The World of Ephraim

    With all the craziness teenagers bring to a home, it is nice to have a 1 year old.  Ephraim makes me smile! He gets into the most unexpected scrapes,and makes you see the world differently.  For example, why not use the dog as a step stool for looking out the window?

 Or, use the dog as a bed?

   There was a phase where he would climb everything for a few days.  He kept climbing the fish tank over and over... and kept getting stuck at the top.  I'd get him down, and then 10 minutes later, he would be scaling the sides again.

Ephraim has been taught to love mud puddles from Sylvia, who was taught the art-of-mud by Noel. 

 So, I guess it is a family tradition.

   Ephraim suddenly took an interest in Sylvia's violin.  (I think it had something to do with all the hours Asher had been playing getting ready for his recital.)   Sylvia was wonderful as a teacher, helping him to hold it correctly and play it.

Ephraim is also a master lid opener.  He found some paint.. and Why not use it as body paint?

  We spend hours outside during the summer afternoons, getting wet.. which ususally leads to getting muddy.  Here is a pleasant pre-mud picture.

     Often twilight walks are the only way to get him to stop exploring the world.  He runs from sun-up to sun down, not even taking time to eat, unless he is strapped into something.

Sean is a great dad.  During one summer down pour, he took time to play in the rain with Ephraim.

    Our house is over run by books!  Ephraim loves to read and read.  We read hours with him. He has an amazing vocabulary.  He uses 4 syllable words, and tells jokes (accompanied by his own canned fake laughter of "ha ha ha.")    Sylvia often crawls in bed with him and reads to him first thing in the morning.

     Then Ephraim will make his rounds to "see what the guys doing" (as he put it).  If Asher is still in bed, he will crawl in with him and snuggle.

   We are so lucky to have this little guy in our house. I love having the wide ages in children. It was really rough the first year.. but now I appreciate it more. It is fun. Ephraim helps us all to "keep it real"!

Three Days of June Parties: Day 3, Sylvia's 9th Birthday!

  At the end of a very busy week, Sylvia decided to have a birthday.  No, I guess it was 9 years ago that was decided.  It actually worked out very well, because my parents were in town for all the graduation events, so they could celebrate with Sylvia before they caught their plane home.

  That meant that Sylvia got to hear Grandma's special "CHA CHA CHA"s during the Happy Birthday song.
 How lucky was that?!

  Since it was a brunch birthday party, we had a birthday Kringle (a Norweigen pastry from a bakery down around the corner).

It was a fun way to end a great visit with my parents. We were glad to have Noel over as well.

Sylvia loved Noel's gift of "DJ Pony" and Reeses's Peanut Butter Cups.

Sylvia had been begging for roller skates. She got a set of pink ones from Sean and I. She spent the rest of the day roller skating around the main floor.  She improved quickly, but found it wasn't as easy as she had expected.

  After an exciting drive to the airport to drop my parents off (during which our car started smoking and died, stranding us until Noel came to our rescue) we got ready for Sylvias evening swimming pool party with her freinds.

We had cupcakes and ice-cream sandwiches in a room next to the pool.  The theme was My Little Pony (what else?!), and her freinds were awesome and festive. 

Sylvia couldn't have smiled any bigger without hurting her face. :)   After present opening and much laughter, they swam for an hour and had a blast.  It was a great way to end a party filled week.
 
  As parents, we wanted each of our children to know they were important as individuals and had our support (as well as their friends') as they reached important milestones.  Whew.   What a week.  I think we succeeded in each one feeling loved.  Whew.  We came, we partied... we survived.

Three days of party: Day Two (Asher's Senior Recital)

   It was wonderful to have my parents fly in from Idaho for the grad party on Wednessday. Ephraim rode in the backseat with my mom as we drove to Stoughton from the airport.  She fed him snacks all the way.  By the time we reached home, they were best buds.

After focusing on the older kids at the grad party the night before, grandma and grandpa went with the younger kids to the zoo.  There was an amazing new polar bear exhibit with a very playful bear.  The bear would do dives and swim backtroke right in front of us. Ephraim was impressed.

  Sylvia was still thinking she was rock-climber-of-the-universe from all the rock climbing she had done at an indoor gymn this winter.  She immedieately gravitated to a big boulder in the zoo and tried to climb it.  My dad was really helpful in trying to get her some support.. but alas, it was not to be.  Maybe next year.

