I'm so excited! We finally got a piano! Well not actually a piano, but close. It's a weighted keyboard and feels like the real thing. I wanted it to last us so we got the grand piano size with 88 keys. I got it so that I can plunk out the tune of a song the kids are learning, but mostly I got it so that Karen could start piano lessons. Her grandmother has taught piano for many years and has offered to teach Karen. Karen is very excited and looking forward to lessons with grandma. Michael has also expressed interest, though he's still too young, but hopefully he will still want to when he is older.


My favorite thing about the piano is that it has 60 songs programmed in and plays by itself! I've got a player piano just like I grew up with except without the piano rolls. It's a lot of fun and the kids love it too. Here is Karen pretending that she is playing.

Valentine Fun

Valentine's day was much looked forward to by Karen. She had been making Valentines for a couple of months and waited very patiently to give them to us. It was cute. The kids and Neils picked out some beautiful roses to give me for Valentine's day. Here is a picture of Karen with them.

I also got very industrious and made sugar cookies for the holiday, all shaped in hearts of course. The kids had a lot of fun decorating some of the cookies. Here are their masterpieces.

I found these darling shirts and couldn't pass them up. We surprised Neils with them that on Friday and he loved them. The kids were thrilled that they were able to surprise daddy.

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's day too!

Budding Artist

My daughter is constantly developing her artistic talents. Sometimes it's a bit overwhelming how many pictures she makes and tapes up around the house. Yesterday I found both her and her brother's door covered with pictures. They were so cute I had to take a picture. Only one of them were Michael's and I'm sure you can tell which. The one with writing on it says "Karen is sick dont deestrv(disturb)". Most of the people depicted are Karen and Michael with a couple that have mommy or daddy or a friend.



Another day after naps I found Karen had decorated her shirt with stickers. I guess it didn't have enough bling on it for her.Another day she decided to make a crown and become a queen. I had to help get a crown the right size, but she loved it. When the crown was finished and declared beautiful, she announced that now all she needed was a throne. This is what she devised for her throne.

Just a funny picture. One morning I woke up to find my kids on the far side of the bed on the floor with Karen reading a book to Michael and Michael playing games on daddy's iphone.

Princess and the Frog

On Saturday Karen had a special Princess party. She and I went over to a friend's house and had a princess tea party and then went to the movie The Princess and the Frog. It was so fun, all the little girls dressed up like princesses and had a lot of fun together. We had Karen use her bride dress from Halloween and she dressed up like Belle getting married. It was fun to hear comments as we took her to the movie, most of which were "what a beautiful princess". It was a cute movie. Karen got scared in some parts, but she was brave sitting on my lap. Here are a couple of pictures. My little poser.

Christmas visitor

On Saturday our ward had a Christmas breakfast at 8:30 am. We didn't quite make it on time, in fact we got there quite late and found only a few mini muffins and hot chocolate left. It wasn't much but it tided us over, our own fault for being late. Then they had a dance contest which we also missed, but we made it in time for a special visitor.

Due to scheduling conflicts the real Santa was unavailable and we had a very skinny substitute, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Michael was very enthusiastic but surprisingly Karen was very scared and didn't want to go see Santa. She's been the one that has been begging me to go to the mall to see Santa and so I thought she would be excited, but she was definitely NOT excited and very scared, she made sure to keep her distance.

Michael on the other hand was very excited and surprised us by sitting right on Santa's lap and not crying or anything. Though he didn't want to look at him, he definitely wanted to tell him what he wanted for Christmas. We were very surprised when Santa asked Michael what he wanted and Michael said "Everything". Santa was surprised to and asked if he could be more specific. Michael didn't understand and thought Santa wouldn't get him what he wanted. He told me later that Santa had put him on the naughty list. I couldn't help but laugh and try to explain what "specific" meant. Aren't kids cute.

Anyway, here's a cute picture of Michael on Santa's lap and another of him trying to peek up at Santa.