This is a test shot. These are my “littles”. Me: “Oh please oh please don’t smile like that…it looks like you are in pain.., Amelia, look at Mommy”

Scratch that …I will change the camera angle…I bring in the “bigs”. Cute picture but its all blown out..I do some more adjusting..

this one was too dark and I had to do some work to bring it “back” but it still looks terrible but the kids are all looking pretty good.

This is where I started to lose them…

AH!! I can’t take it!

and this is what I was left with… trying to get the “perfect” picture is almost as painful for me as it was for my “littles”.

Go figure..

Off we head to the recital.

Our girls were scheduled in the middle time slots of the recital. We listened to Jingle Bells a few hundred times.  Amelia was chomping at the bit to watch her big sisters play.

“Hey kid, don’t chew on that”

Finally…

Briana played “Joy to the World”. She was very nervous that she would make a mistake, but she didn’t. Maybe next time she will be less nervous and have a little more fun.

Juliana played “Jingle Bells”. She was slightly nervous petrified. But she was determined to get up there and show her stuff.

Adriana played “Go Tell it on a Mountain”. Of all of the girls, I thought she would be the most nervous because she is our introvert, but she wasn’t.

Amelia was so proud of her big sisters.

Here are all the big kids with their lovely music teacher.

We all were very proud. You did a wonderful job girls!

We are completely over our H1N1 illness. Everyone is (and has been) feeling back to normal and we are back to our “normal” routine. We are back to our school “work”.

We went on a field trip to a Greek Orthodox Church to get a little culture.

We really enjoyed playing dress up with their amazing costumes.

Those Greeks, sure know how to cook!

They throw a dandy of a party.

Back to swimming.

Back to soccer.

Showing them how its done!

Back to stomping in puddles…

Feelin’ fine enough to play some music.

and to share a smile

or not

He is back to being a trick riding boy.

So we are jumping for joy!

Because we are back to running the good race, to the finish, at our normal pace.