christmas is coming

a peek into our christmas preparations:

we set up the nativity first, hopefully as an emphasis, the girls LOVE it, so i consider that a good sign

and paul was playing with the camera as afton played with the nutcracker

it appears i haven't taken a picture of the tree yet... but i will :)

it's been a while since i've done pictures

or much of anything else. here's a few of my favorites from the last month. i think they're pretty self-explainatory, especially rayna's (it's obvious her name means 'queen,' huh?)

peanut butter queen

happy queen

goofy queen :)

and last but not least, sleeping beauty :)

(i'm feeling a bit guilty, but i haven't got many pics of afton this month)

afton's learning

me paraphrasing a conversation with paul:

a- i know where apple juice comes from. it comes from apples, and grape juice comes from grapes.

p- that's right. do you know where orange juice comes from?

a- oranges.

p- good job. do you know what milk comes from?

a- no.

p- milk comes from cows.

a- milk comes from cows, and eggs come from chickens. and roosters, and chickens. where do pancakes come from?

p- what do you think? where do pancakes come from?

a- i know, pancakes come from mama. and where does syrup come from?

p- what do you think, where does syrup come from?

a- bees?

and so on... :)

ta-da!

symphony

last night paul and i went to the symphony. it was a wonderful evening, (btw, paul's christmas gift {to himself} was season tickets to the symphony, we're going four more times too :). it was an amazing concert of rachmaninoff rhapsody on a theme of paganini and bruckner's 9th symphony. the pianist for rhapsody was AMAZING!!! and it was thoroughly enjoyable. i'm not as familiar with bruckner, but i really thought it was well done. i loved how the music was done though i only liked the music, if that makes sense. it was very moving. the conductor specialized in bruckner when he lived in europe, and he'd studied at the cathedral where bruckner did a lot of his composing, so he really knew how it originally sounded. they modified the symphony hall by raising the ceiling and opening some damper curtains so the sound was more of a cathedral echo, it was really impressive. if anyone's interested, there's some really interesting blends of flute and clarinet mixing in with strings for a really cool effect.

halloween 2009

finally :) here we are (or maybe i should say were)

daddy's little einstein:
mama's little monkey:

and me (yes, i thought i was hilarious, no one else really laughed--but i did get a few double-takes):

Happy (late) Halloween!