Alayna's 12th Birthday

Our baby is 12! I cannot believe we almost have two teenagers in the house. Alayna is growing into an incredible young lady. She is so bright and gifted in so many ways. Her creativity continues to amaze us. She is teaching herself to play the guitar and her love for different types of music is expanding. After the new year, she will be shifting from piano lessons to guitar lessons. She still has a passion for the piano, but wants to change focus for a little while. She loves drawing and painting. She is a reader, but is very picky about what she reads. She recently started the Hunger Games trilogy. We couldn't be more proud and we could not love her any more than we do.

We celebrated her birthday with a few friends, bowling and then froyo. On the actual day, we had ice cream cake (her request) and went to see the Christmas show at the local Melodrama here in town. It was a quiet celebration of a big event.

Happy Birthday, Alayna!

Adventures in November

Not a whole lot to report for this month. Highlight was Thanksgiving with Peter's parents here at our house. Otherwise, it was business as usual. Photo dump follows.

 Presentation Day

Family photos (outtakes)

Thanksgiving!

Decorating the Tree

Stormy aftermath

Playing Catch-Up -- September and October

A whirlwind 2 months! I started on night shifts in early October and things became a little crazy (since Peter is also on night shift). Thankfully, a wonderful woman from church agreed to help us out whenever she was available. And, she has been such a blessing! Besides work, the kids have so much going on in their school lives. Jeremiah has a had a few presentations at his school, Alayna has been busy at work with two school projects of her own. We're all busy hanging with friends. Family time has consisted mostly of game nights and movie nights. A few trips to the beach and park. We all went to see David Crowder Band with our friends back in mid-October. It's been a lot of craziness and fun. I look forward to Peter (hopefully) going back to days and me starting to self-schedule so we can plan more family fun times.

Here's a wrap up in photos.

 Mardi Gras auction for J's school

Cousin time

Fall Disney excursion

David Crowder

 Date night to see Eisley at SLO Brew

Sunset from the backyard

Halloween

After a looooong night shift.

 November is more than half-over. Will try to post a wrap up after Thanksgiving. Until then, carry on.