Filling the house with music.

Last summer we were sitting in church listening to one of the youth play a piano number when Aaron and I turned to each other at the same time and both said, "I want Eleanor to play the piano."

The musical number was just so beautiful and reminded us both of the many piano lessons we each had while growing up. Eleanor was 7 months old then, and while we knew she wouldn't be playing for a long time, we wanted her to grow up hearing the piano and developing a love for it.

My parents still had their upright piano we all played as kids and had since replaced it with a grand piano.  They told us the upright piano was up for grabs as long as we came and hauled it away ourselves.  So when we moved to Fresno a couple months later, we took the opportunity of having a Uhaul to load up the piano and take it with us.

We have now been living with a piano for going on 6 months and to say we are loving it is an understatement.  Our home feels so much more home-y now.  Aaron has been playing the piano almost every morning recently and then often again when he comes home from work at night.  We have The Eagles complete collection so he has been introducing Eleanor to "the classics."

Then I usually sit down to play the piano in the afternoon, around 4 pm when we have run out of things to do.  I am pretty rusty but I'm slowly pounding away at the hymns, hoping to one day feel confident enough to fill in at church if a piano player is ever needed.

Aaron and I both usually start out playing with Eleanor in our laps.  She used to just want to turn the piano book pages but now she'll actually bang away on the keys for a couple of minutes like she's playing a song too.  She eventually loses interests so we set her on the ground with a basket of toys while we keep practicing ourselves.

I've actually kept my clarinet perched on top of the piano for the past three months too to motivate me to play it more often.  My clarinet had been sitting in its case for years when my mom asked me and Aaron to play a clarinet/piano duet this past Christmas.  So I dusted off my clarinet and was surprised to find I could still play moderately well.  Of course, I need to build up my embouchure muscles and lung capacity again but I made it through that song (barely).  I've kept my clarinet out ever since and will regularly pick it up to play a scale for Eleanor or attempt one of my old clarinet numbers.

It's been so nice have a house full of music again.  I get really happy when I can hear Aaron playing with Eleanor on the piano as I cook in the kitchen.

I also love that we have a go-to creative outlet now.  I think we all need to be creative every day in some way to feel fulfilled, so music has helped us achieve that recently.

It sure feels great putting all those years of lessons to use (thanks parents!).  And its a special treat to have the very same piano I played on for all those years.  The piano is definitely showing its age and needs a good tuning, but we want to wait to spruce it up till after our next move.  For now, we just blame any poor sounding piano playing on the fact that the piano is out of tune and not the fact that our own piano skills are in need of improving ;)

Now we just can't wait til our kids are older and are the ones making the music themselves.  Let the family talent shows begin!