Our Budding Musician!

Finley's school participated in the PTA reflection's program this year. Students can submit work in visual arts, dance, music, literature, photography, and film production. Since Finley started taking piano last year we thought it might be fun for him to participate in the music category. 

He had to compose an original song on the piano, but luckily he didn't have to write down the notes. He was one of two students from his school to submit something for music at his age category. This meant automatic qualification to the county level! 

Then we got the very exciting news that he placed 2nd in the county in his age group for music composition! It ended up being second out of two (him and another boy from our school), but hey we'll take it! 

The PTA reflections program had a nice ceremony for the winners and participants and even Grammie and Abuelo got to be there. Finley has big plans to participate again next year. He is even talking about submitting a dance number too 😲!

Snowcation!

We had a huge snow storm pretty early this year! After our first week back at school we woke up Saturday morning to between 6 - 8 inches of snow!

It was also super cold, but we bundled up and braved the weather to get some sledding in!

Layers are key. I always wear my running tights with a pair of soccer socks. Just one of their many uses :). 

Our first morning out in the snow one of our neighbors who does landscaping was already scrapping the roads for us. Simmer down now! We like not being able to go anywhere for a few days!

Here's Finley's snow angel. 

And proof how deep the snow was!

All weekend long we sledded, watched movies, played board games, and ate yummy warm foods. 

After all the traveling and hustle and bustle of the holidays it was nice to just stay home for the whole weekend. 

The bad news was that since it was so cold it took forever for the snow to melt! Even though it snowed Saturday morning, the kids were out of school for several days and didn't go back until Thursday! By that time we were going stir crazy and so ready to get back into our routine. Thursday and Friday ended up being gorgeous days with highs in the 60s and 70s. Yep. That's NC for ya! I am glad we had one good snow, but I am already looking forward to warmer weather and spring!

Christmas in Myrtle Beach

After a few days in Chapel Hill we packed up and headed south to Myrtle Beach. David's sister Tami and her family were in town visiting Grammie & Abuelo. We were very excited to see them and meet our sweet niece Piper for the first time!

We had another "Christmas" with the Beans and opened up more presents!

Sweet little Piper is such a calm and happy baby. 

I had an awful cold the entire time we were in MB so I wasn't able to hold and snuggle her :(. 

One morning we headed out to the beach to have some family pictures taken. 

It is amazing to me how well these two get along together. 

The immediately fall right in and pick up where they left off.

Who is this cute couple?

We enjoyed a nice picnic and walk on the beach.

And here are a few of the good family shots.

It is so hard to get everyone looking when you have so many people!

Luckily we got a few good ones!

One night Grammie and Abuelo treated us to the pirate show!

Finley and Gabi had fun getting all decked out for the show!

The next day we headed over to the Wonderworks Museum.

It is that iconic upside down building at Broadway at the Beach.

To enter you have to walk through this tunnel that spins! It totally threw me off. I couldn't walk through it without feeling sick. I had to close my eyes! We all really enjoyed the soccer shoot out station. 

The kids learned about electricity.

And had fun playing with bubbles. 

Those are some cute astronauts! A few of their favorite activities at the museum were the roller coaster simulator and laser tag. If only we didn't have to wait so long for a turn on each of those!

 

Grammie insisted on a picture with our Christmas socks.

And pajamas!

We had such a nice visit with the Beans! I know Finley wishes he could see his cousins more often, but we hope to make a trip out to Seattle to visit them this summer! And hopefully this time I won't be so sick!