Willa has a piano recital and earns a trophy

We got news that Willa had passed the LVMTA musicianship exam a week before her piano recital. Normally, The teacher would have passed out the trophies at the recital, but this year there wasn't enough time between the two events. I tried to warn Willa that the trophy might not be there yet. The trophy was the sine qua non of the musicianship exam. She has been dreaming and talking and salivating about having her own trophy since she saw other kids get them at the piano recital last year. The idea of earning her very own was extremely motivating.

For this year's recital she played Pumpkin Boogie and was very sweet. Here is the video.

After the recital the teacher had her own awards to give out to students who had volunteered with their talent and played in church or somewhere else like that. But she called Willa up very first and had ordered this large trophy with a pink base just for her. She gave Willa an award for practicing so well. Willa does practice really well and has progressed a lot because of it, but I'm not sure if it was trophy material. Still, it was really sweet of her teacher to do it and Willa was over the moon. Her trophy was bigger than the others and pink and she whispered to me that she had been looking at it the whole recital (all the awards were set up on a little table on the side) and hoping it was for her.

Getting the award.

Sister Thornton has been an amazing teacher. I've learned so much from her just sitting in on lessons. Here's a fun fact, her husband (who passed away) did all the murals for the Salt Lake temple during the last remodel in the 60's or 70's. The Church brought her up a few months ago with his journals to meet with a church historian.

Rebecca got her a Jasmine lego set as a gift for the recital. Legos are almost as exciting as trophies, Willa loved it and has repeatedly put it together all by herself and keeps saying how much she loves it and that she is so glad Aunt Rebecca got it for her.

A few weeks later, the LVTMA trophies were ready. They also had her written exams, so I could look at how she did. She made a bunch of mistakes during the listening portion, which were really easy, so her teacher thinks she just didn't understand the questions and what to do at that point. My favorite is that she phonetically spelled her last name on the paper. It just illustrates where we are in life right now.

The real trophy.