"A house does not have to be perfect to be a home of joy, a child does not have to behave perfectly to love and be loved, and every moment of life does not have to be perfect to be of value. Too often, I realize, we fail to see the glorious reality of the simple joy that abounds in the seemingly mundane routine of day-to-day living. Instead, we tend to idolize the past, idealize the future, and devalue the present.... What better way to show our appreciation to Heavenly Father for what we have than to embrace our lives, albeit 'ordinary' and 'unexciting,' with joy?"

--Winnie Dalley; Ensign, March 1998

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Cooper's Music Class

Our ward combines with another ward to hold a once weekly 'mommy and me' type music class on Wednesday mornings. It is held in the primary room at church and the kids sing, dance, play instruments, and march around the room for an hour. Cooper LOVES music class! Being the poor, second child that he is, he gets drug around to all of Chloe's activities as a spectator- but music class is HIS time! He'll even tell you, "church my happy!" Which translates to "church (or music class since it is at the church) makes me happy!"

I had intended to take pictures of Cooper during music class today, but the reality is that I'm too busy participating with him to do that! I did take some pictures on our way there that show how excited he is to go!

On our front porch, waiting (im)patiently for me!

In the parking lot at church, "Come on Mom, hurry up!"


"You're too slow, Mom! I'm gonna run so I can hurry up and get there!"

5 comments:

Desiree said...

so fun for cooper. a music class is a really good idea.

riley has the same feelings, from attending all of roxy's events. she is now 3, which opens up a lot of doors..(it eliminates the mom and me factor, which is impossible or next to, with little nixy boy).

we are settled in our house, it is very adultish. however we fit in pretty well in the ward, there are many young families (and we wonder, what do you do???) there are also a good deal of older more mature families, with kids in college, high school, and then just their "babies" are in elementary.

thank goodness for the low housing market, and short sales, or we never would have been able to afford this house!!

Lena Baron said...

That is such a great idea! Do you follow any sort of structured plan?

Melonee said...

Lena- There are four moms that rotate teaching each week. We have a box of musical instruments, such as tamborines, triangles, finger cymballs, and maracas. There is a cd that someone made with a ton of songs on it and whoever is teaching decides what songs we sing that week. We do some primary songs, but mostly they are fun preschool type songs. Some include marching or acting out being a dinosaur, etc. We also have a parachute and do a few songs with the parachute with kids on it or under it. It is really casual and laid back and the kids all love it.

Melonee said...

Oh, I wanted to add that I'm not one of the "musically inclined" mommies that teach. There are usually about 8-13 kids there between the two wards. The kids are usually between 1 and 5 in age, so it is a wide range.

Lena Baron said...

Thanks Melonee, I'm going to pass the idea along in our ward.