Emma sings! - take 2

After playing, it was back to choir for Emma!

Emma plays!

Emma sang in the choir, then dashed to her seat in the band to play a tune. And when that was done, she would dash back to the choir. Quite a musical workout!

Emma sings! - take 1

As noted in the photos below, Emma had quite an active Christmas concert at school, with both singing and playing her euphonium, so I thought I'd share a few samples for you.

Max is three!

We've fallen behind on videos, just like we fell behind on photos, which means we're only now posting this video from Max's birthday. But we thought you'd like to hear him talk about how old he is now! Hard to believe, isn't it?

Weird hair days

One thing I've learned about our girls: they love to have Stacey try different hairstyles out on them. As you can see from the results of some recent experiments, that styling can result in some interesting looks the next day.

Musical munchkins

Our little ones showed off their musical talents before Christmas. Em participated in concerts for both band and choir, including one concert in which she had to run back and forth between the two. She loves playing the euphonium and singing.

All of the girls also took part in a Christmas piano recital, playing both solos and duets. They're getting quite good!

Jumpin' January

We've jumped right into the New Year, none of us more than Max, who has developed a new game involving him leaping off the arm of the downstairs couch onto Mommy. As you can see, he loves it!

Greg and I have been joking that we're moving into that ultra out-of-it phase where our kids get New Year's Eve invitations and we don't! Emma and Grace had a sleepover party that night at their friends, the Gracias, so the rest of us went to ZooLights at the Hogle Zoo (along with Kate's friend, Izzy) and then Kate and Max had a sleepover of their own in the living room, watching "Kung Fu Panda." Ska-DOOSH!


The kids have found plenty of ways to have fun at home, too, as in this pic where Em and Max make use of the overturned couch in new and creative ways while Greg and I give the living room a good post-holidays cleaning.

We love how much our kids seem to like each other. We know it's not just an automatic thing, and we feel very blessed because of it. Despite what Greg and I call Em's and Kate's "personality conflict," they all love playing together and just being together, so much so that the other day when I had all of them with me in the store, a woman stopped me and said, "Your kids are so good! They're having such a good time together and I love seeing siblings who like each other so much!" I guess I could have told her that they don't ALWAYS like each other that much, but instead I took the emotionally healthy route, said thank you and savored the moment.

They spent more than two hours this past Sunday playing together in Emma's room.