…oh, and photos of the girls violin/piano recital which was on Saturday.

Here we go. Friday’s PotD: Oops, looks like I cropped that to 8x10 size accidently. Oh well. It’s my calla lily. They’re starting to bloom, but I don’t have as many blooms as last year. It looks like it might be time to divide these come fall. I have just the place for the divided crop, too!

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Saturday’s Photos-of-the-day:

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Miss Bethany playing her piano at the recital. I didn’t get a picture of her playing the violin because Ed was at Becca’s last soccer game and when Bethany plays her violin, I have to accompany her on the piano! She did great, though, on both instruments.

IMG_4440 Sarah playing one of her two piano pieces. She played beautifully, as always.

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Here’s the girls with their beautiful and talented piano/violin teacher. She’s great and fun and challenging for them. She requires that her students record how many minutes they practice each week (she asks for 150/week, which comes out to 30 minutes a day, 5x a week) and then gives prizes at each recital to the student with the most minutes. Last year, Sarah determined she was going to win that prize and at the Christmas recital, she did! Well, things get busy in the second half of 5th grade and she didn’t practice NEAR as much as she did during the first half. So when the prize time came at the end of the recital, we didn’t think either of the two gifts the teacher was holding would be for her. The teacher announced that she had two winners, one had the most minutes total, but she also had two instruments to practice, and that winner was Miss Bethany! Yay Bethany!!! And then she announced that the person with the next most minutes was Miss Bethany’s sister Sarah! So both the girls won prizes and we had what has now become known as the “Ball Family Sweep” of the prizes at the music recital. I just want to know – where’s my prize?

I am very proud of the girls and their diligence in practicing, even when they only did it because I said they had to. It has paid off for them and they are learning so much and becoming talented musicians and they do it all to God’s glory and in thankfulness to Him for the gift. It’s awesome.

Today after church & lunch the girls were invited to play in the neighbor’s pool. Since Elise is still so young and dangerous around the water, that meant I had to sit at the neighbor’s most of the afternoon, so I took a few pictures.

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Becca was declared an “official big girl” by the neighbor friends because she could jump off the ladder into the pool and since she is now tall enough to touch the bottom with her head above water. She was thrilled.

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More 8x10 cropping – looks like my default crop size got changed somehow…anyhoo…Elise loved it. Except once she wanted her friend’s life jacket on instead of her ring that goes on like a swimsuit. It worked great until she flipped herself onto her back and couldn’t get upright again. She got kind of scared, but wasn’t in danger and I was standing right there watching. Sarah went in and rescued her and I think a bit of fright in the water was just what she needed. She was just a tad more careful during the rest of her swimming time.

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Bethany could jump pretty high also! Later on tonight she started not feeling well and has now gone to bed with a fever, so we’re hoping it’s not going to turn into anything serious…say a prayer for her with me.

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Sarah of course is almost too big to jump into the pool like this, but she was having fun, despite being the oldest in the group.

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And Becca just loves having her picture taken. :)

And lastly, my first peony to open and bloom. I love  those flowers. There is something so timeless-English-garden about them.

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1 comment:

Melissa said...

I love your pool pictures! The peony is beautiful too. I think I have that color in my yard, they are my favorite flowers I just wish they lasted longer :)