Stella's First Piano Lesson

Stella waiting outside the building before her 1st piano lesson, giddy with excitement.

Stella had her first piano lesson today and she loved it. She has 30 minute private lessons once a week along with 1 hour group lessons (lessons with other students) once every weekend. She is receiving her private lessons from the Director of the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas and he follows the Suzuki philosophy in teaching a child music. She learned today how to take a bow, sit correctly on a piano chair, the music alphabet, and how the fingers are numbered in the context of playing the piano. She is SO excited and we are SO happy to be encouraging her love of music.

One of the components of the Suzuki philosophy is total parental involvement, so therefore, a parent must be present with Stella during her lessons so that we know what was taught during a lesson and then help her practice the new skills at home. Stella chose to have Mama stay with her.

Stella posing with Dada and Des before going in for her 1st lesson.

We all went inside to meet her teacher and then Dada left with Des while Mama stayed. Since Mama knows nothing about music, she is learning a lot too...2 for the price of 1!

Painting Outside

It was another beautiful day here and so we went outside as soon as we were done with breakfast to enjoy it. Mama brought out the easel onto the deck and the kids had fun painting with watercolors and drawing with chalk on the chalkboard. Since we were outside, Mama didn't have to worry about the kids making a mess...if they spilled anything it was no big deal.

As you can see from the concentration on Stella's face, she takes her painting very seriously!

Stella painted a beautiful rainbow circle.

She also filled in colors if Mama drew the outlines of flowers for her.

Des started out painting the watercolors and his definition of painting meant dipping the paint brush in the water and then the paint over and over without much painting on the paper.

Des then thought it was fun to paint his sister.

After that, he moved onto the chalkboard.

Then he got the brilliant idea to paint the chalkboard with water. So silly, but it kept him very happy and that's all that matters.

Weekend Fun

Beautiful weekend here with temps in the 70s during the day with no humidity and temps in the 50s at night. Just perfect. Early Fall weather. We were outside a lot this weekend. Went out to brunch Sat morning and dined al fresco atop the second floor balcony. Then we went to the library, which is always fun. After naps, Dada took the kids to a nearby driving range and they had fun "hitting" golf balls, lining them up, counting them, etc. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera anywhere so no pics to share. It was a great weekend.

Fun Filled Weekend

We had a great weekend filled with lots of fun. It was nice to be able to go out as a family and enjoy the weekend since Dada finally recovered from his week long stomach flu (which luckily neither Mama, Stella, nor Des ended up getting).

On Sat, we went out to breakfast. We were sitting in a portion of the restaurant on the 2nd floor that was covered on all sides with windows and jutted out into the nearby trees making it seeming like we were eating in a tree house. While we were waiting for our breakfast, Des and Stella saw a cat sleeping on the ground outside the restaurant. Des just started yelling loudly "Wake up cat! Cat, wake up!". We kept telling him to use his inside voice which he would obey for 10 seconds before yelling again. It was rather comical...at least for us, if not for the other diners=;)

After a yummy breakfast, we headed out to visit the Jones center for the first time. The Jones center is a social, recreational, and educational facility donated to the Northwest Arkansas community by Bernice Jones where all are welcome to use the facility free of charge. The Jones center has a large swimming pool, an ice skating rink, a gymnasium, a park, places to host birthday parties, etc. Stella and Des had lots of fun playing basketball with Dada.

All that running around the gym worked up an appetite and so off we went to have some lunch. After lunch, Dada took the kiddies to Chuck E. Cheese, while Mama did a little shopping nearby. The kids then took their naps in the car. Dada said that when the Gup woke up and saw that Mama wasn't in the car, he was so concerned. He kept saying: "Dada, where's Mama? Stella, wake up, wake up, where's Mama Stella?" Dada kept telling him that Mama was shopping and she will be back soon, but Des just kept asking about Mama. Well, hearing that story just melted Mama's heart. So, so sweet!

After Mama was done with her shopping, we went to the park and Stella made friends with 2 girls. She is starting to be very social these days and loves making friends with other girls (not boys) her age.

After the park, it was off to dinner. Then, we walked around town and got some YUMMY gelato.

To sum up, on Sat, we left the house at 9:30 am and didn't get home until 8:30 PM!

Cool Shades

We bought Des his first pair of sunglasses right before our beach trip to Florida. But for some reason, we don't have any pictures of him wearing his sunglasses, even though he has worn it plenty of times. Well, the other day, Des and Stella put on their sunglasses and we happened to snap some pics of our lil' dude wearing his shades.
Finding sunglasses for Des was very hard because he has a relatively tiny nose with a low nose bridge and his ears are very flimsy (somehow his ear cartilage is very thin). So most of the sunglasses we tried on him would not sit on his face very well and would end up sliding right off. We finally found a pair that stayed on fairly well, but they still cause his thin ears to bend.

Painting Fun

Stella absolutely loves doing any sort of craft activity, but it is hard to do when you have a 22-month old around who wants to do what his big sis does. So, today, Mama threw caution to the wind and decided to let the kids paint (with acrylic craft paint) wooden stars and Christmas trees she picked up at our local craft store. Stella and Desmond had a BLAST painting! This was Desmond's first time painting anything and he just LOVED it!

As you can see in the pic above, Mama dressed Des only in an old T-shirt and a diaper because she knew he would make a big mess and sure enough he did. Here he is showing Mama and the camera all the paint he got on his hands. After we finished painting, Mama had to hose the Gup down in the bathtub.

Plain Silly!

The kids amused themselves by making silly faces with oranges at breakfast this morning. Stella did it first and then, Des followed suit. Whatever Stella does, Desmond does. Monkey see, monkey do!