Holiday Concert :)

Maria had her winter concert last night. She played in the band and sang in the choir. Of course the high school band did about 5 songs, then the high school choir sang like 10 really lame and slow christmas songs... so by the time the 5th and 6th graders got to play their songs and sing their songs the two little ones were already done in. Pretty much every parent with small children was out in the hall by that time. Amazingly it was Duncan who was acting up. That happened at Maria's veteran's day recital too - Beatrice was fine the whole time, Mike had to take Duncan out because he was crying. Well this time Duncan kept talking very loudly. Which is crazy because every other time we're in public he clams up. He saw Maria and started yelling "Mia."
Anyway, sadly the 5th and 6th grade choir got 2 songs cut from the 7 they were supposed to sing :( they should have cut some of the high school choir's songs! We caught some video of Maria's band performance. We need to get a better video camera for events like this - in normal mode everything is too far away so you can't see anything, but when we zoom in to where you can actually make people out it's blurry :( Maria is the one in the center. She did a really great job. She had been practicing a lot over the past few weeks and I don't think she played a bad note at all :)

Snow pics - finally!

So I finally looked through the tons of pics of the kids in the snow from a few weeks ago! :) We got about 6" that day, then 2 more a couple of days later, then another 2 or so a couple more days later :)

Here is Duncan getting bundled up to go out

Peeking from the railing

He absolutely loved playing in the snow this year! He just ran around and ran around. He didn't want to come in!

Poor Maria was trying to make a fort, but Jo-Jo wouldn't leave her alone -

she kept wanting to sit in Maria's lap!

Maria showing Duncan how to make a snowball
Maria tredging out throught the yard on her knees :)
Playing :)
Making snow angels
Maria getting ready to help Dad shovel

Dad running around with Duncan
Maria running around with Duncan

And of course, Beatrice hung out inside where it was warm :)
Here she snatched up some of Mike's hair and started chewing on it! She's fast!

Videos :)

We had an extra cold morning! The overnight low was too cold to register on our weather station - the lowest it goes is -21. It was -15 when we woke up in the morning! We got the big 7" snowfall over the weekend, then we got a couple inches on Tuesday and got a couple more inches this afternoon! I guess we're having a more traditional Wisconsin winter this year! I will post pictures of the kids playing in the snow in my next post... have to narrow down the pictures :) there was just too many good ones!

Haven't quite gotten to editing any videos to post, but actually caught a few that didn't really need editing :) didn't catch her laughing, but she's been doing this growling, groveling throaty noise that's really hilarious! We got that and her sucking her upper lip :) Anyway, enjoy!

'Tis the Season to Humiliate our babies :)

Who doesn't love to dress their kids up for the holidays? :) I went revisiting pictures from the last couple of years and dug out some good ones :) But I'll start off with some of Beatrice from this year.Of course, most photo shoots end in tragedy ;)
A little reindeer
What pretty antlers you have


Now here are some I dug up of Duncan from 2005!

The Elf Outfit
We've got lots of pictures of him crying in this outfit!
And the Reindeer getup appears again ;)
The Santa shirt and hat

The Christmas Sleeper
What a happy guy :)

And here are some pictures from last year
Everyone loved the antlers!
Though Duncan was a little hesitant at first

And here's last year's Christmas card outtake :) (one of the many anyway)