Emma

 Emma is Bryan's first-born. We get to watch her two days a week and have so much fun seeing what she has learned each week! Babies are amazing. They have to learn so much from birth to age two that they qualify for "genius" designation, in my opinion. 

Last Tuesday, she sang along with me as we sang the Days of Creation.

Emma has fun in her swing, too. She seems to be Irish dancing here: 

Here are a couple of shots as she seemed to be doing an interpretive dance: 

and, she's a climber! Luci and I saw this sight when we arrived at her house yesterday. Mama had a good hold on her.

She was completely worn out the day after Trinitas. Napping with Nana: 

It's that time of year again...

It's time for Jib Jab!

Happy Birthday!

Luci turned five on Monday. She proclaimed it "The Best Day Ever."
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After Luci went to sleep Sunday night, JT decorated the apartment and I frosted the cake. We had cake for breakfast!


Luci went to a crafts class.

Campfire at night--complete with silly songs. I didn't know the boys were so talented at singing "A Tooty-Tah-Ta." I thought that was just a Luci thing. The campfire ladies also chose Luci to take part in a song, but then had her go find her mom or dad. Since dad wasn't available, I got to embarrass myself in front of the crowd. Unfortunately, no pictures of that disgrace survived....


Roasting marshmallows....

to make Smores! How did that marshmallow get on her temple??

Congratulations to J4!

This singing group, Jessi, Jedidiah, Josiah and Josephine Smith, won CBS's singing contest. They are a homeschooling family from Bluff City, Tennessee.

photo from CBS's story, here.

For the Grandparents

Dear Nana and Papa,

Dear Grandpa and Grand-Je,

(First of all, I tried and tried to get these videos directly on the blog. I'm sorry it didn't work out. If you want to see them, just click on the highlighted links.)

I thought you'd like to see Luci in action. We had a Christmas party at church last night. The 2-4 year olds got to get up in front of everyone and sing 3 songs. Here are parts of two of them. The first video just shows Luci being cute. Look for her smile at the end. Oh yeah, Bonnie is the one who cries. Luci calls her "Bunny."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mlon_fc5RLU

This video shows Luci actually singing, or trying to. Last year she wouldn't even get up on stage, so this was pretty fun for John and me to witness. Bryan and JT got a kick out of it, too. Watch for Parker, standing behind Luci--he's the one with the reindeer antlers.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=idvRj2y0n0Q

Santa showed up, and Luci ran through a pretty big crowd to get to him first. What a change from just 3 weeks ago! After the party was over, Luci ran back up to Santa and he carried Luci to John. We were so astonished at Luci's reaction.