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Time to catch up on what’s been happening with us (as I have failed to post things for a month and a half). So, pretend it’s just before Christmas for the next few days.

This Christmas, G’Mom and Grampa came to visit. This involved a lot of Christmas activity (some of which will get their own posts) as well as fun around the house.

Leah was happy to show off her checkers skills to G’Mom.

The girls also decorated a gingerbread house.

Grammy came in town as well, and even came to our house for dinner the first night.

With G’Mom and Grampa visiting, we had to play Telestrations. As always, hilarity ensued.

As usual, we headed to Greenway Farms to cut down our Christmas tree. We’re very busy, and really only had one day that was convenient to get a tree. That day turned out to be cold and snowing, but we didn’t let that stop us. We quickly found a great tree. It’s a Norway Spruce (a first for us).

After finding our tree, we got a picture of all four of us amongst the beautiful snow covered trees.

The next day, it was time to decorate our lovely tree. After our trip to Harry Potter world at Universal this summer, the girls wanted the first ornament on our tree to be Harry himself.

Molly is a goober.

This year Leah got to put the angel on top. She was a bit scared to go this high on the ladder at first, but she overcame her fear and accomplished her task.

Here’s our fully decorated tree complete with presents.

The girls’ choir sang again in mid-December.

Back in October, we found a lovely Saturday for a photoshoot. We headed to nearby Centennial park to take some pictures near the lake.

These sisters love each other.

Well, that face didn’t last. This is my favorite picture of the set, as it shows their personalities so perfectly.

Much of the purpose for this shoot was a picture for the Christmas card. This one was the winner for the front of the card.

We even got a picture with all four of us thanks to a tripod and a remote which allowed me to get out from behind the camera.

Jen’s favorite shot of the bunch.

And a bunch more shots.

I got a new car! My old Passat was nearing its 13th birthday and having more troubles than I was willing to keep fighting. So, now I’ve got a brand new 2018 Subaru Impreza, which I love.

It’s got all the fancy active safety features (which Subaru calls Eyesight), all-wheel drive (as all Subaru’s do), CarPlay, great gas mileage, and is a lot of fun. I look forward to many years behind the wheel.

Molly’s been practicing karate for over three years now, and just reached her biggest milestone yet. She tested for her brown belt on Friday night. That’s the last belt before black. The test got started at 6:30 and finished around 10:30. There were some very tired kids.

The test included lots of katas (choreographed fights), including this bo kata.

There were 3 girls testing for their black belts, which meant all of the girls got to try their hand at breaking boards. Molly’s done this several times before, and had no trouble.

There was a lot of sparring.

And Molly got her brown belt!

She was very excited.

Getting her brown belt means she is now an advanced belt, which means she will now be teaching (well, assistant teaching) classes. She’ll be working toward her black belt, though it’ll likely take her 18 months to get there. Along the way, she’ll be working towards milestones that allow her to remove stripes from her brown belt. Once all 3 stripes are gone, she’ll be ready to test for black.

Awesome job Molly!

My sister (Aunt EA) is expecting her second child. Leah and Molly are excited to get a fourth first cousin.

Aunt EA and Uncle Scott had a gender reveal cake so we could all find out together whether we were getting a new nephew or niece.

Will it be a boy or a girl? You have to watch to find out.

In case you couldn’t tell, I went overboard taking video of the gender reveal (3 cameras plus an extra microphone). I quickly set to work editing the video together. I even got a couple of smaller helpers in my work.

We’re all excited to keep growing the family!

Molly’s chorus and orchestra at school had their first concert in December. In past years, they’ve held this in January, but this year they pushed up the concert for Chorus, Advanced Orchestra, and Advanced Band (Beginner Orchestra and Beginner Band still got the extra month of practice before a January concert).

First up was chorus. The first song even had a student accompanist playing piano.

The orchestra concert came next. Molly was really excited for this, as she knew they’d recognize the students selected for GT Orchestra and Sinfonia. As you can see after the first song, she was excited (though perhaps lacking some humility). And sorry for the shaky camera then - I was trying to change lenses quickly.

They did a great job, though this concert really hit home how much more advanced Molly’s GT Sinfonia is.

Hard to believe it, but Charlie is now 2. His party was lots of fun.

These cousins had lots of fun playing together.

There were lots of presents. Charlie loves trains, and Thomas was an especially big hit.

Pawnee (their giant Great Dane/German Shepherd mix) and I shared a touching moment.

The cake was a delicious Elmo cake.

Charlie loved the cake, though he (like his mother) is not very fond of the icing.

Happy birthday, Charlie!

This year, Molly auditioned for and was accepted into the GT Sinfonia. This is a countywide orchestra that is very difficult to get into. They have a 2 hour rehearsal every week at one of the local middle schools. They had their first concert after only 7 rehearsals, and they were phenomenal as you can see here. The first two songs I recorded up close, and the second two are wider to see the whole group.

And here are a few pictures from before the concert started. Most of the kids were very serious when they came out to play. Molly… not so much.