Happy Father's Day

To an amazing multi-talented man that I am lucky to call mine and the kids are lucky to call Dad.

Storyteller...

Puppeteer...

A comfortable shoulder for naptime...

Master Barbie hair detangler...

Provider...

Builder...

Jungle gym...

Devoted family man...

All mine.

Christmas 2012

I have so many posts to get on here it's quite ridiculous. Alena's first gymnastics competition, my birthday, 26 week belly bump, and SNOW... oh my!

This was a good Christmas. Great presents, great food, and a great big mess! We let the kids open their stockings and presents from each other on Christmas Eve. We had taken them to the .99 store with a couple dollars in hand to pick something out for each other. Alena chose a pack of airplanes and a bag of plastic rats (why?) for Christian. And he chose a kitchen set and candy bar for her.

Christmas morning, we opened gifts first and then made breakfast. I didn't realize until after all the gifts were opened and they were being played with that we bought mostly battery-less gifts. There were several puzzles, books, games, and other toys that required imagination to play with them. Gabe and I of course didn't mind the break on our ears either. ;)

gifts from grandmama

gift from grandma and grandpa

another cute grandparent gift

OK, I have to explain Gabe's gift a little. Last year, he didn't give me ANY clues or hints as to what he wanted. I just kept getting an "I don't know.". Very frustrating for me and I had no idea what to get him either. He ended up with some odd gifts so we learned our lesson this year. He gave me multiple options for gifts and I picked the one I knew he would love. The new water proof, shock proof, and freeze proof camera from Nikon. This will be perfect for his upcoming business trip to Hawaii next month (poor him, right?).

Alena finally got her dollhouse after two years of begging for one. And what a dollhouse it is!

Hot Wheels Trick Tracks were very popular with the kids.

 No pictures of my gifts! :( Gabe got me a beautiful mother's necklace with a heart spelling out Mom and a charm for each child with an A and C and their birthstone on each one. And soon there will be another charm to add! Also, I got the latest John Grisham book to add to my collection. He is my favorite author and I have every book he's published.

I did not, unfortunately, take pictures of the food and it's sad really because it was SO good. We had honey spiraled ham, homemade mashed potatoes, cheesy cauliflower and broccoli, gluten free stuffing (may do a recipe post on this), rolls, and gluten free pumpkin pie. We cooked literally all day then stuffed ourselves to the gills and then some. Christian has requested ham leftovers EVERY single day since Christmas and we have finally eaten it all!

Piano Recital

So last weekend, Gabe, myself, and Alena had a piano recital along with all the other students our teacher has. We've been taking lessons since January and we LOVE our teacher.

Gabe and I each had a solo piece and then we played a duet (Carol of the Bells) together. Alena also had two songs. We had been told to have our songs memorized and we did, even Alena.

Since Alena was the youngest student and because we didn't want her getting too nervous, she went first. OMGoodness, I just could not have been prouder! I just couldn't believe that our five year old was up there BY HERSELF playing two songs from MEMORY! And she did great. She got a note wrong on Hark the Herold Angels Sing but redid it and kept going never missing a beat.

Here she is playing at home the day before the recital. I didn't want to film the recital because I wanted to be able to sit and watch. This is her second recital song, Hark the Herold Angels Sing.

And now I really have to brag. :) Remember, we had our songs memorized. Well, I thought everyone else would too. I mean, Alena's five and had her's memorized, Gabe and I were the oldest students so of course we had ours... But would you believe not a single other person (maybe one, I can't remember) played from memory?! Alena noticed that too and mentioned it to us. I think it increased her confidence to know that she was the youngest and did her songs without the music in front of her. But everyone did great considering this was everyone's first piano (and a few voice) recital.

Gabe and I being the oldest, were the last to play on the piano. So we had to sit there through twenty other performers and get more and more nervous.

I was so nervous playing my song that I could visibly see my hands shaking as I was playing. I don't know how I played the song without mistakes because during it I kept thinking "God, my hands are shaking! How can they be shaking so bad and I'm still hitting the right keys?". Haha! I think the fact that I have played that darn song over and over and over until I started to hate it actually helped me. I could sit and play it because it was so engrained into my brain.

Gabe played his right after me and also did very well. Then we had our duet. Oh boy... We were both shaking and Gabe missed some notes and we played that part three times before getting it. (side note: apparently we didn't make it obvious because we and the teacher got several good remarks about our duet. ) Anyway, we got through that and then I messed up on my favorite part of the song no less! We played through it and finished. Whew! What a load off our chest.

Our next recital is tentatively the first weekend in May. Hmm, the baby should be three weeks old then. We'll see how that goes. :) I thought it would be cool if I ended up playing my songs with a baby in its carrier strapped to my chest. How impressive would that be?!

Have to Brag

I HAVE TO BRAG ABOUT GABE FOR A MINUTE. 

For the past 15 weeks he's been working full time (with lots of traveling) AND taking a more than full time college class workload. All that while somehow still managing to squeeze in some family time here and there.

It has been a long and hard 4 months for us all, but it paid off. He completed the upper level courses, which were not easy (chemistry, physics, physics lab, short stories, and films and literature) WITH ALL As!!!! 

 I am so so so proud of him and also so so so glad that he has just a couple months of classes left and then he will have his degree!!