Last night was an exciting night for our boys! First, Colin had his piano recital. He is so gifted with the piano. In our rush to get out of the house in time for a doctor appointment for P, we forgot C's piano books. Sigh. When I realized this, I immediately panicked and asked Colin what we were to do about our mistake. There was really no time to go back home, we were on our way (late I may add) to a doctor appt. for P, then we needed to get dinner and then it was recital time....going home would have thrown a wrench in all of the above. Colin promptly put my pain at ease when he said, "No problem, Mom, I have my pieces all memorized!" Good news. Of course, the other item that I realized had been left behind at home was our beloved camera - again, sigh. We agreed to have our own in-home concert today so I could photo and record his music.

So, anyway, we went to the dr. for Pryce who had been up the night before with this horrendous sounding cough. Think San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, barking sea lions, tons of them - umm, yes, that was our house Thursday evening. Ryan and I have not experienced, thankfully, one of those evenings in a LONG time. That said, it was not fun and there was nothing really that we could do except listen to that sound and think of SF. Morning came, cough, of course, subsided yet his tonsils were the size of golf balls so we thought it best to take him in, just for a check-see. All is good, we got the ole' "it seems he has a virus" and off we went to enjoy the rest of our evening. We ventured to a local restaurant for dinner, a favorite among our children, ordered our meal and played Tic-Tac-Toe. Food came. Pryce dug in and in mid-bite he exclaimed, "IT CAME OUT!" Whatttt???? His tooth. He is officially a snaggle tooth kiddo and a very cute one at that. He was so excited and kept saying, "Wow, I feel weird!" We then proceeded to the piano recital where Colin flawlessly performed his pieces and P's new look was given a warm welcome.

We are studying Egypt. Yesterday Pryce announced that next time he would prefer to adopt from Egypt, you know, so he can climb pyramids and such :) And later, when I was discussing this with Ryan, Pryce walked in with his cute smile and said, "What? I am serious. Adopting from Egypt is a great idea." We left it at that.
In MK news, I have said from day one that she would be the child to repeat everything, including the not so good stuff, that she hears. Tonight at dinner she spilled a tiny bit of her milk and promptly said, "Ooooh crap!" as she wiped it up with her napkin. Guess I will be watching what I say :) Secondly, she is doing great in speech. We are so pleased that she is receiving services. We are all adjusting to our new schedule. We must get up, fed, dressed, beds made and out of the house by 8:10 two mornings during our week. We have managed well but it is definitely going to take some getting used to. The boys are thoroughly enjoying seeing some of their school friends and teachers. MK has homework. She is currently working on ending sounds - words like dad, mad, sad, pop, hop, man, can. I have decided she is going to be a southern dialect speech threapist in her adult life. She puts her little hand on her hip and very proudly says, "D-Au-duh"....in other words, she has three syllables in a one syllable word and it has a very, let's say, southern-ish twang to it :)

Over the river.....

.....and through the woods, etc., etc., etc. This weekend, my brother, sister-in-law and my two nieces came for a visit to SC. It has been too long since we have all been together under one roof. My parents, the three siblings, the three great in-laws and all seven and a half grandchildren - the "half" being the nephew that is due to arrive in late March. To say the children were ecstatic to be together would be an understatement. To say that my parents were excited to have all of us together would be another understatement. We had a great visit!

Saturday afternoon, Pop and the children built a fire. Pryce took this to heart and was busy gathering large pieces of wood. Colin tended the fire. MK, well, we assisted her in looking at the blaze and then quickly put her down for a nap....too much for our curious little girl! The children had gone shopping Friday night with Gran and Pop to pick out the ingredients for S'Mores. The one ingredient that I found most intriguing was the graham crackers. They chose cinnamon flavor. Quite honestly, it was very good!

Saturday morning, Gran and Pop took the children to a marionette theatre to see a puppet show. After convincing Gran that they needed a puppet from the theatre, they all came home and spent the afternoon making their own sock puppets. The sock puppets were then used in several different shows put on by the children throughout the afternoon and well into the evening. They were so cute. They even made signs to promote their shows and held intermissions so that viewers didn't grow weary. Pryce was the director of the shows and Aleigh was his assistant.

Pop celebrated his birthday in style and with a lot of help!