   After the zoo and a nap, it was time for Party Number Two:  Asher's Senior Recital.  This was not just a small local affair, but was in a very classy auditorium in Madison, with some of the best musicians in the area sharing the stage with him and in the audience.  My mom and Noel helped set up refreshments and get the programs ready in advance.  It was an amazing concert. Asher started by playing the full Forsyth Viola Concerto (almost 30 min long), entirely memorized!  Mattias had spent most of the spring working to learn the accompaniment, and they sounded great together.

   Asher played a rousing trio by Gabrielli with a couple of professional violin players (Diane and Rebecca Mackie) who are good friends of ours, and his first string teachers.

     Then came my favorite part of the program, getting to see Asher's quartet  perform.   All year long, he has gone into Madison twice a week to practice with these other high school musicians (Maynie Bradley, David Cao, and Antonia Rolfing). The quartet members also play in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra together.  
      This quartet consited of the orhcestra's two principle violin players, the top cello player, and Asher (the principal violist) all in one quartet!  What a great combination!   I had never heard them live, since Sean had gone to their perfomances while I stayed home with Ephraim during the year.  Finally, I got to see what all the fuss was about.  
            They were astounding!

   The quartet performed the first movement of Ravel's string quartet in F major, as well as the first movement of Mendelssohn's String Quartet in F Minor.  I had heard recordings of both pieces before, but seeing them performed live, by a quartet filled with such energy, was so fun!

 The grand finale of the recital was a duet Asher had been working up with a friend (and violinist from his quartet), Maynie Bradley. 

     Asher and Maynie performed Passacaglia, a duet for violin and viola adapted by Johan Halvorson from Handel's seventh Suite for Harpsichord.  They played it with such perfect balance and unity. It was beautiful.  At the end, the audience rose with a cheer, lound clapping, and a standing ovation.  And they kept clapping.  And clapping.  And they went off stage, and came back.. and the clapping continued... and I as a mother started worrying.  "What if they want an encore?!"  "Has he prepared anything?"   But, after a long wave of cheering and clapping, the audience died down, and I felt relieved.  "Whew!"

  There was much mingling afterwards, many hands were shaken, and many cookies consumed.  We met wonderful new friends, but mostly enjoyed the support of the old ones who came to support the boys.

   It was an amazing night.  As the recital was underway, my dad leaned over to my mom and made the comment "I feel like I snuck into some professional concert without paying!". It truly set a high bar for Asher's future recitals.  We give many thanks to all who gave of their time to get him to this place in his budding career.


  

Three days of June Parties: First, Graduating Noel and Asher

     Noel and Asher happened to graduate at the same time this spring.  Asher has done online classes over the summers the past couple years, giving him enough credits to finish the requirements of the local high school at the same time as Noel.  Neither wanted to walk in the traditional high school ceremony, so we had our own short program during their grad party. 

    Our Branch President (the local leader of our church) gave some really good thoughts about how often, things don't follow the path you expect. He said  is worth it do do the hard things that come up.   He gave some good stories about his first trip abroad for his charity work to eradicate poverty, and how he ended up in an Indonesian prison, and escaped by taking the guards out to dinner! 

    We had a really awesome graduation party, with our really awesome friends from our homeschool communty all in attendance.  They are a good support group for transistion times and celebrations. It was tough to let go of my two oldest kids at the same time, after practicing "attachment parenting" for over 18 years. 

   Noel has turned into a very caring and confident person, looking at ways to expand her art talents.

Asher has become an organized achiever, who picks good friends and is not afraid to tackle challenges.

Their  party was a great success.  A couple of wonderful ladies from church helped organize it as their gift to the kids.

   The boys helped set the party up in back of the church early in the day.

 Noel and Asher each had a table displaying items representing their various interests (tennis trophies and artwork).

 The boys survived blowing up dozens of balloons to add color.

 The cake pops were a request both kids had.  Noel's were punk tye-dies, and Asher's looked like tennis balls.  Very cool and very delicious.

Lots of good food kept the crowds and the younger crew very happy.

 Thanks to these ladies (Megan, and Brittany) who worked for hours, along with Missy (not pictured).  They worked late into several nights to make this party the wonderful event it was.

 There was the Asher-fan club table, with homeschool buddies from Stoughton and Madison.

