Joseph and the Twain Tempos

So Nana's birthday party was on Saturday.  Tuesday Dec 8th was her birthday but it was also the day my Dad went to the ER.  He died the next morning.  We spent much of that day and the next gathered as a family.  On Thursday, my niece, Regan, asked if she could stay the night with us.  She'd asked to stay with us after Nana's birthday party but we didn't think the family would be gathering again until Christmas and everyone thought Regan would eventually miss her family.  Since we knew we'd be all gathering again on Friday, we thought that would be fine.  So Robin and Mom headed to the farm.

On our calendar for Thursday evening was my nephew Joseph's Christmas concert.  We hadn't decided if we were going with all that was going on.  But after dinner, I decided that it was a good thing - more family time and hopefully a small distraction for everyone.  Adam elected to stay home.  So off I trotted to the performance with 3 girls on my own.

We would have been fine, except we were running behind, the APR (All Purpose Room) was full, and Morgan fell asleep on the way to Joseph's school.  We made it, I handed a sleeping Morgan off to her Aunt Jo, and found seats for Kaylyn, Regan and me.

Joseph did awesome.  Here he is with the whole choir...

And a closeup of Joseph (and the choir) thinking they look cool...

Morgan slept through most of the concert.  Notice the electronics in Sandy's hand?  Jo's dad videotaped EVERYTHING!  When he passed a few years ago, the torch passed to Sandy.

For one of their numbers, Joseph came and stood in the aisle beside his family.

And for one number, Joseph got to play a drum.

And as we left, I got a shot of two best friends who are also cousins playing in the dark school yard (Morgan had finally woke up) while I was trying to get them to the van to go home.

Nana's Birthday - She's only 92

After Kaylyn's Investiture ceremony, we gathered at my house to celebrate Nana's birthday.  Nana turned 92 a few days after our celebration.  Here's Kaylyn with Nana.

After I took a picture of Kaylyn and Nana, Ian and Morgan wanted in on the pictures too.  But Regan wouldn't participate.

After cake and ice cream, we decided to do some more pictures with Nana.  We were trying to be creative.  But Robin wasn't sure about this pose once she saw the picture.

So we went for a 4 generation shot of women.  Nana, Mom (aka Granny), Robin and Me and our girls.

We couldn't leave the boys out - so here's Nana with her adoring men.

And finally we convinced Regan to join the rest of the kids for some pictures.

We all sure do love our Nana!

Kaylyn's Christmas Recital

I already posted about Kaylyn's Christmas Recital but wanted to share these pictures from the piano teacher.

Here's Kaylyn with her teacher playing the accompaniment.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this shot!

And this one's pretty cool too.

I'm a Daisy, I'm a Daisy!

In December, Kaylyn's Daisy troop had an investiture ceremony.  This is a ceremony where the girls pledge to live by the Girl Scout Law.  Here is Kaylyn and Morgan before the ceremony.

Each girl had a petal with their name on it to place on a large Daisy as they quoted part of the law.

Here's Granny recording the ceremony with Morgan's assistance.

Kaylyn receiving her pins from her troop leader.

After getting her pins, Kaylyn sat down with the other girls and HAD to check them out.

The finished Daisy flower - yes this Daisy has a LOT of petals!

Kaylyn's Daisy troop as of December.  Several have dropped since but it's still a large troop.

Followup Inspection

In November, we headed back to the school playground - to make sure it still was a fun place to play.

The monkey bars still worked.

But sometimes required assistance.

The slides were fast.

We checked out the new walking trail.  Morgan and I took off first and Kaylyn decided she needed a piggy back ride.

I love the following shots!  Soon I am going to put together a folder of shots of Kaylyn and Morgan walking together.  Then when they get older, I'll turn them into a book showing how they've grown over the years.  These pictures just make my heart melt!  I LOVE my girls!

Fall Family Pictures

When we got home from our St. Louis trip, this big pile of leaves greeted us.  The girls immediately jumped in.

Followed by Adam....

We then took some "formal" shots of our family.

Then we had some more fun.

We also tried to get some fun family shots.  We lined up holding hands and fell back at the same time into the leaves.  I was hoping to get us as we landed but never got the timing just right.

We had a great time!

Dinosaur Roar!

In November, Kaylyn had a Friday off from school so I packed up the van and took the girls to visit our friends in St. Louis.  On Friday night, Denise, Jim, and I took the 5 kids to the Science Center for the dinosaur exhibit.  It was amazing!!!  And LOUD!  The sound scared all 3 girls.  You can tell from the pictures with the kids in front of the dinosaur how big these things were!

At the Science Center, they set up a big pit full of mulch with bones buried for the kids to play paleontologist.

In this picture is Denise standing behind 4 of the 5 kiddos - then left to right is Morgan, Isaac, Kaylyn and then Jayna.

Here's Jayna with the Build-A-Bear bear trying to convince us to go build a dinosaur.