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.

Tree Tapping Good Time

Saturday we decided to take the plunge and tap our maple trees.  Michael and I have talked about doing it since we moved here but have never actually tried it.  It was the perfect weekend to try it.  As you can tell by the photos we all enjoyed working outside. Margaret would only hand the hammer over to daddy when he needed it to tap the tap spikes into the tree. Otherwise it was all hers.  The two neighbor girls came over to help also.  All four of the girls loved having a job to do.  After we finished tapping the trees a spontanious snowball fight broke out.  The snow was melting so it was nice and wet.  Perfect for snowball making. 

So far we have been getting about 5 gallons of sap per day from our five taps.  Which converts to 1 pint per day of syrup.  The syrup tastes so good!  The girls love it.  Margaret was litterly trying to lick the table clean after she spilled some at lunch.  Both of the girls keep asking me to only make food that we can have syrup with.  It's so cute. 

 

Ski Bunny

I think that Addie has a new favorite sport. Skiiing!

 She loved watching the olumpics this winter.  Her favorite sport was the ski jump followed closely by any other ski event that looked dangerous.  She was so cute as she sat there analazing their every move.  What the skier's arms did while they moved their legs.  Every move was carefully looked at. 

Michael and I decided that it was time to take her to one of the local ski resorts.  On Sunday Michael and Addie went to Swiss Valley for their first ever ski adventure.  They had a great time learning and skiing.  The weather was perfect too.

Addie loved it so much that she didn't want to leave.  They ended up staying until closing.  Since then Addie has been talking a lot about going back and is focused on getting to the next level where she can have ski poles and ride the ski lift.  We just might have created a ski bunny!  Let's just hope for cold enough weather this weekend that we can get one more good trip in before the snow starts to melt.

Dreaming of the Beach

Some times a girls just has to be creative on how she will work in some beach time in the dead of winter.  Or maybe it was the sunshine that was so brightly reflecting off the snow that day that they could not wait until they could play in the warm sun at the beach.  Either way, the girls had a great afternoon last week playing beach in their room for a couple hours.

Here's to summer!

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!

Spooky Sisters

Happy Halloween!

At the beginning of the month we tried to schedule a 'Fall Harvest' party for the end of the season. After studying the calendar a bit, and seeing all the spoken-for weekends, it quickly turned into a Halloween party. We had also hoped to have it outside, but had to limit that to a photo-op due to the cold, breezy day.

We played games, read books and enjoyed some fall snacks and warm mulled cider. Later that evening, we had dinner with some friends and the kids went trick-or-treating together.

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.