Beautiful/Affordable American Girl Clothes!

This will be a short entry, but I've been wanting to share this with friends for some time now! If you have an American Girl fan in your house, take a peek on this site!



The kids' piano teacher's mother makes these beautiful doll clothes and they fit the 18" American Girl just perfectly--and they are much less than what you'll pay in the catalogs.



If you get a chance, check out her site at http://ellabelladoll.blogspot.com/

Off to conferences and ice skating....again!

Programs, Recitals and Skating--Oh My!

This last month we have walked with joy and sorrow side by
side. For some of you, you are aware that Greg's mom has been very ill and we believe now that she is living her last days here with us. It has been a year filled with sadness, joy (over the times when things 'flickered' with hope), a lot of talking, a LOT of coffee and talking about years gone by and treasuring stories sometimes heard for the first time, and sometimes heard for the tenth time. We continue to pray for Greg's dad who is at Jenkins too and for my niece, Whitney, who is being treated for thyroid cancer. We anticipate hearing news regarding the extent of this cancer and the treatment expected in the next few days.

Well, we have noticed that that 'life' continues to move outside of these situations.

Em and Shawn had their school programs (6th and 3rd). I took a few more pics of Shawn's program, but they did not turn out well. He had one speaking part and he delivered that wonderfully. Truth be told, recitals and school programs might be right up there with eating spinach. It's probably good for you, but that doesn't mean I like to eat it! Shawn prefers athletics at this time :). Pretty typical, I think!

Em also had her second orchestra concert. It was a fun night as they had all orchestras present at this festival. It is amazing to see the skill progression throughout the grades. I think she plans to stay with both the piano and violin. For now, she is first chair violin, but she'll need to put in a little more practice time to hold that next year in the Middle School.

This post is a little 'Emilee heavy' , but she had the most 'stuff' this month! She also skated in her first competition ever. Since she has only been taking lessons for a little over two years, we were pretty proud of the work she has done. In the first video, she is skating to Steven Curtis Chapman's song, Cinderella. This was done on a level 5 (that's what she was when we signed up, but she is now four levels above that...unfortunatly, she could only use level 5 skills and not 8 or she'd be deducted). In the second piece, each girl heard the music three times and then they needed to make up a routine. This is called 'Interpretive'. She could do whatever skills she knew regardless of level. In that event, Em earned a first place! She'll skate in one more in Alexandria and then the Lion's Ice Show will be the next weekend. She even talked me into a mother/daughter routine for the show. They take all moms that can basically stand on skates--I qualify!

I just looked across the way to our neighbor's home--the mopeds are out and running! Before long, we'll be enjoying the Aquatic Center, baseball and tennis! Praise God! What a long winter it has been....