First Prize

We've been competing in the big annual Sonatina festival (it always happens in early November) for a few years now. It's very competitive - children compete in one of 15 different levels, all playing the same piece, and a judge selects a few for honorable mention, and the top two, who go onto a recital (on the Steinway in the Morrison Center Recital Hall, yay) that night where they play again, in front of a large audience and more judges and are awarded either first or second place. Hero won first place, once, several years ago, and has gotten honorable mention twice. It's always a stressful thing that they spend months preparing for, and some years it's went better than others. By and large, this year, it was a great one. Allegra really challenged herself by choosing a difficult piece and received an Honorable Mention (usually I wouldn't be overly enthused with that, but her level was tough AND she squeezed a full Nutcracker rehearsal in as soon as she finished playing) and Ian, aka the smirky one (hence the chipmunk teeth - I swear they aren't that "bucky" in real life LOL), earned a trip to the Honors Recital, where he nailed his piece and took home the First Place trophy. He was insufferable (just ask his big sisters) for several days afterwards, but, hey, I guess he earned it. It was great for him to get to step out of the shadow of his big sisters for once.

Catch Up

Man, am I behind. I have to admit, my head is in a bit of a fog right now. I'm so grateful that James is working full-time again, but it's been quite the adjustment to go from having help 75% of the day, to doing it all by myself. At least we have a vacation coming up soon! I didn't update last week, but I lost a little bit and then this week I had a good weigh-in, losing 2.2lbs. I'm down 13.2lbs total since January 4th. I'm at 193.4, so my first minigoal seems within reach. It feels SO good to succeed at something, for a change. As far as the rest of the family - the three older kids all earned Superiors at piano festival, so that was good, and Elle has two teeth and can say Da-Da.

Music Music Everywhere

The crazy piano season has started. First off was the Halloween recital (which had to be crammed between Nutcracker rehearsals) last Saturday. Tomorrow is the Hymn Festival, and then two Saturdays after that is Sonatina Festival. This is Ian's first year in festivals and it's nerve-wracking. When they are so young you never quite know what's going to go on behind the closed doors of the judging room. Hero's becoming quite proficient - I certainly can't keep up with her. Allegra has shown steady progress as well (but I still can supervise her practice because I can play what she's playing LOL).

Piano Recital & Festivals

It's a crazy time of year as far as piano lessons are concerned. The Halloween recital was Ian's first and it was especially cute since he played dressed up as a pirate. He did great (although he did need some prompting to play the repeat LOL). The girls did fine as well, playing both their Halloween pieces and their Sonatinas. The girls also just finished up the annual Hymn Festival, both of them earning Superior ratings. This weekend is the dreaded Sonatina Festival competition which has been the cause of much angst in the Fife household. It'll be nice to be done and move on to the less stressful Christmas songs.