so many pictures, so little time....

The new power cord for the laptop came so I have my pictures back! YAY! I was going through withdrawal for a while there! On with the show...

Back on December 9, Morgan had a piano recital. The semester of piano lessons did not go quite like we'd hoped. It was a nightly fight to get her to practice and we felt like we were teaching her instead of having the people that we had paid to teach her actually teach her. It was a little frustrating, but she did well at the recital and seemed really proud of herself. Here she is in mid-bow.

Here she is before her big performance! She played "Star Quest, Old MacDonald Had a Band, and Party Cat"

There were 2 Sundays in December (the 7th and the 14th) where the girls had extra dance rehearsals to practice with the other kids doing the same routines as they were. On the 14th, I was feeling really sick so my Mom took Emma to dance and took these pictures. Here is Emma with her good friends Kamryn and Victoria.

This will be a good one to pull out when they're all graduating high school, right?!

These next 2 events are not in chronological order, but for some reason blogger published them backwards and its late and I'm tired so....sorry. Anyway, Sunday the 21st was a big day. Our family lit the advent wreath at church and we had a script to read that we all read including Morgan AND Emma. They both did perfect....it was so cute. After church, we had the girls' dance recital! My Mom and our cousin Abby came along to watch. The girls were so proud! Here is Miss Emma (with her cohorts again, Kamryn and Victoria) during the recital.

Morgan decided she wanted to take Cheerleading instead of Dance this semester, so here she is with her friends Maya and Kaylie (and I am in love with her little pig tails!!!!)

Poor Carter....he's going to be subjected to years of watching his sisters do girly activities! Surely he can pay them back someday by dragging them to soccer and football and t-ball, etc.

Emma before the show!

Morgan and Abby before the show (and with Morgan looking ENTIRELY too old!)

On Saturday the 20th, we went to Greenfield for the Campbell Christmas celebration. Here is Carter with his Great Grandma Campbell

Here is Carter playing with Emma's new pink guitar. He loves it!

The kids opening a gift from Uncle Brett and Aunt Lisa that turned out to be an almost offical size xylophone! They LOVE IT! (and so does Daddy....see below)

Emma trying out her new guitar!

Cousin Chris Campbell trying to tune Emma's new guitar. Just thought it was funny that big strong Metallica loving Chris was playing a teeny tiny pink guitar.

I just love this picture of Emma, not sure why. She just looks so sweet and angelic.

My sweet boy preparing to tear into some gifts!

Here is Daddy trying out the new xylophone! Maybe a little shorter than the one he's used to!



So there you have it! A whole lot of excitement with a whole lot more to come. I just love Christmas and love being around all the family and all the extra time we get to spend together as a family too! So fun and makes me so happy! Have a blessed Christmas with your family and be sure to remember you're having that Christmas because God sent us His Son!

big day for Morgan

So, it took a little longer than I thought it would....and it required some assistance, but tooth #3 is out! It got extra loose yesterday morning and therefore Morgan wouldn't eat or drink anything and she wouldn't talk or if she did, she would talk without moving her lips so it wouldn't bump her tooth. Last night, I kind of just let her be and didn't try to force her to eat or talk and I didn't bother her about letting me look at it or anything. Well, today when she got home from school and admitted she hadn't eaten lunch at school which meant she had not had one bite to eat since Sunday night, I looked at her lips and they were dry and cracked telling me she was getting dehydrated. I told a small fib and told her that I had called Dr. Hughes (her pediatrician) and that he said not eating any food could make her very sick so he said she had 3 choices. She could pull it out herself, let Mommy pull it out, or go see him and let him pull it out. Well, she threw a royal fit....I told her she had 5 minutes to decide. Of course, she didn't want any of the 3 choices, but as I started to take it out, she decided she wanted to try. She, of course, wouldn't try and each time I tried to get her to open her mouth she would go ballistic and try to get away from me. I had to threaten to sit on her legs to keep her from flailing about. Finally, we went to the bathroom and I talked her into letting me just see it. I put a tissue into her mouth to try to grab the tooth and the TISSUE knocked it out. My finger didn't even touch it! That is how loose it was!!!!! 30 seconds later, she was asking for food! She ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs, then a milkshake that was promised for getting the tooth out, then 6 chicken nuggets, then a cookie! Along with about 4 or 5 cups of flavored water!
Tonight was Morgan's first official piano lesson. We go to Ball State where Dr. Lori Rhoden teaches a group class of 9 kids who are 6-8 years old. Every 2 kids has a "special friend" teacher who is a grad student in piano pedagogy. That teacher gives them individual help. The parents are supposed to stay to learn what they're learning so we know what to help them practice. An entire hour was a little long for MY attention span, but Morgan did great and LOVED it! Here are a few pictures I snapped before class started (while I still can before she is humiliated for me to take pictures of her!!!)
Here is Morgan with her special friend teacher, Miss Parker, and her partner, Maya, who goes to the same school as Morgan and they see each other every day at school (although Maya is in Kindergarten)
There will be a recital at BSU in December, stay tuned for the date, time, and location!!!!

So fun!!!!!