Turkeys, Nutcrackers and a baby!

19 moths old!

Dear Family and Friends,
Let me first start off by saying NO, I am not expecting! The "baby"part of the title of this post refers to the beautiful baby girl my brother Alan and his wife Cara brought into the world this afternoon. Her name is Aravis Moore and she is my third niece and my dad's ninth grandchild. We are so happy for Alan and Cara. They already have four wonderful little boys and now a precious little girl. I was thrilled to be able to send many of Clara's gently used clothes to Aravis and she will certainly be receiving more in the future. Before I had Clara I really never understood the magic of bringing a child into the world. Every child is such a miracle. Congratulations Alan and Cara! 

In other news...We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. It seems as though this month flew by, but I realized that the last blog I posted was on Nov 7th, so there was a shorter lapse between blogs. Thank you to those of you who have expressed your enjoyment of our blog. I appreciate your interest and I will do my best to keep the posts coming. This is going to be one of my shorter blog posts. I have to make up for the never ending post from last month. I'm sure I will end up posting a lot of pictures, but I will try to keep the writing to a minimum.

Trying on her new holiday sweater dress

Clara and daddy

Happy girl!

Joey, Clara and I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. It was nice to have a little break from work, especially for Joey. It felt a little like the calm before the storm since December promises to be an extremely busy month. We spent Thanksgiving day with our good friends Richard and Lois who live in Stonington. We shared in the food preparation. Lois prepared the turkey, stuffing, sweet potato puree and a delicious pumpkin pie and eggnogg cranberry tart, among other things. Joey prepared corn casserole, an Italian green been dish, and cranberry sauce. The meal was wonderful. We ate our adult meal while Clara napped and let her enjoy the feast after she woke up around 6pm. It was a fun and relaxing day.

Skyping with both sets of grandparents

We spend black Friday the way we always traditionally spend the day by visiting a Christmas tree farm and decorating our home for Christmas.  We drove to Olsen's Tree Farm in Voluntown, CT and picked up some wreathes. Clara really wanted to get a real tree, but since we have such a nice fake tree we decided to continue using that. When we got home we ate leftovers and drank eggnog while decorating the house. The house looks very Christmassy now and feels warm and cozy. We have candles in each of the windows at the front of the house. They are light sensitive so they turn on as it gets dark. The tradition of placing candles in the windows during the winter seems to be big here on the East Coast.

Christmas tree farm

"I want this one!"

"I also want this one!"

Trying on the tree skirt

Helping with decorating

Dreaming of Christmas

Decorations are up!

Come on down the chimney Santa!

Relaxing after a day of decorating

Clara is now 19 months old and has found a new passion in life; dancing to the Nutcracker ballet. Clara has been dancing to music for a while now, but this month we pulled out our DVD of the Nutcracker ballet with the American Ballet Theatre. The ballet features two incredible dancers, Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov. In my opinion it is the best version of the ballet available on DVD.  The music is well done and the dancing is incredible. Clara has completely fallen in love with the DVD and will dance for the entire hour and 18 minutes it plays. She wakes up in the morning and asks for "cracker" and asks for it again after dinner. Needless to say, Joey and I are getting to know the ballet very well. The interesting and fun thing is that I grew up dancing to and loving the exact same version of the Nutcracker. Back then I watched it on VHS. I also studied ballet very seriously when I was a child and the highlight of my year was performing in the Nutcracker production. Clara seems to take after me with her love of dance and of the Nutcracker.

Dancing up a storm

Pure joy!

Trying to do the splits!

