Superior!

Matthew and Katie love piano lessons. It is only their first year and I hope the novelty doesn't wear off and they continue to love their lessons. Piano has been such a blessing for me, I want them to have a good experience too.

Since January they have been preparing two pieces each for their Spring recital and the Jr. Festival piano competition. They had their pieces SOLID. Then, as it got closer to the competition Matthew started acting really stressed out and his pieces started going downhill. We knew he was under too much pressure. So, we (Matthew, me and Jeremy, and his wonderful teacher) decided to have him pull out of the Festival and just perform at the recital. He was still PLENTY nervous the night of the recital, but he did GREAT. So did Katie. In fact, today was the Jr. Festival and she received a "SUPERIOR" which is the highest ranking!!





Video from their recital is on our youtube site.

Ephraim is a Tree City

Ephraim is an official Tree City. It has been for 13 years. I'm not sure what that means other than they have a city council person over trees. That happens to be Grandpa Cragun. (He has other responsibilities too.) It also means that on Arbor Day each year the city has to sponsor some kind of tree event. This year the event was planting trees at the new park by the fire station.

While Katie, Jeremy and I were at the Jr. Festival, the boys went with Grandpa and Grandma and Levi to the tree planting. It looked like a great event with people from a variety of walks of life participating. Here are the boys by "their tree."


I think it will be fun to watch that tree grow when we visit the park.

Space Derby & School Programs

Our big kids sure keep us busy with scouts, school, and their extra-curricular activities.

My camera ran out of batteries so I didn't get any pictures of the Jr. Genius fair. But they were cute and their project was dinosaurs. Grandma Cox did get a picture, maybe I can get a digital copy from her.

The night of the scout Space Derby, Matthew also had a class play. It was a musical. Sadly, I had to miss it because I couldn't find a babysitter and we had a couple kids, but Jeremy took pictures and video.





Around that same time, Katie had the first grade program. The multi-purpose room was so crowded (can't wait for the new school) that the boys were miserable. We tried to keep them entertained with their favorite books. I love the first grade Patriotic Program. I loved it when Matthew was in first grade and I loved it just as much the second time around. Katie looked cute with a patriotic hair do. She recited her lines perfectly!

Family Pictures

One of the things I love about Usborne is I can earn fun stuff (in addition to books and money). This October, I worked really hard to earn a free portrait shoot from Sears. I know Sears isn't the best portrait studio out there, but the price was right. I got the sitting fee, 10 sheets, 5 enhancements, and an 11x13 wall portrait for free. Here are the unedited ones. My mom is picking up the finished products as we speak. I am so excited. (We got a couple extras of Cal because he had never had a professional picture taken.)