Christmas Recital

Last night was the Christmas piano recital for McKay & Hannah. They were both excited to go and I think McKay was a little nervous (Hannah doesn't seem to get nervous about performing in front of other people).

Their piano teacher has a LOT of students -- both piano and vocal -- the majority of the piano students are in the beginner range like McKay & Hannah. Needless to say, it was a long recital (over 2 hours). Brian stayed home with Courtney & Hayley this time -- when we have all gone to past recitals, he always ends up out in the hallway with those two because they just can't sit quietly that long (especially late in the evening).

McKay was #9 on the program and Hannah was #10 (out of over 40 numbers). McKay played "Over the River and Through the Woods" and Hannah did "Up on the Housetop." They got called up to the stand in a group of about 10 kids. Here's a picture I took of them waiting for their turn:

It's not the greatest picture and it's the only one I took during the actual recital. I wanted to videotape their playing, so I didn't get any regular pictures taken.

They both did great! McKay did his piece practically perfect (he claims he made a mistake, but I didn't catch it). Hannah had a few pauses while she found the right notes, but it didn't seem to faze her at all. She was thrilled at the end when she looked at and noticed "people smiling" at her.

I was tempted to sneak out early, because even these two started to get restless, but they really wanted to stay because they knew there were refreshments and trophies waiting for them.

Here they are with their teacher:

Now the big question is whether or not McKay is going to continue piano lessons. He has really been fighting to quit the last several months and we agreed he'd at least stick it out through the end of the year. I asked him today if he still wanted to quit and he said "sort of" but then decided he wouldn't quit just yet. We'll see how his practice motivation is -- it is a huge battle most days to get him to practice even 5-10 minutes. As much as I want him to learn how to play the piano, I've decided I don't want to force him to do something he really dislikes (plus pay all that money for lessons when he is not getting much out of them). At the same time, I want him to learn that you sometimes need to work and practice at something to reap the rewards and you can't always quit just because something is getting harder. So, we'll see!