Addie's Guitar Practice

Addie has been taking guitar lessons from a local high-schooler for about 6 months now. She's doing really well, but gets embarrassed when we ask her to play for people. She'll hardly play in front of Emily! Grandparents, aunts and uncles - no way.

This week, Emily had had enough. She told Addie that she would be practicing in front of the video camera. Little did we know how well this would work. Not only did she let us do it, but she did really well. We'll let the video speak for itself - she plays three songs from her beginner instruction book.

She's been learning chords (G, C, D7, G7) and notes (A, B, C, D, E, F, and G - high and low), and is also learning to read music at the same time. She loves taking lessons and is really doing well.

Our Family Christmas in Pictures

It's been a wonderful Christmas here in the Lah household.


Last week was Addie's Christmas Show at school.

I guess some goofing off is allowed at Christmas when you're 6.

Then, we spent a long weekend in Indianapolis and took the girls to Conner's Prairie. We at dinner there and went on a candlelight tour of Prairie Town at Christmas. Margaret was a tad cranky (ear infection), but other than that, we had a great time.

We also visited with Emily's Great Uncle (Fr.) Mel and had a nice visit after mass. Later, we went to the children's museum and played and played and played.

The Barbie Exhibit

I think one of Emily's Uncle's was the inspiration for this doll.

Dinosaur sculpting

The real dinosaurs (a little scary)

Addie taxing some shady characters at the Egypt exhibit

On Christmas Eve, we had brunch with some friends here in town.

Activities for the kids.

Food for all.

And a few gifts exchanged.

That evening was the Christmas Pageant at church. Addie was the Innkeeper and had one of the longest lines.

When we got home, Santa had come - the coats could not come off fast enough.Lots of excitement capped off with a bedtime story by the tree.

On Christmas day, we opened gifts from each other.

We'll be heading out soon to see our families - hopefully ahead of the latest winter storm. I'll try and get some more pictures uploaded to flickr before we go.

Merry Christmas to all!

An End to Summer

School started on Tuesday and I just couldn't let my daughter start school without one last visit to my parent's farm. We had a wonderful week of enjoying nature and other local activities.

There were flowers to decorate with


Cool evening breezes to rock in


Sisters to play with


Slides to ride


Grammies to hug


Birthdays to celebrate

Tractors to ride


Zoos to visit


Even free hair eating to boot'

Funny faces to make


Webs to conquer


Farmer markets to sample


Evening rides along the creek


Morning walks through the wildlife preserve


Wildflowers and weeds in the ditch to clip

It was a wonderful way to bring summer to a close. Just a few more sweet memories of a summer's past. The memories will be priceless and oh so precious as she grows older. She will never once stop to think about the amount of money I spent on those memories. She will only remember the things we did, not the things we didn't do.

The Universe and Other Stuff

After weeks of preperation and practice, Addie had her first school play - The Universe and Other Stuff. It was a very funny and entertaining play about science and history.

She had three roles in the play - Asteroid, Woodpecker, and a member of the Stripe Army. She loved every minute of it and did a great job. We were both so proud of her. She knew her lines and did a great job with each role.

After wards, we went out for lunch with family and friends. We had a great time, but discovered that Addie was broken out in hives. Apparently she has some allergies, maybe food allergies. We're waiting to hear back on the latest round of tests.

What is interesting, is that since being in the play, she now has several older friends. It's neat to see girls 3 or 4 years older than Addie wanting to talk to her and telling her how good she did.

Masterpiece Puppet Theater

As luck would have it, Santa brought the girls each a 'special present' at the house. Addie was a bit perplexed by the puppet theater at first, but once she got inside, she was hooked. It wasn't very long before Marg and I were watching Addie's short productions and needing to 'sign up for the next show' (Addie's idea).


So far, I've seen The Pig in Town, Where are all the People?, and The Hopping Bunny. Emily was presented the original production of A Pig Jumping in the Mud. Too cute.



Margaret got a wooden doll pram (stroller). At first she tried to use it as a walker, but found that she couldn't put so much weight on it. Her walking gets better and better by the hour. On Monday, sh walked from the dinning table to Addie's bedroom nightstand, by herself, with no help, and without falling down. It's getting tough to keep up.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year

They both took an unbelievable amount of coaching to get a good picture. There's a ton more on the Flickr page.


Margaret was quite content hanging out with Grandpa Breymeyer. They discovered that pretzel sticks are great for teething.

Margaret enjoyed her first Christmas, and even started helping unwrap presents by the end of it.


I'll get a look for putting this up here, but Emily was absolutely radiant.

It was a very busy Christmas, but we all had a great time and enjoyed seeing so many family and friends. New Year's will be a bit quieter here, followed by a special family brunch and 4 days of work on the bathroom project!

Cheers.

"Breaker 1-9, Breaker 1-9, I've got a silly PaPa."

I think we had a little too much fun with the walkie-talkies. At one point, Lucky kitty was wearing them and meowing to the little girl on the other end. Ryan and Ben pulled off that ruse quite well.


They fit Addie a little better than PaPa.