This year’s piano recital had a Christmas theme. 

The first words out of Nigel’s mouth at 7:02 AM Monday morning were, “I can’t wait until 7 o’clock!”  He, and the others, were very excited.

My girls posing prior to the concert.  They look so grown up to me. 

After the performance I got a picture of my musicians. 
Do you love the top hat, or what?

The group, minus one little lady who had stepped out.

In lieu of our typical monetary gift we decided instead to shower our piano teacher (and father-to-be) with diapers, etc.  He rolled with it well.  Poor guy never saw that coming!  He’ll be pleased many times over as the months go by, I am sure! 🙂

We celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and his son this year.  The weather was great.  The food was fantastic.  And we even threw in some Christmas presents because we won’t see them again until sometime in 2013.

Hanny is the third little girl in our house to receive speech therapy and the second to have Mrs. C.  She looks forward to it big-time and is making great progress.

(way too soon!)

Wow – okay – the good thing about Thanksgiving coming so early is that there are more weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for holiday-type festivities.

The bad thing is we decorated on November 18th in order to have our house Christmas-ified in time for Thanksgiving Day!

Tabitha was bouncing and elated as Daddy’ unearthed her “Buddies.”  She’s enjoyed her friends for years now. 

I was so happy last year to see how much the older kids could help with assembling the tree.  I am happy to say that I am almost out of a job!!

I still had to do the lights (900 of them) and the garland.  I won’t whine on here about how they don’t make lights like they used to and how they are just JUNK these days and only last one year.  But they are junk and they only last one year.

The whole time they were decorating they kept saying to one another, “Wait until Hanny sees THIS!” and “Oh, Johanna is going to LOVE this!”  They couldn’t wait for her to get up from nap. 

Her reaction pleased them tremendously.

The kids put the second tree up in the basement, too.  Again, I put the lights and the garland on and we opted to wait until Monday to decorate that tree.  Actually – they did that one themselves, too.

Two Valuable Animals of Highland People
Nigel B.

There are many ways people in the highlands use animals. The yaks in Tibet look like a buffalo but are a kind of ox. Their long silky hair is used for shoes, whips, and boats. People use their tails as fly chasers or ornaments. They make milk and the Tibetans use it to make cheese or butter. Their meat is usually dried or roasted.

Another good animal is the llama. Llamas are trained to haul tin, grain, and blocks of salt. They can carry up to 100 pounds, but if it is too heavy they lie down. Their wool is used for yarn or cloth. People also drink its milk or eat its meat. Even when it is dead their hides are used to make sandals and its bones can be made into weaving tools. These two animals can really help people.

And I am happy to report there were less tears and gnashing of teeth than usual.  (We still used ½ a box of tissues… but it’s an improvement.)