Monday Highlights

Good morning! Here are the highlights for the week:

1. The Christmas tree is up. We always do a real one. This year's model is a white fir.
I think it's a tad Charlie Brown-esque. It looks perfect in our little house. Every year I look forward to decorating the tree as a family, and so far it's just not all that fun. Nick and I ended up doing it after the girls went to bed because of the temper tantrums and arguments that are started as a result of actually putting the cute little ornaments on the tree. Has anyone else had this experience?

2. Going to my 16 year old sister Amy's choir concert tonight. Some friend of hers convinced her to try out for a higher level choir and she made it. She has a slightly less experienced choir director that has the tendency to make Nick and I cringe occasionally. Everything sounds the same. Beating time...beating time...beating time. It's not the kids, for sure. How come some people are able to pull beautiful music out of high schoolers, and others....can't? Amy always shines on stage though - she's beautiful.

These are long highlights today. Sorry.

3. Friday my piano students and I are going to play Christmas songs for a retirement home. My piano teacher when I was a little girl did all her recitals this way, and I loved it. Low pressure, performance experience, bringing joy to lonely older people. Good deal.

4. Audrey has a left-over cough that she's still working on. She has no other symptoms so I'm sure she's not contagious anymore, but she sounds awful. The other night it kept waking her up, so she ended up in bed with us. Audrey is not the most pleasant bed partner, in spite of how incredibly cuddly she is. She finally fell asleep with her head on my chest and her feet in Nick's face. After the rolling around like she did for an hour or two to get there, we didn't dare move her. Amazing how things like that would probably make me cry earlier in parenting. Now I can laugh at them...mostly.

5. Three weeks till Christmas!!! I have no shopping done. Like, at all.