                                   
Well, that's the news for now. December is going to be very busy up until Christmas for both Joey and me. Our students will perform in a recital on Dec. 15th. Joey is conducting and playing organ for the Calvary Church Messiah sing a long again this year. He is also leading lessons and carols for advent at Calvary and accompanying a couple of services at St. Paul's Episcopal church in Fairfield where he used to be organ scholar. My parents will arrive in CT on Dec. 22nd and will stay through the new year. My aunt and uncle will also be with us for the new year. We have talked up Santa Claus to Clara during the last several weeks and now if you ask her what Santa says she will reply "HoHoHo!" It's really cute and we are looking forward to taking her to meet Santa Claus sometime this month.
We hope you enjoy this holiday season and that you can spend it with the ones you love. In my opinion this truly is "the most wonderful time of the year!"


Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Joey, Erin and Clara

October Craziness

Calvary Church

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, you can blame hurricane Sandy for the lack of an October blog. Sandy hit on Monday Oct. 29th, and we were without power until Nov. 2nd. There were already many things I planned to blog about this month, and that was before Sandy decided to come ashore. Anyway, in an attempt to keep things organized and compact and avoid writing a dissertation, I will try to summarize our crazy month of October into the beginning of November.

WORK:
Joey and I have been staying busy professionally. Joey's work at Calvary is going well. He is also teaching private lessons, accompanying for Anglican Singers and acting as Artistic Director of Calvary Music School. On top of that, he gave two organ recitals this month. I am also keeping busy teaching. I now have 14 enrolled students. My studio has grown much more quickly then I had anticipated, and Joey and I are working to balance our schedules and still be able to care for Clara. So far we are managing fine, and I am grateful to have so many wonderful students to work with.

MEGAN"S VISIT:
My dear friend Megan, who lives in Alexandria, VA, came to visit us at the beginning of the month. Megan and I met when we were in 9th grade, while attending a chamber music summer institute. We were roommates and became instant friends. Megan has two daughters and is expecting another baby in February. Clara had a lot of fun getting to know her girls, and it was great to see Megan and catch up with her. We spent a lot of time at the playground and also visited the Mystic Aquarium.

VACATION:
I celebrated an early birthday with Joey, Clara and my parents in Stowe, Vermont. The trip was a gift from my parents. They rented a 2 bedroom town home for three nights. Stowe is a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains. Unfortunatley we just missed the peak of the fall leaves, but it was still beautiful, and we saw a lot of color on the drive to Vermont. We had fun touring Stowe and taking scenic drives. We had some awesome apple cider and donuts at Cold Hollow Cider mill as well as some great meals at various local restaurants. We also stopped at a place called Kringle Candles in MA. It started out as a candle store and now has several stores including a Christmas and toy store, as well as a wonderful farm to table restaurant. Clara had a lot of fun exploring a new place and seeing her grandparents. Thanks mom and dad for a wonderful birthday experience!

BIRTHDAY:
I officially turend 29 on Oct. 19th. Clara and I had a joint birthday celebration since she turned a year and a half on the 20th. Joey made us a ghost cake, and boy was it good! I am looking forward to the last year of my twenties and love the fact that I can continue to tease Joey about being 30 for one more year!

PIANO:
Joey recently had his piano delivered from MN and moved into the front room of Calvary House. He will teach his students on it, and we will use it to practice and prepare for recitals together. It's really nice to have it, and it has quickly become Clara's favorite "toy". She loves to play the piano and listen to daddy play while she dances.

I made this violin for Clara before her wooden violin arrived.

CLARA:
Clara is a year and a half old now and is learning new things every second. Her vocabulary has really grown over the last few weeks. She is able to recognize 9 of the alphabet letters by sight and say them out loud, and she can count to 5. One of the most exciting things for us is hearing her sing. She now sings the first phrase of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and she almost always sings it perfectly on key. She loves to sing and dance. I have started giving Clara violin lessons. I know what you are thinking. "That crazy woman, how does she expect an 18 month old to play the violin?" Of course Clara is not playing a real violin. She has a fake wooden violin that I purchased online, as well as a fake bow, and she is able to take a bow with the violin in rest position and put it onto her shoulder in play position. She also knows which hand holds the bow and will pretend to bow on her violin. We are also clapping rhythms, which she is pretty good at. She loves the violin and often wants to play with it as soon as she wakes up in the morning. I am interested in helping her enjoy learning about the violin without pushing her too hard too soon. We have fun little practice sessions, and she is given a sticker at the end.