 There were several homeschool parent tables, where Noel and the the older girls mixed and mingled.

 There was the church-people table... full of people that have worked with both kids in their youth program over the years.

 And there was the the Twister-on-the-Lawn crew.  These were the younger siblings of all the teens, having a pary of their own sort.  They were laughing it up and having the time of their lives.

 Sylvia loved spinning and calling out the moves.  I thought Brittany was brilliant for spray painting the dots onto the lawn!

 There were several cans of spray paint the guests could use to sign a message or add graffitti to a canvas for Noel.  The kids young and old had a good time with this idea.

 There was also a s'more roasting pit, and volleyball net set up, although most of the kids just hung out and talked.  It was fun to have so many of our friends turn out, as well as my parents.  It is also good to know the kids have a very large and strong support network of friends and family to fall back on as they launch into their adult lives.



    

Signs of Spring in the Hinkypunk World

    For the last 3 years, spring has been announced by the start of the high school tennis season. I loved watching Asher's final year of varsity tennis, as he tackled some amazing competition at the singles-one spot on the high school team.

  Sean would sum up Asher's final tennis season as "well fought".   He often had matches that approached 2 hours. He made his opponets sweat.  Roger Fedder (Asher's hero)  would have been proud.

    Every Tuesday morning.. rain, shine, or blizzard, we have "Park Day" with a group of other homeschool families.  With the snow finally melted, Ulitmate Frisbee returned as the activity of choice for the older kids.

 The younger group enjoyed climbing, woodchips, and capture the flag. It was nice to get back to the playground after making snowmen and sledding for months. 

   And what would spring be without a dozen concerts to attend?  One week, the boys had 5 different ones, in three different towns.  Mattias played at State Solo and Ensemble with his quartet (lots of beautiful and talented ladies).  They got a "1" (the top rating possible). Their group was very well balanced, unusual for a high school group.

    Mattias also played a solo piano piece at the state level, "Rachmaninov's Prelude in C#". He did such an amazing job!  Usually people hear him accompanying his brother, and are unaware of the power in his fingers. He got to play on a beautiful Steinway, which really allowed for him to show his range. This was one of my proudest parent moments of the spring!  ( He  ended up with a top rating "1" on the piano.)
 

     Asher qualified for solo/ensemble festival at the state level, but opted not to play. Why? Because he was at a tennnis match. All spring he was running in the house, changing  into a suit, or tennis uniform then grabbing his gear and rushing out.  Mostly we saw this view of Asher; coming and going through the door.

     Both boys had amazing spring concerts with their youth orchestras in Madison.  They made some wonderful friends through this program that I expect they will keep in touch with into their adult lives.

   Asher and Mattias got to play together in the pit for the musical "Cinderella".  It was a novel experience for Mattias, but Asher's third year.  The rehearsal schedules often went to midnight.. after an  busy day of tennis practice and other activities.  I am secretly glad to see the end of the spring musical in our lives.

   Of course, there was the final High School Orchestra "Theme Concert".  This years theme was "Time Travel".  At the end, they had a slide show of all the seniors, and I cried like a baby.  I've loved watching the boys play music together. The local high school has been wonderful in working around our homeschool life and Asher's work schedule.

Mattias dressed as a Russian cossack for the concert, Asher was a Viking.

 After the concerts, tradition has been for years to gather at the local fast food place, where Noel and Asher both work.  Noel was working that night, so I got a shot of her and the boys!

   Asher found time to attend prom with a spunky and beautiful girl from our local church branch.  They went with friends from the Madison Stake, and had a good time.  Asher came home very happy and grateful for his good set of friends.

It will be interesting to see what amazing things these young men accomplish in the next 10 years. They have such potential!

  Another sign of spring was the final rock climbing day!  Most Thursdays through the winter, several homeschool families would go to an indoor rock gymn to get some excercise. The kids, especially Sylvia, really improved their skills over the winter.

 Sylvia could make it to tops of the walls, as well as climb the free hanging rope to the ceiling!  She had serious muscles!

   Sean and Ephraim celebrated spring by each buying a new lawn mower for themselves.  Ephraims cost a lot less, being under 3 dollars at a second hand shop.  Although, to be fair, Sean's mower does work better for actual lawn cutting.

     All in all, the hinkypunks are ready for a new season of activities. Spring was crazy-busy, we're hoping summer goes at a more sane pace.