On the third day of Christmas...

Wow, I can't believe it has taken me this long to get back to posting on this blog. We have really been incredibly busy. We got through Christmas On the River, Abby's recital, a performance at our church, all our Christmas shopping, decorating and wrapping. Moriah finished her finals and then picked up Jin Hak at the airport, our other relatives arrived from various locations, we finished Advent, put up the tree, did our Christmas Eve church service and then had a big chaotic family Christmas at Grandma's. The next day my parents drove up and we had a second Christmas dinner and more family fun for Boxing Day. Today is my birthday and after church we were back at Grandma's for another big dinner with birthday cake. We have now hit the overload button on celebrating/eating/etc. Whew! You really can only stand so much excitement. Thinking we will mostly skip New Year's...except for the resolutions bit...resolving to quit having so many celebrations and eating so much good food! Back to some serious running - missed a week because I got an infected toe and had to go on antibiotics to clear it up. (Think I might need a new pair of running shoes.)
But anyway...here are our Christmas pics:

Josh and Sarah Ying enjoying the MMI cadets at the Christmas On The River parade


Josh and Abby on the bouncer at Christmas On The River


Sarah Ying opens another day on her Advent calendar...we are very big on Advent since we are Episcopalian


Abby on stage in the Moody Recital Hall warming up before her recital


Everybody in front of the tree on Christmas Eve


Christmas morning

Hoping everyone had a truly blessed Advent and is now enjoying a very Merry Christmas!

Amy

Busy, busy, busy....

Wow...so busy here. Wondering if I will get it all done before Dec. 24th. Today is the last day the little ones will do school work. Don't know if that will make things harder or easier! LOL! One more violin lesson and another recital and then a performance for church (shouldn't be too difficult!) and we will be done for the break. Still so much to do though...for Christmas, of course, but also preparing Abby's application for ASFA- videotape and transcripts, etc., getting things ready for a holiday guest (Moriah's bio sister Jin Hak flying in on the 22nd), and just staying ahead of the general work around here (which I am NOT doing right now!) But, thought I would take a moment to catch up on my blog. We went to see Santa (atleast the little ones did...big ones said "no thanks") following our first violin recital on Tuesday (yes, that's right, the day with ALL the UGLY weather!) After the harrowing adventure required to get into the car without being soaked to the bone, driving to Tuscaloosa and getting out of the car... Hannah played a movement from Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor - it was lovely. Joshua played a piece from Suzuki book 2 called The Two Grenadiers. He forgot where he was in the middle and was so mad at himself he cried for the rest of the recital. Sarah Ying sort of played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star with a great deal of assistance from her teacher. But she thought she was fabulous, so everybody was happy. Except Mom, who was busy wrangling children and working the ancient video camera and therefore forgot to take ANY still pictures. Planning to do better next time. Tornado hit T-town after we left...so I am blaming any failures on the barometric pressure. (Actually, they decided it wasn't a tornado...just high winds:
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20091210/NEWS/912099925/1007
...but a big storm nonetheless!) Hoping for much more ausipicious circumstances for next week' performance and the rest of Advent and the Christmas holidays!