Keeping warm during Sandy

                    

HURRICANE SANDY/HALLOWEEN:
As you know, a major hurricane hit the East Coast early last week. Hurricane Sandy merged with a Nor'easter to form a hybrid storm which resulted in terrible destruction and tragedy in several states, including Connecticut. New Jersey and New York were hit the worst. Because we live so close to the ocean, we were not comfortable staying at home during the storm. We were concerned about the storm surge. Also, the borough was placed under mandatory evacuation the night before the storm, which meant we might not be able to get help if we decided to stay home. There is nothing more eerie then listening to police sirens and announcements outside telling you that you have to leave your home. Our wonderful friends Richard and Lois from church offered to let us stay with them. They had a generator which provided power to the house even after the wind knocked power out. The borough did suffer quite a bit of damage, and coverage of the damage in Stonington could be seen on the national weather channel. A huge tree fell on the local library destroying the roof. There was also some serious flooding in the low lying areas of the borough. We were lucky though, Both Calvary Church and Calvary House were ok. We did spend a few nights at home in the dark. We had a fire going in the dining room and basically stayed there until we had to get into our cold bed. We have a small generator which was able to power an electrical heater in Clara's room. We actually spent the final night without power with some other generous friends who had power. The whole week was a bit surreal, and we were so relieved when the power finally came back on. We missed an entire week of teaching, and Joey's adult Evensong had to be cancelled.

We were excited about Halloween. We were going to take Clara trick-or-treating for the first time. However, the mayor of Stonington cancelled the holiday because he felt it was too dangerous for kids to be out immediately following the storm. Not to mention nobody had any power. He officially changed Halloween to November 16th. I'm not sure why he picked such a late date.; it's less than a week before Thanksgiving. I am glad that he rescheduled it though, and we do plan to participate and hand out candy. Maybe Clara will still get to go trick-or-treating this year. She has an adorable strawberry costume and it would be a shame for her not to be seen in it.

Although the storm and lack of power was difficult to deal with, we feel so lucky in many ways. Many people are still suffering because of the storm. Some lost their property and some lost their lives. This was the second hurricane Joey, Clara and I have experienced in CT, and I pray we don't have anymore for a very long time.

LOOKIN AHEAD:
We are hoping that November won't be quite as eventful as October. We look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with friends here in Stonington and putting up our Christmas decorations. The weather has turned colder now, and most of the trees have lost their leaves. We hope you have a wonderful November and a happy Thanksgiving. I tried to keep this post short but it seems I have failed. Oh well, November should be pretty straight forward.

We took Clara with us to vote but she wouldn't tell us who she voted for.

And now I leave you with a Thanksgiving poem:

May your stuffing be tasty,
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize.
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

-Anonymous

Joey, Erin and Clara

Our favorite time of year!

Clara is 17 months old!!!

Dear Family and Friends,
It's no secret that Joey and I LOVE fall. We love the cool, windy weather and the beautiful fall colors, and we have always loved Halloween. I find I turn a bit sentimental this time of the year. Even though the leaves are dying and falling from their branches, and the weather is turning gray and cloudy, I somehow find so much beauty in it. Anyway, we try to make the most of fall every year. I think I mentioned our family "Fall Fun Days" in last year's fall blog. "Fall Fun Days" are a tradition Joey and I have maintained since we were married, and it's even more fun now that we can share them with Clara. 

We spent our first official "Fall Fun Day" visiting a local orchard. It was a beautiful sunny day and we enjoyed picking apples and choosing some pumpkins. Actually, Clara picked the apples and chose the pumpkins while daddy helped, and I took way too many pictures. Clara loved the tractor ride out to the apple orchard. It was a fun day.

