In our bones

I'll do my best to keep things focused in each post, but it's so easy and fun to get going on tangents.  I'll probably still post them but add them separately for those of you who have more time and interest than me to read about other people's lives.

Here's something I wrote when thinking about the GramFamBand and music:

I haven't been playing much music lately, but a family band at Logan's Summer Fest and a visit with some of our very musical friends helped my heart get back in rhythm.  Music really moves me!  My grandma would say that it runs in our blood, and it definitely flows through the hearts of my family.  As a youth, I was able to find peace, expression, and connection through music.  I have so many memories of physically connecting with the sound as I played and recorded at the piano or on the couch with the guitar.  I remember singing together at church, Family Home Evening, and through the neighborhood at Christmas with my family, as well as learning and harmonizing to pop music with my siblings at home and while driving to Seminary and school.  My biggest memory of Grandpa was him singing and playing the ukulele, and I'm happy to see my siblings picking it up, too.  I enjoy singing the same songs in our family that he sang with me, like the Beatles' "O-bla-di," "Shooting on a Star," and Tom Chapin's "Family Tree."

In the center of our apartment is a little music center comprised of a keyboard, cajon, guitar, and a sweet collection of other percussion instruments my mom sent us.  Oh, and the recorders!  Who could forget them?-- definitely not our upstairs neighbors. We don't use things nearly enough (maybe we need our friends to play them with us?), but I love when we pull them out to jam to the radio or our own songs.  We're happy when we sing!  And we sing when we're happy.  Hearing Rosie sing as she plays or goes about her day is one of the sweetest sounds in the world.  She has learned many of the primary songs now, and her little Children's Songbook is one of her favorite books.  It's not going to last through another child.  She often chooses it as the book to go to bed with, and we find her singing the Primary songs as she falls to sleep and when she wakes up happily.    We also like dancing together; she will spin for an hour if we let her.  I guess I also enjoyed that at one time, running in circles around the living room to "Spinning Song" or Scott Joplin's rags.  As we see and hear Rosie singing, drumming, and dancing along, I can't help but think that she's got the rhythm, too.