Winter Belle

Here's our daughter - wearing in one of her new Christmas dresses, no doubt inspired by the recent viewing of "Beauty and the Beast." Madison has enjoyed her clothes rack, making sure all of her dresses are properly hung and ready for the next wearing. Today was cold again, and as you can see we put another log on the fireplace to warm things up a bit.

The weather is gloomy and overcast, with lots of rain pouring down. Mommy has been sick, closely following Madison's brief illness - and Daddy is starting to feel those same symptoms again. That's the thing about winter, isn't it?

Still, Daddy and Madison did make it out for music practice. Madison has been doing better with notes, and even this morning was playing certain things on her own, reading the sheet music before her. She wants to earn those Mom bucks, but at the same time she's recognizing that she's learning to play a bit. In fact, she's learning to read music about as quickly as she's learning to read words. We're getting there on all fronts, and it is an amazing process to watch. I anticipate lots of learning this year, of course. That's what we're praying for.

On our way out to music class, Daddy had to pick up milk with Madison. We went to the local Food Lion grocery store and picked up a carton of Silk for Madison, and realized the bad news: another grocery store is closing up. They'll be gone by February 15th.

Between speech and music, we did get our "homework" done today, so it was then time for a bit of gaming: back to Disney Universe! Madison and Daddy love this game. In fact, today Daddy bought some more costumes for us to play with, from "The Jungle Book." That's a surprise for Madison later.

We all went to bed early tonight, although Daddy woke up with the beginnings of a remarkably sore throat. Uh-oh. Welcome to Parenthood!