                                   

We also recently visited the Mystic Aquarium. It is an amazing place and we have a family membership so we can go for free anytime we want. Clara loves the beluga whales and also enjoys running around the indoor section of the aquarium looking at the various fish tanks.  

Joey is back into busy church mode again. His chorister program really grew last year and he now has several rehearsals during the week for the kids. His choristers will join another group of choristers from Trinity on the Green, New Haven for an Evensong service this Sunday. Joey is trying something new this year by dividing the adult choirs into two choirs. He has added a new choir called Schola which is an auditioned choir. The choirs will alternate Sundays and the kids will join with the Schola choir to fill out the soprano section. Joey is also directing the hand bell choir. 

Joey is still serving as Artistic Director of Calvary Music School and maintains a piano/organ studio of 8 students through the music school as well as a private studio made up of 5 adult piano students and two high-school/college-age organ students. He is enjoying his teaching very much. Calvary Music School presented its first ever faculty recital last week. Joey and I performed on violin, piano and organ along with 6 other faculty members representing voice, piano, mandolin, cello, and trumpet. The music school is doing really well; this fall we have the highest student enrollments that the school has had. 

I am still serving on the board of directors of Calvary Music School. I am very happy to report that my violin studio continues to grow. A year ago I started with 3 students and I am now up to 11. I hope my studio will continue to get bigger. I've been getting a lot of calls and am trying my best to figure out a schedule that works for our family. So far one of us is always available to take care of Clara. I love teaching and I love my students. I think it's going to be a great year. I also continue to gig in the area. Last week Joey and I played a wedding one day and a funeral the next. In general we try to keep Saturdays open so that we have one day a week when neither of us has to work. It's good to be busy and back into a schedule.

Clara is now 17 months old and it seems her rate of development has suddenly sped up dramatically. She now has at least 10 words that she can pronounce very clearly. She tries very hard to pronounce new words. She can pronounce the first 5 letters of the alphabet and really likes trying to count. She is very sweet and always gives us hugs before she goes to bed at night. She no longer needs to be rocked to sleep. She loves to "help" whenever she can whether it's putting clothes in the dryer, picking tomatoes, vacuuming with her toy vacuum or stirring something in a pot. She is always curious and involved. She still loves to dance and will mimic my movements on the violin by moving her "bow arm" back and forth in the air as if she is playing. She also like to pluck the strings on my violin. Her hair is still extremely blond and curly. She has a very comical personality and loves to laugh and be silly. She still loves books and is sometimes happy to sit and "read" them on her own. She brings so much happiness to us and we feel so lucky to have her in our lives.

We are looking forward to some fun things next month. My good friend Megan and her 2 daughters ages 17 months and 3 years will be visiting us for a little less than a week. Megan is expecting her 3rd child in February! I met Megan when we roomed together at a music festival when we were in 9th grade, and we have been friends ever since. I am so excited that she is going to come visit us. It will be so much fun for Clara to get to play with her girls.

After Megan's visit my parents are flying up from MN. My mom and dad are giving me a very special gift for my birthday this year. They have rented a town home for all of us in Stowe, Vermont for 3 days. None of us has ever been to Vermont, but it is supposed to be absolutely beautiful in the fall. Joey and I are very excited about the trip.  My parents come up on a Thursday and then we will drive together to Vermont. It will be nice to get away for a while and hopefully we will get to see some incredible fall foliage. 

Finally, I would like to thank all of you who voted for Clara in the Gerber Baby Facebook competition. I really don't think anything will come of it, but it was a fun thing to do and we appreciate all of the support. The results will be posted on November 1st, but I believe the grand prize winner has already been contacted and, although many of our friends were nice enough to vote, I'm sure there is no way we had more votes than others who chose to go crazy promoting their child in the competition. The truth is, every child is special and beautiful and deserves a college scholarship. But, thank you again for your votes. It means a lot! 

We wish you all a beautiful fall. Stay tuned for our October post!

Joey, Erin and Clara