Recital, life and ears.

First I thought I'd post a couple of pictures my photographer friend took of me the night I had my makeup done for the Pioneer Woman book signing. Katie and her husband Dan own Peekaboo photos and are wonderful photographers as well as great people.

Well, not everything I wanted to post is working tonight. Evan and Kaelin had a piano recital a couple of weeks ago. Evan found some Transformers music he really liked but it was too complicated for him to play. He modified it to be something within his range and his teacher liked it so much she asked him to play his arrangement of the music at their piano recital.
The video wasn't uploading for some reason, so I put it on Youtube.(Actually not, it won't load)
We had a nice Thanksgiving all to ourselves. It was just the four of us with the whole shootin' match as far as food goes. I cooked all morning and the kids did the dishes. Nice!
Thanksgiving night we headed up to the VA to see Grandma and Grandpa Grover. While we were there Evan and Kaelin played their piano pieces for them, which we all really enjoyed. That got Grandma in the piano mode so she played her famous version of chopsticks. She was pretty fast at getting going but I got most of it recorded. I'm in the process of putting that on Youtube too. I'm sure Grandma will be thrilled to know she is on Youtube. Then again, I probably won't tell her! (As I have been typing this I have been trying to upload to Youtube. It says the file is corrupt and won't upload. Crap! I guess whoever wants to see it will have to see it here or request a CD. It plays just fine on my computer. I may try again another time.)
We got ready to put up our (stupid and ugly) fake Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving. We put it up in the living room and left it undecorated overnight to see if the cats were going to leave it alone this year. What do you think, can you tell a cat was in there?
We moved the tree to the basement and had to fix every single branch. The cats apparently lounged on each branch and smashed down the fake needles. Now the cats are locked out of the tree room downstairs. It's very pretty, but I miss having it in the living room. Oh well.
We all went to grab a burger tonight and stopped at the mall to do a little Christmas shopping. While we were there I jokingly asked Kaelin if she wanted to get her ears peirced for her birthday. She actually said yes. It took another 30 to 40 minutes for her to work up the nerve to do it but she said it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would and she was glad she did it. What a brave girl!

And last, but not least, instead of the gratuitous cat shot I decided to post a drawing that Evan made. It is of Tom's truck as a Transformer. Pretty cool, huh? And, just for formality's sake, this image is the property of Evan and cannot be reproduced without his permission. (Unless you are a blood relative and I have unflattering photos of you as insurance.) :)