Catching up in pictures

Well. 

My goodness, it's been a while.

Do you remember me? (Do I remember me?)

So, it was Christmas. We like Christmas.

Now it's winter, and there is much snow and cold. A week or so ago, it was -18 degree when I woke up. Yes siree, it makes getting up to teach 6:30 am violin lessons extra inviting.

 So what do you do when there's 2 feet of snow and ice all over the place and your 4 year old is bouncing off the walls? Bring his bike inside. Then curse yourself repeatedly for thinking that a bike in the kitchen was a good idea.

Then, in the approximately 2.5 minutes when there isn't snow on the roads, you take your kids out for a walk. Greet the animals and splash in the puddles, quick, because you won't see the sidewalk again for months!

So what else have we been doing?

 Sleeping through Sunday School,

 Preparing for our new lives as famous recording artists, 

 Ruining Mom's high scores on iPhone games,

 Beating each other up with swords,

Learning to ice skate,

 Baking pies, (mmmm, pies!)

 Making gigantic messes,

 Getting by with a little help from our trusty friends, 

 Making more giant messes, this time of the artistic variety,

And looking ridiculously cute in our pjs and matching curls.

Don't forget the fact that winter and spring mean lots of practicing, performing, and Abby's first big violin competition. (Gulp!)

 So Ashlynn is practicing for the piano festival,

 I'm working on perfect bow hands with my students,

 Abby's performing everywhere,

And even Max feels the need to practice. (Will someone get that boy a cello already?)

Other important happenings: 

 The boys are developing their talent in photography. 

 They're both going through a rather experimental self-portrait phase.

Max has another impossible to cure ear infection. I didn't think you wanted to see pictures of that. (You're welcome.) We're heading into February, the dreaded month of illness, and I'm crossing my fingers that this is as bad as it gets.

I even took all the kiddos to get new pictures taken, and we all still liked each other when it was over. Check out the sidebar. Pretty impressive, right?

So there you have it. 2 months, two dozen pictures, and you're up to speed.

We're busy. We're happy, we're grateful.