Santa made our house even more musical than it already was, and we are so excited about it! The boys already had a trumpet and a trombone, and Patrick plays the French horn at school. Santa added to that collection, an electric guitar, a drum set, a karaoke machine, and a keyboard! It’s totally awesome! And then next year, Sammie will pick out her band instrument!

With all of this music in the house, Mark and I are feeling left out and would love to join in on the fun! He thinks it would be totally rad to be able to play the guitar and the keyboard, and he’d like to get back into playing the drums, too. I think it would be awesome to play the drums, and the keyboard, and to work on my singing!

I may have come across just the thing that Mark and I need, as far as the keyboard goes, that is. It is an email newsletter about Piano lessons & piano chords, through which the gentleman also sells full out DVD lessons for adults! That is so cool - that might just get Mark and I a spot in the family band!

The newsletter is free and comes out about every five days and there are 101 issues of it. The gentleman who publishes the newsletter and teaches the lessons, Duane Shinn, has been teaching music since 1965. Wow! That’s a lot of experience! I’m so glad to learn about his site - it’s just perfect timing for us!

There are numerous studies that illustrate the value of a musical education. Two of my kids are in band, and I’m sure we will encourage our daughter to join her brothers in this pursuit. If I thought a musical education was great before, after listening to our elementary band teacher talk about her experiences, I am definitely convinced now! She went to college on a full-ride scholarship, plus spending money, for music!!! That’s awesome!

And I definitely encourage my children to enjoy all types of music. I don’t want to limit them to just one kind of music. I think that allowing them to enjoy all kinds of music, will prolong their interest in it.

And then, of course, there is the fact that I like lots of different kind of music, too! One genre that I thorougly enjoy includes the band, Def Leppard. I did take Patrick to one of their concerts with me once - when I was pregnant with him! I went with another gal who was also pregnant - she was farther along than I, and her baby was going crazy all through the concert. It was so funny! I would love to take Patrick to another concert of theirs now - he might even enjoy it more! I was looking over the Def Leppard tour schedule, and they are coming to Atlanta on the 25th of this month! That would be so cool to go! And they are performing with Styx and Foreigner! How awesome would that be?

GO READ A BOOK!